Anonymous

Desuetude

A Ghost Story

The flash fiction of “Desuetude,” containing a strikingly eccentric story of under 280 characters, sits between earlier genres like fin de siècle literature and nonsense poetry and later ones like surrealism and Fortianism. It appeared in February 1914 in the El Paso Herald’s column “The Daily Novelette.” The title means protracted cessation, and is also a legal concept whereby an unenforced law may be abrogated by protracted disuse. The malaise expressed in the story might be familiar to modern readers.

(Editor’s note—We wish to call our readers’ busy attention to a few psychological facts in support of the veracity of this un­usual but absolutely true story. On August 11, 1545, Auguste Stindenpfeifer discovered the remarkable theory that souls, winging their way to heaven at the approximate rate of four million and a quarter miles a second, often contract serious colds as a result of the prodigious rush of air. Late in the year 1456 Felix Shizzilkopf found that if an angleworm is cut in half and the halves removed to opposite ends of the earth, the two pieces, after a day or two, do not seem to miss each other. On the 14th of January, 1654 A. D., it was discovered by Michael Worser, that a Chinese baby of two weeks, if nursed for seven years by a healthy Indian woman, has by that time generally attained the age at which children are commonly admitted into the primary school. Lastly, Raymond Wunker, in the fall of 1765, ascertained that an empty bottle that has been placed by the bedside of a dying man will emit a hollow sound if tapped at certain angles with a piece of ordinary kindling wood.)

Desuetude.

(A Ghost Story.)

“Isn’t Christmas a little early this year!” she said, a trifle nervously.

“Yes,” he answered, “I never remember its coming in May before.”

Darkness closed in on them.