Bog Redaction
Laura Ellen Scott


"As Hell is Depicted," from The Men's Orange Diary [by Bog, trans. Kallikantzaros and Wight]

The first ghost breathed as little as possible and bled herself into a secret cup to keep young and calm. She ate only cold soup, took salts, sipped Madeira. The rake moved her up against the brick wall, hiked up her skirt and put his hand in like a pie knife. He made her keep singing while he dropped to his knees to put his whole mouth on her like a sea creature, non-specific.

The second ghost was their child, a three year old fawn* who fell into a well on his grandma's farm. He existed, lonesome and well-bound for two more years, mothered and fathered by cowbirds of each type until the genus was exhausted: Brown-headed, Shiny, Bronzed, Giant, Screaming.  

The third ghost was the fawn's ball cap, found in a drunkle rig. Then everyone believed the worst of everyone else. Plus fire, storm, economy.

In a town swallowed up (by fires, storms, economy), appetite itself became the fourth ghost ever recorded. There was lead time while children faded and the potholes were never filled in, but eventually the post office was boarded up.

A carriage museum culminated in the fifth, after its curator fell down dead in the catalogue hall. His body crumpled to dust. Because no one ever visited the carriage museum.


*poss. goat




Laura Ellen Scott has stories in or coming from Barrelhouse, Juked, JMWW, Northville Review, Ploughshares, Storyglossia and others.

Direct link: http://wigleaf.com/201001bog.htm


w i g · l e a F    01/24/10




















Any contemporary ghost can trace its lineage back to the five described in this article.

There are no other original phenomena.

Floating terms include
Bodice
Necessity
Care
Transmission
Policy
Soil
Black



Reading Question One: Under the same circumstances, which song would you sing and why?
 
Reading Question Two: What are the commercial uses of guilt, hunger, wings, generations?

Reading Question Three:  There was a bottle and a bottling house. Crates covered with mold. Footprints that grew smaller and smaller as they were followed. Name this effect.

Reading Question Four: Giles Corey refused to plead. How was he put to death?

Reading Question Five: Draw a walking tour of the parish. Next, draw a tour of places not to go. Use the back if needed.


















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