The Ghost Variations

Table Of Contents

GHOSTS AND MEMORY
One: A Notable Social Event • 3
Two: The Guidance Counselor • 5
Three: A Hatchet, Several Candlesticks, a Pincushion, and a Top Hat • 7
Four: Milo Krain • 9
Five: Amnesia • 11
Six: A Long Chain of Yesterdays • 13
 
GHOSTS AND FORTUNE
Seven: The Hitchhiker • 19
Eight: Wishes • 21
Nine: How to Play • 23
Ten: The Scales of Fortune • 25
Eleven: A Moment, However Small • 27
Twelve: A Gathering • 29
Thirteen: Mira Amsler • 31
 
GHOSTS AND NATURE
Fourteen: Elephants • 37
Fifteen: The White Mare • 39
Sixteen: Many Additional Animals • 41
Seventeen: Bees • 43
Eighteen: A Blight on the Landscape • 45
Nineteen: An Ossuary of Trees • 47
Twenty: Things That Fall from the Sky • 49
Twenty-one: A Story with a Drum Beating Inside It • 51
Twenty-two: The Sandbox Initiative • 53
Twenty-three: Renewable Resources • 55
 
GHOSTS AND TIME
Twenty-four: Thirteen Visitations • 61
Twenty-five: The Office of Hereafters and Dissolutions • 63
Twenty-six: An Obituary • 65
Twenty-seven: The Midpoint • 67
Twenty-eight: The Whirl of Time • 69
Twenty-nine: Minnows • 71
Thirty: A Story Swaying Back and Forth • 73
Thirty-one: A Time-Travel Story with a Little Romance and a Happy Ending • 75
 
GHOSTS AND SPECULATION
Thirty-two: The Phantasm vs the Statue • 81
Thirty-three: Footprints • 83
Thirty-four: Passengers • 85
Thirty-five: New Life, New Civilizations • 87
Thirty-six: A Blackness Went Fluttering By • 89
Thirty-seven: The Prism • 91
Thirty-eight: His Womanhood • 93
Thirty-nine: There Are People, They Had Lives • 95
Forty: The Soldiers of the 115th Regiment • 97
 
GHOSTS AND VISION
Forty-one: Action! • 103
Forty-two: The Way the Ring of a Moat Becomes Comforting to a Fish • 105
Forty-three: Spectrum • 107
Forty-four: Every House Key, Every Fire Hydrant, Every Electrical Outlet • 109
Forty-five: The Walls • 111
Forty-six: Playtime • 113
Forty-seven: All His Life • 115
Forty-eight: Take It with Me • 117
Forty-nine: A Story Seen in Glimpses Through the Mist • 119
 
GHOSTS AND THE OTHER SENSES
Fifty: A Lifetime of Touch • 125
Fifty-one: The Runner-Up • 127
Fifty-two: So Many Songs • 129
Fifty-three: A Matter of Acoustics • 131
Fifty-four: Bouquet • 133
Fifty-five: The Mud Odor of the Snow Melting in the Fields • 135
Fifty-six: Instrumentology • 137
Fifty-seven: When the Room Is Quiet, the Daylight Almost Gone • 139
Fifty-eight: A Sort of Fellow • 141
Fifty-nine: A Lesser Feeling • 143
 
GHOSTS AND BELIEF
Sixty: A Small Disruption of Reality • 149
Sixty-one: The Abnormalist and the Usualist • 151
Sixty-two: Real Estate • 153
Sixty-three: Which Are the Crystals, Which the Solution • 155
Sixty-four: Countless Strange Couplings and Separations • 157
Sixty-five: Rapture • 159
Sixty-six: 666 • 161
 
GHOSTS AND LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
Sixty-seven: Lost and Found • 167
Sixty-eight: Another Man in a Mirror • 169
Sixty-nine: The Apostrophes • 171
Seventy: A Man in a Mirror • 173
Seventy:-one Turnstiles • 175
Seventy-two: A True Story • 177
Seventy-three: Bullets and What It Takes to Dodge Them • 179
Seventy-four: Knees • 181
Seventy-five: The Man She Is Trying to Forget • 183
Seventy-six: The Eternities • 185
Seventy-seven: Too Late • 187
Seventy-eight: Detention • 189
Seventy-nine: I Like Your Shoes • 191
 
GHOSTS AND FAMILY
Eighty: The Ghost’s Disguise • 197
Eighty-one: A Source of Confusion • 199
Eighty-two: Unseeable, Untouchable • 201
Eighty-three: Ghost Brothers • 203
Eighty-four: A Second True Story • 205
Eighty-five A Life • 207
Eighty-six: Extraordinary Gifts • 209
Eighty-seven: An Inherited Disorder • 211
Eighty-eight: Prayer from an Airport Terminal • 213
Eighty-nine: Hatching • 215
Ninety: Bilateral Symmetry • 217
 
GHOSTS AND WORDS AND NUMBERS
Ninety-one: Parakeets • 223
Ninety-two: Euphemisms • 225
Ninety-three: Roughly Eighty Grams • 227
Ninety-four: The Ghost Letter • 229
Ninety-five: A Matter of Linguistic • s231
Ninety-six: Dusk and Other Stories • 233
Ninety-seven: Telephone • 235
Ninety-eight: Numbers • 237
Ninety-nine: The Census • 239
One Hundred: The Most Terrifying Ghost Story Ever Written • 241
 
A Partial Concordance of Themes • 245
Acknowledgments • 267