Phantoms

Introduction

This is a short series of stories based on stories shared with me by Vocal friends. The sixth one is Phantom of the Lake from Dharrsheena Raja Segarran . I am going to go with the Phantom image with this story.

A Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of The Opera is something that has never bothered or attracted me apart from as a kid when it was a horror story / horror film , but in 1986 Andrew Llloyd Webber turned the story into a musical and is now the longest running musical in Broadway history, hitting ten thousand showings in 2012.

The libretto for the musical is that a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House. Not something that has attracted me but I am in a tiny minority here.

The Phantom of the Opera is a novel by French author Gaston Leroux, partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century, and by an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in a production of Der Freischütz. It has been adapted into stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film with Lon Chaney, and Webber's musical.

More Phantom Thoughts And Observations

A Phantom is a ghost, an apparition, an insubstantial thing but has been used to name so many items like cars and aeroplanes. It is a word that appears in everyday verbal communication, often referring to something unknown or unexpected.

They are a great construct for a horror or suspense story because they can do whatever the writer wants.

But Really I Have Nothing More To Say About Phantoms

I am just wondering if I should actually write a story as part of this.

I have written about f The Phantom of the Opera which has really transitioned from book to musical and this piece is inspired by a story called Phantom of the Lake so it should be something different to that, but if I actually did that I would suddenly have to extend this and it would maybe be a bit weird.

I suppose this is part of my creative process, I go into things, often not knowing how it will turn out, but I know I have the ability to actually create things and that people will sometimes enjoy them.

I have had in the past brushes with phantoms but their very nature means that you cannot capture any evidence of them. You can’t photograph them and they don’t leave traces apart from a feeling of disturbance in whatever or whoever they are haunting. Animals are also meant to be sensitive to ghostly apparitions as well so they can alert you to things like that.

I am thinking of including incidents that I have already written about, but that would be repeating myself, so I won’t do that. I also think that I see things and read things wrongly so do a double take. I have seen figures in my house and when I am walking caused by light and vehicles passing, and sunlight and moonlight, but I know people who would say what I see is real but I know that is just an optical illusion. Our eyes cannot see everything so our brain fills in the missing bits, so it is no wonder that people see ghosts and phantoms.

In Conclusion

Sorry if this was a bit mind wanderry but it is the way I write and maybe I will have tweaked a little interest from you.