Last Saturday we had specialists at the museum all night testing for ghosts. Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts, but polls consistently show most Americans believe otherwise. Anyway, it was reported to me second or third hand that they found a ghost, and it was an African-American boy (I’m not sure I got this right)I got to thinking if there is a ghost, what could have been the circumstances that trapped it there, something horrible that happened at the museum. So I sat down at my computer and wrote a ghost story. I tried to make it as gory and scary as I could. I will never be Stephen King, but I can aspire. I called it “Ghost Story” (Okay, its not a very original title)
I circulated it to a few friends, and the reactions I got were fascinating. Some loved the piece, while others described it as gruesome and repulsive. Mostly the break was along generational lines. No one under forty thought this was anything bad, mostly they liked it. In general, the older you are the more repulsed you were. But sadly that tags me as either a perpetual adolescent, or a culture omnivore. Probably right.
Moreover, Ghost Story wasn’t censored because we don’t do ghost stories. We do ghost tours, and spin regularly the tale of Aury’s nephew who was decapitated during hanging. That’s pretty gross. It wasn’t censored for its sexual content, because it has none (Maybe next time)
My Ghost Story got censored because it is a really, really good ghost story.
I took even the negative comments as a complement, albeit a clearly unintended. I am not all that secure about my writing, and this was rave stuff, so I submitted it as my next blog.
Censored.
I didn’t even get my story reproduced with that big “CENSORED” stamp over it.
But this may be a great thing.
When I was a kid in the fifties, I watched the censorship battles over Lady Chatterley Henry Miller (Remember Tropic of Cancer? That one was an eye opener), Fanny Hill and lots more. I grabbed them and read them cover to cover the minute they were available.
I am hoping this censorship will make everyone want to read my little Fernandina Ghost Story.
So if you think you are tough enough, drop me an email at jrlpatent@aol.com, and back will come the whole tale (UNCENSORED). And this week only, if you order within twenty four hours, you get at no extra cost, a new ghost story on Halloween eve, guaranteed to scare the beejesus out of you.
Now, don’t you want to read it?
Ciao
