“Holding hands with ghosts,”

is the title of this blog or essay collection or online newsletter or whatever it is. Sort of; it’s a rough translation. ‘Strigoi’ are Romanian boogeymen that are sometimes ghosts, sometimes vampires, sometimes zombies. All versions of them are restless undead souls, some more flesh and blood than others.

For years, and still today, I held the world in my hands. A black, glossy rectangle with a bright white screen, showing me things I’d never otherwise have seen. Text and flashing images of people that aren’t full people, just pictures, and yet they are real, I think, somewhere out there. Here, who is real and who isn’t and how and why they are or aren’t is purely a matter of perspective. The same is true of what they post. All the same, these interactions mostly happened in my head, and whether real or not I carried them, walked with them, held them by the hand. Undead, and never really alive in the first place, displayed in light without heat. Cold comfort. I stumble in the dark, holding hands with ghosts.