Writing 101: Day 14: Dear Spook

Day 14: Today’s Prompt: Pick up the nearest book and flip to page 29. What’s the first word that jumps off the page? Use this word as your springboard for inspiration. Today’s twist: write the post in the form of a letter.
Well, the book that was handy was an old, I mean vintage, Louis L’Amour book titled Chancy. I love Lois. On page 29, it was hard to find the page numbers since all of them were way up in the center next to the binding, was a sentence: “I’ll spook their horses.” Now which word would have jumped out at you? Yes, well, the same one caught my eye. Here goes.

Dear Spook,

Just what kind of spook are you, anyway? I have to say you got me good that time years ago, when I was camping all by myself. My dog and I could hear you breathing on the other side of my little dome tent. My dog, her name was Fonda, barked up a storm at you! I reached out my hand across the top of my tent to touch you but then you ran away. Why did you run away? Do spooks get spooked?

That other time, when I was in high school and you was trying to be quiet while you was creeping around in our attic was kind of scary too, especially after all our friends said we had an attic just like the one in the Exorcist movie. Ya ought’ta be right proud of that one. But when we swung those folding stairs down and crept up to look for ya, you hid real well. Did we scare you then? We did, huh. I knowed it. It’s okay, hon.

And remember that time, that spring and summer you kept digging something up in our back yard and everyone told us our house was built on an old Indian graveyard and I asked my mom if she heard you digging and she told me no and my dad was gone for a spell and I caught my mom sleeping with an iron skillet so I knowed she was lying and we got up our gumptions and I grabbed a knife from the kitchen on the way and we came after you, right outside into the backyard in the black of midnight; you ran away then too.

Spook, what’s so doggone scary about us, anyway? I just don’t get it. And then there was that time when I was just in junior high when you kept setting the burglar alarm off and I went a hunting you with my mom’s rat tail comb like it was a knife cause I was babysitting and it was the onliest thing I could get my hands on; you didn’t show yourself then, either.Although you did leave wet footprints beneath the curtains. Spooks aren’t supposed to be that sloppy. Sorry, I don’t like to be the one to tell ya you’re a sloppy spook.

Spook, you are such a ninny. But that’s okay. It’s totally okay to be yourself, especially when you’ve got people like me stepping on whatever it was, either your arm or your leg, maybe it was your nose, since I don’t see to good these days, especially in the dark, when you weren’t quick enough to hide your whole spooky self beneath my bed. Whatever it was was real squishy. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to hurtcha. But remember ya gotta be a lot quicker than that when you go and scare kids and grannys and they have ta switch their light off and then take those running blind leaps in order to land on their beds. Kids are just wee little things, just little. Some kids and old ladies can’t jump very far and it never did occur to any of us that you just might be sticking your palm out to be giving us a helping boost instead of trying to grab our ankles.

Maybe if you wrote us a letter or something we wouldn’t scare or hurt you so bad. Hell, you’re damned lucky I didn’t pull the shotgun on you the other night as you was staring at us from outside the window liken you was Big Foot or something! Ya otter be careful there, big fella.

Well, it’s just an idea.

Yours truly,

Granny

P.S. I’ll try to speak to the grandkids to take it easy on ya. I wager you’re not getting any younger yourself.