Haunted by Existence

I get the feeling not many people are truly haunted. I know I am. The reason I get this feeling is that my fiction, which clearly reveals evidence of haunting, is always a hard sell. I can’t give it away, at times.

You see, some of us are haunted by life. I recently read a biography of one of my childhood heroes, Rod Serling. The biographer said he wasn’t a haunted man, he just played one on TV. Not that I want anyone else to be haunted, but I felt a little let down by that assessment.

Is there something wrong with admitting being haunted? Like the stigma of mental illness? Why are people so afraid of those who are haunted? I’ve always felt drawn to them. You’d think the internet might be where we could find one another.

Yet I had behind a pseudonym. Why? I’m afraid. I’m afraid to lose my “real job” that I don’t enjoy. Afraid that my family will find out what’s in my head. Afraid that people will reject the haunted along with the specters that do the haunting.

My fiction is what I call existential horror. Others have done it much better, I know. Jorge Luis Borges. Thomas Ligotti. Edgar A. Poe. But they found publishers. They have fans. Until you do you suffer alone. A submission for publication is a cry for help, as Ivan Klima surely knows.

Until you get a publisher nobody knows you’re haunted. It may be that there’s simply no money in it. Tell that to those who make horror films such a success. It takes those who’ve squarely faced existential horror to write it effectively. If life doesn’t make you afraid, as Grandpa said, it’s because you’re not paying attention.

So I continue my haunted existence. What else can I do? The agents and editors blithely send their lissome rejection notes. They are not haunted people. Those of us who are know each other.

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K. Marvin Bruce

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