My mother’s portrait used to hang at the top of the stairs at my grandparents’ house. I loved that house; I picked it out when I was just a toddler. But for some reason, I always sensed a hostile presence between the first and second floors. Not malevolent or evil, just angry. Something that didn’t want me crossing from downstairs to upstairs. But only at night, and only between the floors. Nevertheless, I felt sure that my mother’s portrait, overlooking the stairs, would protect me. Not my parents, not my grandparents – though I know they would have. There was just something reassuring about the portrait being there. I called it “Little Mommy.”
My mother died in 2002, and her portrait – “Little Mommy” – now hangs at the top of my own stairs. Feels right.
Ghost Story
Goosebumps and a shudder coursing down our spines, their backstories haunt us, chill us. We imagine agonal moaning, clanking chains, clattering bones devoid of flesh. Why are the ghosts who live in our heads all suffering torments of the damned? Why shouldn't they guide the tired mother's hands as she shapes dough kneads it, sets it aside to rise? And why shouldn't ghosts rise, too, summoned by faint echoes of sense memory, the scent of baking bread? Why shouldn't they linger to amuse the only child in the guise of an imaginary friend? Have they merely slipped through time, one warped dimension to the next? Perhaps the end we fear is just a bug — a glitch, reboot, while version 1.0 continues, processed on a parallel thread of infinite second chances. Maybe now and then - or maybe not (and then again) - the wires cross, enjamb. That future fate, that death or worse we fear could simply be another haunting verse.
Oh wow, this is so wonderfully spooky – as is the idea of the presence between the first and second floors!
– Allison
https://lightningflashwriting.blogspot.com/
Thank you!
Beautifully written albeit spooky!
Donna: Click for my 2025 A-Z Blog
Thank you!
Oh my God! This is so beautiful and haunting at the same time!! I absolutely loved this one!
Esha
https://mysoultalks.com/how-to-tell-a-story-atozchallenge2025/
Thank you! Exactly what I’d hoped for!
I am glad you inherited your mother’s portrait – may it continue to protect you.
Visiting from A to Z https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/
It has. You may enjoy this story about another photo I have of her: https://jahangiri.us/2020/the-haunted-photo/
Love this vision of ghosts!
Thank you! It’s how I’ve always imagined them.
Just a bug… I love that part.
Thank you for commenting on my blog during the A to Z Challenge this month. Please check out the giveaway on my W post.
J Lenni Dorner (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) ~ Speculative Fiction & Reference Author and Co-host of the April Blogging #AtoZchallenge
Thanks! Sorry for the delay in responding (I was out of town and then playing “catch-up” here) and for sort of dropping the ball (there was a problem with the website that has, I think, been resolved), but I do intend to finish out the A to Z challenge even if it takes me till next April!