A Head Full of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

I’m only twenty-three but if anyone asks I tell them that I’m a quarter-century-minus-two years old. I like watching people struggle with the math in their heads.

Passage of time as a prop to the story, the story that has been told and retold so often it has lost its meaning, even to those of us who lived through it.

“It’s the story itself I don’t fully trust. It’s certainly not my story. It does not belong to me. And it’s going to be tricky navigating our way through some of the uncharted territories.”

The selfish bit always made me giggle because Mom invariably would be yelling too fast to keep up with her own words and it would sound like she loudly proclaimed Marjorie was being very shellfish. I was secretly disappointed when Marjorie would storm down the stairs with her normal hands instead of giant pincer claws.

I woke up yesterday and just sort of knew the story, like it was something that’s always been there in my head. Stories are like that sometimes, I think. Even real ones.

You have to remember all my stories because there are—there are all these ghosts filling my head and I’m just trying to get them out,

I whispered “mumbo jumbo” to myself, testing out the words, making a mental note to use it whenever possible.

dancing my little goon dance.

“And tight superhero underwear made from squirrel pelts.” Mom said, “It’s where he puts his nuts.”