In this post: A spooky short story of a not-so-ghostly encounter. Boo.
Category: Short Story Collection + Fast Fiction
Ramiah Recommended?
No.
Welcome to another Spooky Season! I wanted to bring at least one spooky review to you all again. And spooky this one is - spooky bad. 👻
This story was just meh. I have came away with one value of reading it, but I had to struggle for to come up with even that.
The premise of this story is a man recalling that when he was 15, he encountered a ghost. He tries to hang out with a friend (not his girlfriend, which he makes explicitly unclear), and while he is walking, he encounters a woman outside the street of his home who creepily smiles at him, scaring him so much that he asks his parents to pick him up and drive him home. In his words, "And that is all there is to my story. I wish there was more." Me too.
The protagonist begins by saying that "reality is not story shaped" - and this tale is certainly unshaped. Not only is it circular in its story telling (the protagonist mentioned the event occurring when he was 15 twice), but it is also inconclusive. Seeing a creepy woman on a street is not considered a ghost story. It force-feeds us details that aren't important to the story - we didn't need to know his girl friend wasn't his girlfriend, whom never makes an appearance in the story, by the way -- and ultimately felt like a waste of time to read.
The one silver lining I took from this story was that reality isn't story-shaped. As I go through my quarter-life crisis, I have spent a good chunk of time reflecting. I realize that a narrative I've told myself is that life is a story - there's a beginning (birth), middle (growing up, being an adult), and end (death). And while that's true, I've definitely felt that my life should have elements of a story that align with a standard story structure, as well. I'm in the rising action now, a climax of events will come, and then things will nicely resolve in the end.
As Lean In for Graduates explains, however, life isn't that simple. Life, like careers, take a jungle-gym dome approach rather than a ladder. Believing life is so simply structured has put an unrealistic ideal of how my life should go, placing pressure on myself, and blah blah blah... things I'm working on to unlearn. :) The reminder I got from reading this story, in short, is there's not always a nicely-tied bow at the end of things. And that's okay.
In the case of "The Flints of Memory Lane", it lets me bring another balanced review to readers like you. Having "yes" to every review isn't fun for anyone!
Just like the story itself, that's all there is to this review. I wish there was more, but there was not much to go off of.
Ramiah Reflects
My New Favorite Life Quotes:
"Reality... is not story-shaped, and... they do not end in entirely satisfactory ways." -- Neil Gaiman
Questions to Ask Yourself (and answer!):
Do you believe in ghosts? If so, what was the experience that made you believe?
Do you think that life is story-shaped?
Ramiah's Re-read When
Re-read when:
You want a reminder that reality does not follow a story's path
You want a short read
You want to rant over a non-logical story.
(No notes this time, folks!)
Check out my other posts and book notes here.
Until next time!
Montana Houston
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