Clumsy. That's what she always thought she was, until she went into the mirror shop and there was the one mirror way at the back that showed a whole cluster of spirits and demons clinging to her shoulders and back and legs and...well, everywhere, really. Once she saw it, she felt the pinpricks of their claws through her clothes. She spun to face away from the mirror, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried walking to the store door. She still felt the pinpricks, shifting as the creatures shifted their weight, and she felt the brush of wings against her bare skin now and again. Well, she thought, dizzied, that explains it all. Either I'm crazy--but she was pretty sure she wasn't, there were enough stories about the demon-carriers that she thought they must be a real thing--or that explains my clumsiness. And why I'm so strong for my size. If I've been carrying around all these extra creatures since I could walk, my muscles must be stronger than those of everyone else. But why can I see them in the mirror, and how can I get rid of them, and what--what do I do now? She strained her memory for the stories of the demon-carriers, but all the stories had been quest/adventure type things, with nary a mention of how they got control of their...condition. Call it a condition, she decided. She turned and walked back into the store and stared squarely in the mirror. The creatures glanced over at it, and then got excited, standing up on their hind legs and pointing. "Yes, yes," she said wearily. "I can see you. You can see yourselves. Great. Now what do we do?" "Can I help you, Miss?" a polite voice--


Inspiration: "Clumsy" - Jane Jensen
Story potential: High.
Notes: Either a pure second world fantasy or maybe one based on a more recent real-world era. I'm tired of the Victorian thing, and I don't want to do the medieval thing, either. Harrumph. Also, this smells like a novel.

I don't mind the headless riders so much. At least you know where you are with them. It's the ghosts that pretend to be real, that seem real in every way, but then disappear mysteriously and let you find out that there was a legend about them from however many years ago that I don't like. Do you know how much time I spent looking for vanishing girls in white before I figured that out? Sure, I moved here because I liked a challenge, and the hauntedest city in the West seemed like a good fit, not to mention the bonus hazard pay didn't hurt, but it still took me a while to get my feet under me and check the ghost database. Hell, it took me a while to figure out that there even was a database for ghosts. I think it was a "haze the new guy" deal. So figuring out that somebody real was really missing wasn't as easy as you might think, especially since she left such a light impression on life that she might as well have really been the ghost that we all assumed she was.


Inspiration: Danny Elfman - Sleepy Hollow film score
Story potential: High.
Notes: This feels like it could be really quite good.

The dying do their own work. They finish what must be finished--which is their death. That is all that they need to do. A very few have other things that must be done, even at the end. Words to a loved one. Reassurance. The last piece of a project. Usually these things fall away as death grows near, but sometimes the need grows. We think that's what happens to create zombies. You thought I was going to say ghosts, didn't you? No. The mild hauntings that you hear about sometimes? Those are just--


Inspiration: "Letting Go of What Cannot be Held Back" - by Bill Holm
Story Potential: High, mostly because of the tropes it spins about.
Notes: A zombie death before completion? That's what causes Hungry Ghosts--MUCH harder to deal with. Also, 'hauntings' is so a word!

Drifting through the trees, weightless in real time, while around everything else moves in slow-motion. I move slow, but if you glance up, all you'll see is leaves rustling quickly or maybe a flicker of white. It is a frustration, I tell you. I understand why some ghosts start zooming through people, or deliberately creating cold breezes. The strongest can even knock items over. Me? Not so much. But I did learn that I can--age--buildings. I may not be able to grab a can of spray paint and tag anymore, but I can damn well make the bricks age and the mortar chip and the mildew die, leaving "Ghost" behind in its place.

Inspiration: "Aish Tamid" - Matisyahu
Story Potential: High?
Notes: But this is a character. But a teen ghost, who can still do some things--and then something else happens, and he/she is actually called to...could be fun. YA, though, which--gah! can I even write?

The ghost trees noticed when their song boat vanished from the lake nearby, but they did not know what to do about it. At first, they waited patiently for the song boat to be returned, though mists rose up from the lake and swaddled their trunks in a layer of thick fog that had no joy of song, no life remembered, in it. And then the oldest tree creaked pensively in the wind and let fall a single leaf, which stood as debate for whether the ghost trees should make their displeasure known when next it was time for their descendents to dream, or if they should wait until the next died and then have his ghost unrooted continue to bother his family or murderers, until the time--

Inspiration: A fragment of a dream
Story Potential: Low, in and of itself
Notes: Could be an interesting setting