Autumn Haunts

The weather is hinting at the spooky season. It’s not the cold, although long sleeves and fleece are making their way from the back of the closet. Nor is it the dark—at least not completely. It’s the mood, sweet and mellow as the scent of leather-bound books. It’s the mist on spider webs and the call of geese at sunset. This season unfolds old memories like a paper fan.

My thoughts turn to new creative projects in the fall. Perhaps it is the golden-syrup light, or the sense of turning inward. This is the time of quiet reflection, not the intoxication of riotous bloom. It is the time to hunt ghosts.

A half-remembered idea took me to the older parts of town, where the past seeps through the soot-stained bricks. Words spoken a hundred years gone linger just beyond hearing. A story hides there, around the corner. A shadow of what was, or what it wanted to be if it could choose again.

If I pursue, it will vanish. One can’t chase these haunts with the enthusiasm of a toddler scattering chickens. These autumn shades must be coaxed with offerings of stillness. They evade possession like feral cats among the fallen leaves. The only avenue is patient communion, lingering among books and in coffee houses and courting a certain eloquent mood.

There the story may visit. If I am lucky, I will come away with a voice, an image, or an emotional thumb print to build on. The first warp on the loom. Gently, gently, it must be captured. One unwanted distraction and it dissolves back into the autumn dusk.

If the hunt goes well, a thread is caught—the idea, the whisper, the gift the ghost can offer. It will demand a new weaving, a manifestation built from fresh imagination. That was the blood bargain made in the moment the past touched the living. Once summoned, the haunt is in pursuit of you.