
        from FUGUE FOR AN OCTOBER AGE                             GHOSTS  5
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        way the fire was.  Mr. Crane, I'm telling you, they were ghosts."
             Visibility is extremely poor.  Tires  squeal  as  I go around a
        curve in the wrong lane.
             "Aunt Ginny, you saw them.  Weren't they ghosts?"
             "We don't know what they were," Ginny says.
             "And how about that man?  And what was he doing with that old
        blanket?"
             "It  was  almost as though he was mocking us, wasn't it?" Ginny
        says.
             "Mocking us?  How do you mean, mocking us?"
             We come to a stop sign, then to  another  road, this  one  with
        guard  rails  and a glittering white divider stripe.  I ease forward,
        not sure which way to turn.  A trailer  truck  crashes  through  the
        darkness  in  front  of  us, missing us by inches, air horns blaring,
        undercarriage obscured by clouds of swirling mist.
             "Aunt Ginny, how do you mean, mocking us?"
             "There's  no way of knowing, of course" Ginny says, "but he re-
        minded me of something I read once."
             "Oh?  Like what?"
        
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