Christmas Ghosts

This place seems to exist somewhere between the real and the magic. I'm having a hard time telling one neighborhood from the next, each with its own Steak n Shake and Jiffy Lube, matching pale gray curbs lining roads that suck you straight in to the parking lot, and throw you back out again when the light turns green. The inflatable Christmas ornaments decorating the lawns around town look weary, deflated in the wake of every passing car.

But still, here inside where it's warm, trees have been trimmed, glasses of glogg gulped, and we're all stretching and yawning and ready to settle down for our long winter's nap. I'm up late thinking of ghosts. Of Ebeneezer Scrooge's nighttime visitors, his vow to live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

How wonderful it would be to live all over time. Before the parking lots took over, maybe after they're gone. I'm hoping to go to bed, clutch my bedpost in my nightcap, and dream of friendly, time-wandering ghosts. Ones who could take me somewhere between the real and the magic.

(I bet they smell just like mulled wine.)

© Zan McQuade. All rights reserved.