A Database of Spooky Ghosts
Last week, I discovered that there’s a genre of music called Hauntology, and I really like it. Rather than try and describe it directly, I will now write about the kind of spooky haunting that I imagine when I listen to some of my favorite tracks.
Everything is subtly wrong, in a way that’s more disorienting than unpleasant. When you open the fridge, you’re greeted by a warm front, a wave of the same temperature that’s built up by your body on a cold night in Yakutsk when you’re wrapped in ten layers of blankets. The sky is grey, but it’s the green-grey of hospitals and certain checkbooks. When you take a bite of leftover cake, it tastes like the finest Japanese striploin, which is fine but not what you were looking for. The next day, it all returns to normal, leaving you to wonder whether you had fabricated the entire experience.
The pitter-patter of steps in the creaky manor, the wind playing the piece it’s been practicing since the dawn of the current climate. There’s something rather than nothing, but for no reason you can identify, so you imagine that it might stop at any moment. You track down the faint footsteps. After following them through the narrow hallways, past the servant’s quarters, up the back stairway, you find yourself in the study, where you’re confronted by the spectre of your great uncle. He tells you that you should buy Bitcoin, floss, and never go to the amusement park on Shrove Tuesday. Why? He doesn’t know; he just has a feeling that this is not a good idea.
A stranger on the subway, wearing that kind of streetwear that’s in fashion which, rather than looking like something a pro ball player would wear, reminds you of what corpse collectors wore during the Black Plague. You think he’s looking at you, but it’s impossible to tell under his shadowed hood, in this pale lighting, which makes his pale skin even paler. You don’t want to suspect him of anything, but what are the chances that he, also, is going out this far in Queens, this late at night, on this car, for his own reasons, that have nothing to do with yours? You glance over at him, once, twice, then never again, trying not to attract his attention. Then, the rain-slicked streets, the moist air that muffles all sound. You’re not sure that he’s stopped following you when you slam the door shut and lean with your back against it, barring him from intruding. You don’t know, really, if he’s ever stopped following you, even now.
The cigarette lighter lifts off the shelf by itself and flicks on, its flame wavering as it saunters through the air. Momentarily, it’s joined by your copy of Speak, Memory, and your box of Nag Champa, and the few wan flowers you collected yesterday. Sweeping through your living room, as you watch, the slow whirlwind follows a shifting rhythm, the objects conducting the kind of clumsy folk dance that you associate with mummers drunk on the local fermentation. Now the jars, now the pillows, until the little fetters of your life are all being displayed anew, are all enjoying, for the first time, the feeling of flying. It’s all harmless, completely harmless, that is, until a fork joins the fray, and then a box grater, and then, finally, your fine collection of Japanese knives, which hover there, as if weighing a profound decision.