First thorts on the prompt

[AnthonyEden]

First impressions of the prompt: that’s a really neat, evocative photo! The smoke looks so tangible it could be sheep's wool! And then there's the hooded jacket, which somehow blends the mysterious with the contemporary. It looks modern, but not.

I think of smoking, of growing up in a world of hazy restaurants and coffee shops, where the nicotine-laden smoke hung heavy in the air, so thick you could barely see people across the room. It lent the world a noxious odour that clung to the walls, the upholstery, the curtains, but everyone was used to it. The stench was expected, something you got used to. I'm thinking that, even though the cigarette smoke of my childhood gave those dimly lit spaces an otherworldly glow, there was something comforting and familiar about it too. My grandmother smoked, my dad smoked (and still does), and a friend of the family smoked cigars. The smell of it wasn’t all bad, because it was - strange though it might sound - homely. It went hand in hand with home cooked meals and old tunes playing on the radio in the kitchen, with coffee and picnics and days spent out in the sun.

I'm thinking this mysterious character isn't necessarily all bad, either. Rather, it's something out of a Swedish folk tale. WIth very few exceptions, the supernatural beings of Swedish myth treated mortals the way mortals treated them: they weren't inherently good or bad. If they were shown respect, they returned the favour. But if you crossed them, there would be Hell to pay (even if, you know, they had nothing to do with Christian myth. Some co-mingling or conflation is to be expected (folklore tells people how to act while they're still alive, while religion tends to be more concerned with the afterlife).

So who is this guy, then? A lantern-man? A gast? A ghost or someone familiar? The distinction is important: a ghost (sp?ke) was reserved for a revenant of unknown identity, such as a headless corpse walking the land, or spooky shadows lurking at the edge of your vision. But when you knew the identity of the deceased, they were someone who 'walked again'.

I’m thinking this will be a ghost story. And I’m just going to pants it, because oops, it's Friday already >_>