Welcome to a series of eerily funny micros…each short, funny, with a haunting character who smirks and inspires.
The first begins with me…Grim Gerald, a reaper who grins and teaches.
Dead serious…but.
Now we begin.
Patience is a haunting virtue.
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Gerald snaked along with other put-out spectres in the ramshackle afterlife outpost–its marble halls were closing in, hollow and purgatorial.
Gerald had reached his prime too early. A teacher in life, he’d spent 325 years harvesting crossovers–he was now trailing with the soul train, a scoff at his reaping abilities.
It was that stupid mislabelled soul crate.
The misspellings recurred. His clipboard cried each time he spelt ‘haunting’ — ‘hunting.’
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
And the fractured souls behind him only got more annoying.
A jumpy dentist poltergeist kept floating back and forth, eager to place himself somewhere near the beginning of the queue. An annoying drama queen wraith spent the endless waiting time livestreaming beauty ads.
The queue was frozen. Gerald glanced at his skeletal mobile for a time check. It hadn’t moved in hours.
But his grit and patience were legendary.
The Dentigeist flitted back and forth, generating wind that blew the papers on his clipboard to the end of the queue—
Two miles beyond the end of the outpost.
He tried sinking his teeth into the ghouls in front of him. That only irritated–and he lost his teeth to slimer-like ectoplasm.
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
And irritated they were. That Slimerplasm and ecto-arms began to flounder. The reapers still enforced–they banished the impatient to the customer feedback pit.
Gerald returned a dropped leg to its owner, a malformed shapeshifter.
Gerald’s supervisor flew down, alerted by the noise.
She withdrew an eye from its socket and glossed over his reports.
Written with the same overlooked penmanship of 325 years.
“Not bad under pressure, Gerald. Ecto-ink and all. Here’s your Platinum Haunting Pass.”
She passed him a sealed envelope marked–“Best Progress Award.”
Gerald took it, slipped it gently into his pocket, and smiled.
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Some time later…
Gerald clutched his Platinum Haunting Pass and looked over the list his supervisor had given him.
A list of the rooms in the large outpost.
Rare books.
The haunted corridor.
The ballroom that “en-ghoulfed” the spirit.
The kitchen (flying knives included).
Gerald, ever the unassuming, quiet teacher, chose Rare Books.
A room caked in layers of dust.
And peace.
He slipped behind a shelf, clipboard at the ready.
He could finally haunt.
And his first assignment?
Supervisor. Outpost enforcement.
☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 