As children, the three of us would build the kind of forts made with blankets and chairs backed into each other. Tunnels added with the TV tray tables my grandmother gave us the previous Christmas. We had one flashlight to share. We’d take turns, passing it over, to use for effect when telling our version of the scariest story.

Sometimes we’d lie on our backs, our feet outstretched and poking a little outside of our suburban campsite.

“Is there a ghost in my house?”

“Is There a Ghost?” by Band Of Horses
from the album, Cease To Begin (2007)
Song Of The Day – October 2, 2011

The lights and shadows cast would play in-between the crinkles and bends in the blankets and sheets. We’d point out shapes as if they were a ghostly set of clouds before us. Our parents were all in the front room, music playing loud, their drunken laughter competing with the sounds from the nearly as big as we were speakers.

Sometimes I would try to incorporate the songs into my stories. Ghosts carved out of Fleetwood Mac and Joni Mitchell lyrics I overheard.