short fiction · 2026-10-30

Excavation

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The philologist's brush moves slow. Each word a shard: phantom from phantasma, thing seen but not there; specter from specere, to watch, to look at; wraith from Old Scots, no certain root, a gap in the record where a meaning used to live. Apparition — ad + parere, to appear before, to come into view. Revenant — revenir, to come back. The dead return in the grammar that names them.

She catalogues the strata: breath becomes spirit, home becomes haunt, sight becomes specter. Each derivation a layer of ash over fire. The deepest layer has no word — only the pressure of something that refused to leave, pressing up through centuries of speech until it hardens into ghost.

She sets down the brush. The dig site is her own mouth. Every utterance stirs the dust.