Read it here.
I almost didn’t finish the story.
I started writing it soon after The Arcanist (an online flash fiction literary magazine specializing in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror) announced their Ghost Stories contest. I’d already submitted a few stories to The Arcanist and received rejections for each, so I knew this was a long shot. I had an idea I liked, but self-doubt crept in and I abandoned the story about a third of the way through.
A few weeks later, I re-opened the file and remembered why the idea had intrigued me. There are huge problems with disability representation in media, and the problem that bothers me the most is that the story arcs for people with disabilities are usually about them overcoming the disability. It gets old. We disabled people don’t sit around our whole lives trying to overcome disability.
So I wrote a story about a ghost who only focuses on disability and a protagonist who is pretty tired of it. I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.