GHOST STORIES

0.
After there are rumors of ghosts in the canoe shed by the lake, my best friend and I sit on the dock on a night with no moon. I say to him, I do not believe in ghosts, and he says, neither do I, except for here.

1.
At the end, my best friend stumbles into the woods with his best friend (a young woman) and they have tearful sex. She loves him and he does not love her but he says anyway, I love you, because he has had too much to drink and because in that moment it seems easier and maybe even as exacting as what he really means. Except now she has ghosts of her own to deal with.

2.
I sit in the parking lot drinking with a different friend, one from high school. I say, man, what a summer, and he says, you have become a reminder of what I once was and so I'd like this to be the last time we see one another.

3.
In the morning I wake up on the shore with a monster headache and a gritty mouthful of sand, and Stephen, a maintenance guy who has been here forever, is pulling up lane lines at the end of the dock in the yellow morning sun. He has gray hair and a heavy Maine accent, and when I ask him if he believes in ghosts he just spits into the lake and says, I guess I do.