The Ghostly Shroud

The Ghostly Shroud

The fog hangs heavy like a gray ghostly shroud, the bluff and canyon below all hidden from the human eye. The nearby leafless hardwood trees outside the window stand bent, tall, and eerily ominous like lonely wasteland creatures. Occasionally they sway with a slight breeze as though shaking off the winter chill. Those spindly trunks, limbs, and deck rails are the only visible objects within one hundred feet of the house.

So what are the moods and story lines that come to the mind in the bleak environment where now I sit?

Depending on variables in a person’s make-up, the mood can be anxious, depressive, or downright scary. He/she might want lights on throughout the house to offset the gray of day and mood. How would one describe that personality? Perhaps someone deprived or mistreated in childhood? Locked in a closet by a mean babysitter? Bullied on the school’s playground? Perhaps the personality represents someone from a broken home who never quite found the necessary adjustment level? Maybe the wiring is somehow wrong?

These are the people who will be followed through existence by the ghostly shrouds of their early lives. They can be artists, writers, criminals, movers and shakers, but they will always come to a point along the way where they feel helpless and alone. If they are lucky they will live through all the negative obstacles thrown in their path, accomplish, fail, and survive without too many scars.

How about the personality that thrives in this enclosed environment and in practically any situation? Perhaps this person had a happy childhood with few negative influences and can survive all but the direst of circumstances.

They need no lights turned on in the house. They are the calm, the patient, good parents, good leaders who go on and lead our corporations and even our countries. They, too, can be artists, writers, criminals, movers and shakers.

The story lines are endless – mostly of a sinister cast. Some authors could write a romantic tale with candlelight and wine in front of a fireplace, with two lovers, of course. Others might write about a mother and children waiting with concern and worry the arrival of a father returning home from a business trip. There are so many scenarios the mind can conjure, so many elements of doom and gloom, fantasy, intrigue, funny or satirical situations. Superfluous though it must seem the writer has so much in life from which to draw.

So often is the time when I open the laptop and write a dramatic fictional paragraph about an event that has recently come via the news or a random thought that flashed in the mind. That paragraph might well be the beginning of a new novel or short story…perhaps not destined for greatness, but, at the very least, I’m doing something I love to do – write.

The point of all this is simply my rambling, evoked by the ghostly shroud that surrounds my day. I’ve given you nothing but my idle mind wandering. Now, finished for the moment, I’m going to get up and turn on all the lights. After all, it is 4:00 PM here in the southeast and the darkness will soon blend with the ghostly shroud.

Spring cannot come too soon for me. Even then, it will be necessary for me to turn on lights, perhaps more frequently than most.

You see! I took these simple thoughts that came to me through the fog and held you spellbound for a few minutes…or, not! J

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