It’s a fact that Tuesday at one-fifteen in the afternoon is the least haunted time of day. It doesn't matter who died at that time and day, or how many. It’s just a very quiet time and day for that kind of thing. I’m not really sure why, but I just know it is. In fact, if you can prove me wrong, I'd happily admit what a fool I just made of myself in a new edition of this book. I'm that confident. Your question probably is “How could you be so confident about the lack of apparitions appearing on Tuesday afternoons?"

  It's a good question, if only by virtue of being the only sensible question to ask. I suppose that's what this story is about. I used to be a ghost, you see. From the day I took my first breath up until I moved into that infernal trailer park. It seemed an innocent enough place to live. To haunt with my, I guess, presence? If you could call it that. To be left alone to wander the grounds, unseen.

  That's the type of ghost I used to be. Not incorporeal per say (well, eventually.), but a quiet and invisible type of corporeal entity. No one ever really saw me, and I think I liked it that way. I was very much the type of entity you might find yourself arguing about with one of your more logical friends, debating whether or not I existed at all. The chilling feeling of being watched while you’re minding your own business. That sort of pained, human sound you know you heard but could never find the source. That vague shape you could have sworn occupied the empty desk in the cubicle beside you, but you could never really describe because you never really saw it.

  Of course, your friend would explain it all away by saying people have those feelings all the time. That isn’t just nerves. Maybe some internal dilemma you are refusing to face, so you conjured up some manifestation in your own mind to explain the unsettling feeling you have, turning it into someone who isn’t really there at all. That it’s not a someone, but your own mind refusing to face something unfaceable. (Is that a word?) That there is nothing supernatural about it at all.

  They'd be wrong. We both know that. I always existed. Not in the way everyone else did, but in the way most don't, or don't care to see.

  I saw so much more than I probably should have. I never shared any of it—not until now. Only now because I know exactly how pointless it all actually was. By “it” I am referring, of course, to my previous ghostly existence. So pointless, in fact, I doubt it would even make sense for you to waste time trying to prove me wrong about Tuesday afternoons. But who am I to keep you from trying?

  Nothing but a former ghost.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  But it isn't just ghosts that are real. That wouldn’t make sense. Everything is real. It's as real as you think it is, or as unreal as you don’t believe it to be—I guess. The wolf-men, the undead, skeletons (not the normal variety, the talking sort), succubuses (succubi?), sea monsters, bed monsters, talking heads (the disembodied ones, not the band. Though the band is also real. I love “Psycho Killer.”), witches, vampires, curses, and even angels and demons. It's all very, very real.

  Super real.

  Like, I can’t stress that enough. So go find that one friend, tell them I said to stop thinking and start feeling, and maybe they’ll finally find enough brains in their heart to see all the unseen they have been refusing to see all this time. It’s a mouthful, but they need to hear it.

  It’s like a teacher of mine once said. Not to me exactly, but near me; to other students that weren’t me.

  “There’s being smart, and there’s being intelligent. Smart can only get you so far.”

  Then, of course, students would tell him that was dumb. Or they’d nod like they understood but make a face when they walked away that said, “huh?” One time a kid even said, “And you’re neither.” That little shit got detention.

  Anyway, I understood exactly what he meant, even if he never said it to me. I was born with a heart full of brains. I felt everything, and being connected like that allowed me to see clearly. All of it. Perhaps that’s what made me such a successful ghost for most of my life.

  Right about now you’re probably wondering what a heart brain is. That’s just what I always called it. Most people, I eventually learned, call it the “mind’s eye.” Which is ridiculous. Minds are for thinking. You can certainly think you saw something supernatural, but when you know you did, that feeling comes from your heart. Your heart knows. Your heart brain does far more than most people admit, and if you let it sort things out for you more often, you might be surprised what it learns to understand. THAT’S when you’ll start to see things clearly. Not just normal things, like who your friends really are or if that bartender is actually into you or just fishing for tips.

  You’ll see so much more than that. All the things, dare I say.

  Well, with practice. Even being born a ghost with a pretty sizable heart brain, even I didn’t see ALL the things. But eventually I did, and that’s what this story is all about. I know earlier I said it was about me being a ghost. It’s about that too.

  I’m sure, by now, you just want me to get on with it. To stop blabbering about myself and start digging into the meat of this corpse that is my former life. Everyone is always eager to hear about supernatural stuff.

  So, here we go.

  Per se. Amir said “se” isn’t a word. That people “say” things. They don’t “se” them.

  Nope.

  This list was originally three times longer. I strongly insisted we keep the list trimmed to iconic supernatural creatures. Werewalrus, not being one of them.

  He insisted contradictions are “for shadowing”. They are not.