tales for dreamers: sermons of a very angry ghost

Every morning in October, the very angry ghost pops up on the front lawn of a very nice home in a very quiet suburban street.

He rants about the evils of being human and exhorts unsuspecting passersby to give ghostliness a serious try.

For the first few days, people walking or driving down the street stop to gawk at the ghost. He waves his puffed-up self at them, but his antics only serve to amuse them more than terrify them.

It doesn’t take them long to get used to his presence and they begin to pass him by without so much as a second glance.

This infuriates the already-very-angry ghost even more, and he hops up and down on the lawn and stirs a powerful breeze that brings red and golden leaves tumbling down from the treetops.

The people on the street wrap their coats and jackets tighter around their bodies and hurry to their destinations. The days are getting shorter, and no one has the time to stand and stare at a creature they have gotten used to, like the beech tree under which it has taken up residence.

So the very angry ghost recruits all the children of the ghostdom he hails from, and makes them line up behind him. And just as he had expected — he has learnt something about human weaknesses after all his time on the street — he begins to attract a crowd again, people who stop to ooh and aah at the little ghostlings and their cuteness overload.

He keeps up with his rants even though the people who stop at the lawn tend to pay more attention to the little ghostlings than to him.

The little ones know, in the way that only little ones do, that the humans can’t really hear the very angry ghost. His words fall on their ears like leaf-whispers or wind-howls.

But they don’t have the heart to tell him that because they know why he is really angry and why he calls on humans to convert. He too was human once, and it’s something he can never be again.