Sean Williams

I woke the other day thinking about restless spirits. They're presented as frightening or wondrous things in various works of fiction (and some purporting to be non-fiction) but in fact, when you look at what they actually do, they seem to be little more than mumbling kleptomaniacs with morose, self-absorbed, puerile, or even vicious tendencies.

Sounds like a lot of living people I know...which begs the question: why do we treat ghostly misanthropes so differently to live ones? What makes antisocial people special just because they happen to be dead?

To be honest, it beats the hell out of me. While all the well-adjusted ghosts are off doing useful things on the astral plane, they must find it hilarious the way we revere/fear the afterlife's attention-seekers, the insecure, the bullies, the whiners, the gropers, the peepers and the stalkers. They must think us a right pack of dills.

Having had that thought, two things were very clear to me. In this light, the sad individuals we call ghosts no longer seem quite so scary. Just, well, sad. (Although if one was throwing cutlery at me, I'd still duck.)

Also, I doubt I'll be able to write about them the same way ever again.