August 2022

 August has been interesting. 

I finished reading Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh, and like all of her books, it was disturbing but a great read. I read the graphic novel series PaperGirls Written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Cliff Chiang. It was a great story about time travel and the messed-up adventures of four girls whose only connection was their paper routes. 

I'm reading The Last Final Girl by Stephan Graham Jones, and about 10 other books are in my queue, waiting for me to pick them up. 

I received a rejection letter from the magazine I had submitted a short story to. It took them over 100 days, so I'm betting they had a lot to choose from. I think I may publish it here and add it to a book of short stories I'm working on.

I read some books and had a story rejected, it seems pretty standard. So what made August so interesting?

At the beginning of August, I left Maine for a work event that had been on hold for the past two years due to Covid 19 and all its variants. This year it was in Memphis, and we were at the Peabody Hotel, famous for its ducks swimming around in the lobby fountain and one of the most Haunted Hotels in Tennessee. 

So that's fun.

I read that the 11th floor was where all the action is and asked for a room on the 11th floor because, at the very least, it would give me something to write about. 

The hotel is old and classically creepy, with lots of woodwork. It had musty, old carpets throughout. We were warned by the Uber driver from the airport about the crime in Memphis and that the hotel had a reputation for being haunted. 

Checking in, the counter guy assured me it was nothing. No ghosts. But he’s heard it enough to ensure that there are no ghosts, so that's questionable…

I hit the 11th floor and stepped out of the musty elevator. The hallway was dark, especially toward my room. A few lights could have woken the place up.

The room was small and new-ish. There’s a deep hallway to the room area. In the hallway were a small closet and a weird little access panel. All the doors and hardware are old and covered with a thick coat of white paint. The bathroom was small and recently refurbished. It had white marble floor tiles and a sink. The fluorescent lights had a bit of a flicker, and there was a door beside my bed that went to the adjacent room, but aside from that, nothing paranormal.

So the 11th-floor ghost was said to shuffle down the halls. It's a hotel, so I guarantee there is a lot of shuffling down the halls, but I was open. Maybe it would be noticeably different. 

I found out later that floors 6 and 7 had a bit of rumored paranormal activity, but more than just some random ghost shuffling down the hall. These ghosts would give you a pinch.

So all three nights, I slept extremely well, possibly the best sleep I've ever had at a hotel. No paranormal shuffling or pinches for me, but I was at a conference with lots of people and many possible ghostly encounters. 

• On the 11th floor, a knock came from the bottom of their hotel door, like a cat had bumped up against it.
• On the 6th floor, one of the attendee's husbands looked out their window and felt something brush up against his shoulder. He thought it was his wife and said, "What?" and turned to see she was nowhere near him.
• 6th floor, something made the soap sitting in the soap dish on the bathroom sink jump off.
• On another floor, water from the shower ended up in the bathroom trashcan nowhere near the shower. They thought it was weird, but it was even weirder after hearing some of the stories.
• Lastly, on the 6th or 7th floor, one of the attendees woke up with a bruise on their leg, like they were pinched in their sleep. They had no memory of bumping their leg, and it was not there before they went to sleep.

That was it for the stories, no ghosts, and great sleep for me. 

When I got home, I felt a bit tired, and by the time I went to bed, I had a fever. Not from the ghosts but from something I had been able to avoid for almost two and a half years. I slept in the spare room and the following day tested positive for Covid. From what I've read, it was mild, Fever for 2 or 3 days, exhausted for a few more, and able to work from home not long after that. I have since tested negative, but as of right now, I'm still sporting a bit of a cough. I passed it on to my wife, but my daughter avoided it this time around.

This post has been the only bit of writing I have accomplished this month, but I hope to complete the novella I wrote about AI and should be able to pick up editing my novel again. 

(This image was created by AI (Dall-E2) using the phrase "A ghost in the window of a hotel made of brick.")