A Head Full of Ghosts

by Paul Tremblay

It sounded like the saddest of sad songs with notes floating down the staircase and into the foyer like dead leaves; red, brown, and purple.

I like to imagine her as being possessed by the vast, awesome and awful monster that is popular culture. Possessed by the collective of ideas!)

Marjorie smiled and winked at me, which seemed like proof that she was faking, or proof that she really did have a demon inside her.

“This is a nightmare, and we’ll never wake up from it.”

Mom said, “Well, I sure hope tomorrow is Marjorie’s day. God can have the rest of them.”

“I am the dead dreamer, older than sin, older than humanity. I am the shadow below everything. I am the beautiful thing that awaits us all.

All that I do know with one hundred percent certainty is that Marjorie and perhaps my father were very sick, our entire family was put under impossible stresses and strains, we were all manipulated, and we were all irrational, maybe even willingly so. And when I was eight years old, I was manipulated into poisoning my sister and my parents.”