The scars on my soul are words.

I think we both know the answer to this Dear Anon. I’m a sensitive lad both good and bad.

Several times. The cancer is on a closed system atm and not spreading outside it

I’ll be honest here. They have been and will continue to be awfully tough.

I have throat cancer. Edgar is the name of my tumor. Next week I start chemo and radiation

So physically exhausted. Emotionally terrified and then full of ennui.

I habe a cat as cover but she doesn’t always listen. So yeah I talk to myself

Ahh yes I promised a true ghost story. Dear heart are you sitting comfortable?

When I was a wee nipper. No more than 7-8 my mum had remarried and her career was taking offf she would routinely work 60-70 hour weeks and her three boys were oft an after thought. So she hired an au pair. Not quite a nanny but also not not a nanny. Our au pair was from the Philippines and was very spiritual

My mum was doing so well that we would go for a month in the summer to different places in Europe.

This summer we were in central France in an old chateau. The building felt… mean. Cold. Distant. But my mum has met the charming architect who had worked in the property and he had rented to us cheaply.

The only rule was there was one weird central closet that was locked and we had to not go in it. As it was locked up this seemed reasonable.

On the first night the knocking began… was it pole pipes? Plumbing needing repair? Someone playing a trick. We didn’t know. It started in the middle of the night and then with dawn stopped. Still the price was very cheap. We could nap in the day.

Our Au pair went to my mum and asked to leave saying she felt “ uncomfortable “ my mum talked her around.

Then my youngest brother started talking about the mirror lady in white. But no one understood him.

That night the au pair was brushing her teeth and suddenly started to yell and sob She had seen the woman in white in the mirror.

That night the knocking came back. But fierce and determined. My mum had had enough and we moved to local hotel.

A year or two later at a dinner party my mum met a friend of the architect “ did you hear about Henri” my mum was asked. “ he’s in jail “. For what she asked “ well he killed his girl friend and buried her inside a closet in a house he worked on “

Oh yes immediately a lovely little show came to mind. Evil

It has four seasons and a Priest’s many struggles are one of the central themes.

May I slightly change your question. What I think you seek is community ( as children we equated this to friends ).

So how do we find community with safety. Slowly carefully. And remember to be the person you would want to find. Meaning be kind and gentle and considerate not because you need to be but because you are.

Well this is a fascinating question skewer heart.

Much to my great shame I’m a little straight. Having only one relationship with another bloke and we did it mostly for “ shock value “. I was young and very dumb and it shocked no one.

Now with this caveat being established I find my answer most surprising.

Yes I would absolutely date him. We have tons in common and he’s very talented which is dead sexy. I suspect we’d be great friends which is a must these days hit me to date

Sad roles virtue road but a secondary character that makes their choices for some greater good.

I was going to give you a flip answer instead I’ll answer honestly.

I played an awful lot of sports growing up Football tennis. Cricket. Cross country running. Football was my fav probably because it was my best sport.

But perhaps you mean board games. I love monopoly and chess. But my fav is a game called diplomacy. It takes hours and hours to play and you can not win without forming alliances and then when the time is right brutally betray your allies.

Computer games I like strategy game. Not fond of war/shooting games.

I assume you mean ghosts and not whiskey.

Bothered? Only once

Rewrites are prison jobs of writing.

Often a rewrite is crafted by someone else. An editor or an agent usually their point of view is valid. You the writer is too close too precious with the characters or their actions or your own words.

Someone once asked me why I wrote and I gave a very lengthy response on the very nature of writing as art and art not being what we want to do but being what we must do.

If asked again I would say that writing means never having an argument you will lose as you control both sides.

The truth is probably it lies somewhere in between.

So someone less talented then you or at best differently talented demands changes for the good of the audience.

What do you owe the audience? Do you write for them or for yourself.

Ponder this one for a bit, dear anon.

Part of me wanted to say vampire. But I’m far too full of ennui to be immortal.

Have you ever seen a British show called being human? One of the minor characters was a ghost who was stuck emotionally as an 80’s goth. Something along this But perhaps at a tea house scribbling poems into invisible books or in an old book shop suggesting books to people who can’t hear me.

My mum is lovely, kind and generous of spirit but also a terrible gossip and gives the worst advice.

She has four sons. I’m neither her favorite nor least favorite

The world is a better place for her being in it.