MHI: GHOSTS OF PROPRIUM by Slade Templeton

Trigger Warning: This piece addresses mental health

The HWA is pleased to launch its Mental Health Initiative, a coordinated roll-out of events, resources, and activities intended to promote positive mental health, foster the concept of hope, and challenge the stigma of mental illness in the horror genre. The initiative, run by the organization’s Wellness Committee, launches in June, and includes the following blog posts from Of Horror and Hope, a downloadable anthology of poems, flash fiction, and personal reflections on mental health by HWA members.

GHOSTS OF PROPRIUM
Slade Templeton

The pen struck the page, slashing at the white nothingness with ink blots surrounding the letters like pools of forgotten blood. Although a ghost was there—I felt it—the letters weren’t telling me much.
“Is this even my hand holding this pen?” I said, turning to a blank page.
The part of me that wrote was always invisible. The spirit hand. As I wrote, my mind twisted into some forgotten truce of what could and couldn’t be.
Focusing on the dots my pen slapped onto the page, I tapped them into geometric patterns.
“It’s always impossible to understand what I want to say.”
Slowly I ripped another failed attempt out from the metal rings and folded it neatly for the trash can.
“These words are as hard for me to read as emotions on someone’s face. Forget the pen,” I muttered, grabbing my laptop.
The machine’s interior blades spun, pushing out heat. Soon I was sweating beads, wishing I had my own exhaust fan, even though it would slice my intestines to shreds.
“You’re so literal. Why do you see everything so literally?”
The typing began; I noticed the rhythmic sounds before I saw the words. Letters emerged and the story started to make sense. The ghosts on the page were revealing themselves.
“How can I find this feeling with a mind so bent?”
The ghost let go of me just enough to let the narrative take form. As I resumed typing, the words slanted.
Anxiety became my second breath.
Autism was my first.
“This could have written itself.”
And it just had. This is Autism, my ghost, leaving me with a broken mind but a beautiful curse.