A short story A Ghostly Visit It was a cold night outside. The only thing moving was the wind. The wind had been screeching and howling all day. It seemed to be there for the night. I laid on the couch reading a book. My loving loyal dog laying beside me. He acted a bit nervous but I thought it was the weather. He was on high alert. He heard something and growled. I thought little of it. I thought it was probably patio furniture, being moved by these strong winds. I was getting ready for bed and I noticed the bracelet my husband bought me was out of place. I thought I must have gotten it out to wear and then changed my mind. So I put it back in its proper place. I laid down, got comfy in my bed. All the lights in the house off except one. I had left it on since my husband had been called away for a mission. I said it would not be turned off until he come home. Except that night, for no apparent reason it went out. I thought the light bulb must need replacing. I got up and went and checked it. But when I got to the switch it was in the off position. I was a little scared by that incident. I couldn’t really explain the reason the light would go off. I went back to bed trying to fall asleep. It was no easy task. I listened to music which always seemed to comfort me. I’m listening to a playlist my husband and I picked out together. Soon I dozed off. I reach over in my slumber and turn the music off. The next morning I was awakened by the phone. It wasn’t ringing. It wasn’t a sound of a text coming through. It was our playlist. How was that even possible? Shaken a little, I tried to focus on my day ahead. I got dressed and went to work. At work my manager could tell something was bothering me. She asked me if I was okay. I told her of the events happening the night before and the music when I woke up. She laughed, she casually said your imagination is running wild. It was Valentine’s Day so of course, people at work were getting flowers. My heart was warmed by the thought of someone loving so much they took the time to buy you flowers.

This is a short piece I wrote about a week ago. I hope you like it ----- It was a hot day, I remembered. It was the kind of day where, in its memory, it never seems as unbearably awful as when it was experienced. The waters of the coast swelled and fell over each other. They sent up a spray that would caress your face. The sand had more of the consistency of mud, which I didn’t mind. Millie did, though. “Why must we come down here?” It would cake up on her legs, and if she sat on her beach towel, the sand would stick to it, too. It would take three washes just to get it off. She didn’t like that, which meant she rarely came with me. The times she did come were always my favorites. We would sit there, listening to the waves and watching the sun turn the horizon to the color of a citrus fruit. Millie did like that. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” “It is.” Sometimes she would ask me when I was going to marry her. I told her I didn’t know. Then she would get really quiet. The day that I remember best was a Tuesday. The tide was in. It came up just a few inches short of where I was sitting. The horizon was that citrus-fruit-color, and I was lying out in the sand, counting the leaves of a palm frond that hung twenty feet above my head. I do not remember exactly how many, but I remember that it was close to a hundred. Millie was with me. She was standing idly in the water about waist-deep. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. White clouds meandered above the beach like they had nothing to do. “When are you going to marry me?” she called from the water. I sat up, looking at her. She had a wonderful look in her eye that made me feel like all the beauty around me was void. I shrugged, smiling. “Why not today?” Millie lit up then. I don’t think I had ever seen a person so alive. It was frightening and perfect. Just then, the beach became, for an hour or so, a place like no other. It became a paradise.

The windows weren’t sealed quite right. The curtains would twist and tangle with each other at any blow of September wind. The floors were uneven and creaked phantom moans. Sunlight would bleed through the poorly sealed windows, casting shadows across the uneven floor, begging for brokenness to be whole.

The waves rage in a storm but when it is calm, what a beautiful sight. The sun sets over her and her waves feel the warmth of the sun casting upon her. She can be both wild and furious or calm and beautiful. Her whisper of the crashing waves call your name. Her white sandy beaches beckon you to relax upon them. The life that is seen around makes you feel like you are part of her. The ships that travel her vast areas seek for sunken treasure. It saddens her that they fail to see her beauty. She wants to be seen for her treasure rather than a route to another destination. She is filled with an abundance of beauty. Her beauty is not just on the surface no hers is beauty that goes deep. One must know the depths of her beauty to really enjoy it and appreciate it. CDK 2026

🖋️Do you • outline everything like you’re laying railroad tracks through the dark, • wander sentence by sentence and trust the fog to part, • or follow a chaotic map only you can read—arrows, fragments, half-notes in the margins? There’s no correct answer here. Only the way your mind breathes when it writes. Some of us need structure to feel safe. Some of us need freedom to feel honest. Some of us swear we’ll “clean it up later” and never quite do (iconic behavior). ✨ Tell us which one feels closest to you—and if you’ve ever tried writing against your instincts. Did it unlock something? Or did it feel like wearing someone else’s coat? This is a parlor, not a podium. Pull up a chair. I want to know how your magic gets made.