The Weird: A Compendium of Dark and Strange Fictions

by Ann VanderMeer

I mean a ghost from the world today, with the soot of the factories on its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost.

I’m ravenous. I’m also gay. I want to get rather sloshed.’

I had never owned any marbles, and their glow captivated me; I admired them for a long time, but all of a sudden, from far away and without warning, the terrible knowledge slid between them and me – that one day my mother would die.

I am not the type to hear dead animals’ voices in my head. Which is to say, I’m not crazy.

The music funneled into their ears and traveled down their bones, tearing holes in their bodies as it sought some point of exit. In some cases, it erupted from the victims’ mouths in a bloody song, bursting their tongues and blowing out their teeth, sparing the vital organs.

The contrast was as magnificent as a stark Monet if Monet had painted watercolors of emaciated patricians and their pet spiders.