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EPIC GHOST STORY 
NO PART I: GRAVEYARD; I AXED IT BECAUSE IT SUCKED. MAINLY BECAUSE THE WRITING WAS SLOPPY AND PRETENTIOUS THROUGHOUT. SO AS AUTHOR AND EDITOR, I MADE THE CALL TO TAKE IT OUT. AT FIRST I ONLY TRIMMED THIS SECTION BY A THIRD OR SO. BUT IT WAS STILL BLOATED AND SLOPPY AND PRETENTIOUS AS HELL. SO I REMOVED IT COMPLETELY. UNFORTUNATELY, THE BULK OF THE ORIGINAL NARRATIVE WAS FOUND IN PART I. LIKE THE STORY AND PLOT AND CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND WHATNOT. MEANING I EVISCERATED THE FUCK OUT OF MY EPIC GHOST STORY. AND ALL ATTEMPTS AT RECONFIGURING THE STORY'S ACTION INTO PARTS II-V WERE LARGELY UNSUCCESSFUL. MEANING I COULDN'T EMEND MY BOTCHED EDITTING BY REINCORPORATING THE PART I STORYLINE INTO A SMOOTHER, LESS PRETENTIOUS PARTS II-V. PLUS I FORGOT TO MAKE A BACK-UP COPY OF PART I: GRAVEYARD BEFORE DELETING IT FROM THE *.TXT FILE I DID ALL MY WRITING ON. WHICH WAS SILLY OF ME, I ADMIT. SO I REWROTE THE WHOLE THING, REDUCING THE STORY TO THREE CHARACTERS AND A BAREBONES PLOT WITH NEXT TO NO DEVELOPMENT WHATSOEVER. I CAN'T EXAGERRATE HOW REDUCED THIS REDUCTION IS. LIKE TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF JUST HOW EXTENSIVELY I GUTTED MY WORK TO SHIT AND BACK CHECK OUT THE MALE BLUE STICK FIGURE IN THE IMAGE ABOVE. HE'S NOT EVEN IN THIS STORY ANYMORE. SO DON'T LOOK FOR HIM IN PARTS II-V. YOU WON'T FIND HIM THERE. BUT HIS NAME WAS WALLACE, IF YOU WANTED TO KNOW, IN THE PRETENTIOUS AND PRE-MUTILATED PART I. AND I FEAR THAT MY REDUCTION IS CONSIDERABLY LESS EPIC THAN THE GHOST STORY I ONCE IMAGINED. 
Julia's ghost was the color of mint cream. It had hungry red eyes and a mouth that was black and cross-stitched shut. Its arms, from left to right, were a Yamaha PWC with blue padded seating and a pink and deeper pink polka-dotted woman's handbag. The ghost touched down West of 6th Avenue and said What's up? to Julia and then possessed her. "What's up?" "I'm frightened! Who or what are you?" "It's ghost time!" Julia was a newlywed. She was twenty-three years young and had a face of an angel, and a hard body and soft brown hair that didn't touch her shoulders. Unluckily for her she was then possessed by a ghost that convinced her that Jessica T. (longtime friend and Maid of Honor at Julia's wedding) had French-kissed Julia's then-fiancé [Wallace—see above] in the pantry of the kitchen of her soon-to-be-parents' church on the night of the rehearsal dinner after [name removed] had finished praying a blessing on the food and all the people said, Amen. None of this was true. But it was payback time so far as Julia was concerned. 
Jessica T. crossed the intersection. Her pace was unbelievably slow. She was twenty-four and walked with a limp and her curly hair was cobalt yellow in color. On her twenty-third birthday—the day after Julia's wedding—Jessica T. had been sterilized for life by an impromptu hysterectomy that was really a freak boating accident. She was still reeling from the accident, emotionally. She was less pretty than Julia. Here comes Julia with a bat. "Hey Julia, what's poppin'?" "You are bad! I can't believe you French-kissed [name removed]!" "What'd you say? No, I didn't!" "Jessica T., die!" No time for terror. Julia lunged at her old friend, which meant diving into the intersection since Jessica T. was comically slow and still standing in the middle of the street. Julia snarled; she was maniacal, possessed. She swung wide, then swung again, connecting Jessica T.'s head with the bat on her second pass. The head cracked open. Ms. T. fell fast (like potatoes) and munched asphalt. Blood was literally everywhere: Los Angeles, CA. Seattle. Nashville, TN. Pakistan. Julia, gloating, didn't notice the 2005 Honda Pilot that hit her until it was too late. She blinked. A moment later she had expired, her newly de-possessed spirit gone on to realms immaterial/unknown, where [Wallace] was not sure to follow. The ghost went on to conduct his netherworldly business elsewhere. Jessica T. survived, just barely. 
NO PART IV: FAR WEST, MISSOURI. THIS SECTION WAS LIKEWISE EVISCERATED THE FUCK OUT OF. BECAUSE I WAS CONCERNED AGAIN WITH BLOATED, PRETENTIOUS WRITING. WHICH SEVERELY UNDERCUTS MY CLAIM TO THE WORD "EPIC," I KNOW. LIKE HOW IS THIS AN EPIC GHOST STORY IF I'VE REMOVED THE NEAR ENTIRETY OF MY PROSE AND KILLED OFF MOST OF THE CHARACTERS AND SACRIFICED KEY PLOT POINTS AND DISEMBOWLED THE NARRATIVE AND ESSENTIALLY CRIPPLED THE WHOLE THING? FOR WHICH I CAN ONLY APOLOGIZE. SEE FURTHER EXPLANATION IN PART I: GRAVEYARD, ABOVE. 
SEE ABOVE. |
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