AND NOW, OUR … LOSER!

The Chicago Tribune ran “The Great Chicago Ghost Story” contest for Halloween.

The rules: A Chicago site must be mentioned in the story. No more than 750 words.

I wrote a story. Entered.

Lost.

Here’s the loser.

THE GHOSTS OF CHICAGO, I SET THEM FREE

I see the ghosts of Chicago.

I set them free.

This is a mission statement.

Mine.

###

How is it that I see Chicago’s ghosts?

I don’t know.

How is it that you see those Magic Eye images?

I don’t.

You see what you see.

I see what I see.

I see the ghosts of Chicago.

###

 No, I do not see Chicago’s ghosts all the time.

A year can go by.

Two years.

Longer.

I’m not sure, really.

But then I see.

Ghosts are inevitable.

###

 Ghosts look like …

A free ghost is beautiful.

Shimmering. Translucent. Made of cloud dream.

A liquid going to steam shape.

Imagine an ethereal jellyfish.

No tentacles. No poison.

Late in humid summer night. Free-floating and vaguely luminous. Hovering above the head of one of the Kemeys’s bronze lions at the Art Institute.

Might it be they are here to acknowledge the commonality of beauty?

Sometimes in early morning fog swirl around the legs of the 106 giant headless statues of Grant Park’s Agora. Mockery? You earthbound. You unthinking.

I am a ghost.

I am free.

###

 What is a ghost?

Spirit. Soul.

So say some. So believe.

It dwells within.

I know.

###

 This cold October night.

This alley.

This darkness.

Clatter-groan of El above.

He sits and begs.

Sees me.

Talks madness.

Nonsense.

I look at his face.

See behind it.

Behind life trenched lines on face.

Behind eyes fierce crazy and hopeless.

Behind mindless brute insistence to go on.

I look at him.

See what lurks behind the flesh.

I see a ghost.

I take my knife.

I set free the ghost.

                                                                ###

If you want to see the winner, it’s at

 http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-091027-ghost-story-clark,0,6561998.story