Ghost Stories

[Fiction Out West & Further West...Non-Fiction; for the most part]

(1,132 words)

A mining town, among others, had been shut down the longest. Long before the mines closed, and all the towns followed. As the story goes; one night, a 10-year-old boy walks into a bar looking for his barmaid mom, and amid some bruhaha, he's accidentally shot dead. Enraged and unwilling to settle down, she's also shot dead by the same gunman--but her's was an act of murder. In his dark attire, he rides off and is never seen again. An odd thing occurred for ten years, there were gunfights, but no deaths since the boy and mom, and as they went on their way never to be seen again, plenty wondered but brushed it off as even-steven since there was peace after every incident--until they learned that they were 'god-awful' wrong.

(Of note:) The mining company needed a seamstress to sew the men's mining clothes, so they found a new seamstress--10 years ago since the old one was shot dead. That was the 10-year-old boy. To make ends meet, the mother took the barmaid's job and taught her son how to sew.

Now to the surreality. So the mining company wanted to open a new shaft through an old closed mine until they got to reopen it. To their horror, they found more than fifty male bodies, mostly all bones, but added to that horrendous find, were the conditions they were left in. Their bones were sewn together, left leg bone to right leg bone, left arm bone to right arm bone--bones, not skin. Every bone, pierced and tightly tugged threads through them for the past, ten years. All believed they were quite alive as they were all sewn up. Including one that some remembered was once a dark attire now white as a sheet. After all, they are miners, and the boy is just doing his job.

No one told him, his job was taken, or, the fact he's dead. Mom knew a harsh life is NOTHING to come back too, but, her son was too young to know the difference between a harsh life and being dead.

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I wrote a small reference to a ghost town, it seems I'm still clueless about its pertinence. My Kalapana is gone--replaced by grass growers of the smoking sort--the types Maui Fire were up in arms. Hawaiian mythology, I trust that they would have listed, Madame Pele, as being the most referenced deity in the Hawaiian list of gods and goddesses. Also, the most destructive, naught just to the lands, but to the Hawaiian people too where hundreds perished by lava. It was recorded by known ancient abilities such as painted or carved out murals, and other artifacts.

Methinks, it's a bit too late for my Kalapana, as the efforts shown by those who alerted the many, most gullible and prone to slippery glib talkers all of them who were ready to swoop in and swipe lands away from most of the Hawaiian people who were landowners. Hilo, 300+ drowned, incrementally since 1800's, they recently found a tidal bowl that points to Hilo--and my townhouse is in the way. It led to my coma at the uphill house--oh, ex-house, had it torn down.

I wrote about my mom at the Kress Store--both of them are no longer, but back then when we were in Hilo town of the '60s, The Word grew in mom's life, besides her being a songwriter/lyricist, and musician extraordinaire of an assortment of musical instrument, she was also a seamstress for the family, not us--me and my siblings per se--but it was for the family at large. I seem to write bits and pieces, here and there, as if the Ghost Story seeks light from its darkness. To reference a child as being the medium to the dark side. Perplexing from that degree opens that very issue for merely being a child, irrespective of age, at this point.

Furthers the failure to note an important issue, aside from the fact that what was done there was done by a child, the point is, what powers did the child possess to commit such a heinous act? And to stretch between life and death, then life again. I fear that the findings that they've had buried beyond the town--will certainly be empty. Yet, all that I've stated now is merely a conjecture at this point being that it was never part of the dream itself. All I've said was implications of possibilities, even if it be, ifs and wherefores.

And now onto the relevancy of that Ghost Story and my family, --me for that matter. The final piece of the puzzle is where I find nothing, but some may say otherwise. Ancient Kalapana was Madame Pele's homestead, and it was also my mom's hometown. Her family carries Pele's name, which is my mom's maiden name. They are given that right to bear her name, because our ancestors were High Priests & High Priestesses to Madame Pele's Temple, where human sacrifices were carried out. The City of Refuge was built on the opposite side of the island, and whosoever found their way there would be spared from Madame Pele's wrath. Now this would play well into my Ghost Story, where implications of previous mentions are seemingly surfacing saying, "Here I am, were you looking for me?"

Implications draw upon one's conclusion of the Ghost Story versus inferences of one who makes an educated and reasonable deduction of one's conclusion of the Ghost Story. So apparently, though not verbatim as appearances go, there is a measure of relevancy, to which its degree has yet to be fathom--pun intended--on the phantom. As we proceed on these findings of varied materiality broad expanse of knowledgeable bits of information, a certain amount of outreach credible, will embolden confidence.

The Word was undeniably present in my mother's life, and--in name only--in that of Madame Pele. The Ghost Story dream that I had upon my return home is to my best recollection. With that said, there are gaps that I note may or may not be applicable but somehow I sense there are gaps that might answer or provide an explanation as to why events happened. One of the missing puzzles, for me, is why hadn't the mother return too, why only the boy. I trust that it may provide some pointers as to why things are the way they are today, as well as, why things are the way it was back then. The Ghost Story, for now, will be as it is and I believe something eventful has yet to be, and of that, I am clueless as to what it may be. Mom's unwavering in The Word, I entrust nullification to my benefactor.

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