It’s October and our theme this month is haunted, a word with many definitions. Haunted can refer to a locale’s inhabitation of a ghost or supernatural being; likewise a person can be said to haunt a place, just by frequently visiting; and even an idea, a puzzle, or thought can haunt your mind, simply by continually bothering you. It strikes me that the idea of haunting is really about presence, especially the presence of someone or something that won’t leave you alone.
“We haunt other people’s history and meaning, reflecting it in everything we do ourselves,” Laura Chouette writes in her poetry collection, The Willow Song. “Yet we are cursed with our own ghosts — ones that maybe others will be blessed to chase, in order to forget their own.”
It’s the third week of October and we’re hearing writing along the theme of haunted this month. Today, Natanya Biskar shares a story excerpt by Nicole Cullen, titled “The Mountain.” Cullen’s Pushcart-winning work has appeared in Ploughshares and The Dublin Review. She earned an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and teaches creative writing at Boise State University.
Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
