Seeking relief from a long concert tour, I took a Sauna in the vicinity of  Oulu, Finland. I was alone and sweating in a dense cloud of steam, when I became aware of another presence. I was uneasy and then something touched the tip of my knee. I gasped and slid away, terrified. Another and then again another probing touch. I was almost out of control with fear. “Who’s there?”, I shouted. No reply came, but the dense cloud of steam began to dissipate. When clear, I saw two pairs of red rimmed, pathetically sad eyes glaring at me. As they hovered in space, bodiless, a vague sense of familiarity overcame me. They were Sanpaku eyes, a sign of misfortune, susceptibility to illness, even lingering, painful death. But there was something else. The sauna was completely quiet when the eyes spoke as one. “We are artist managers”.

The original version of A Ghost Story was submitted to Rick Sacks new web site, http://www.tellmealie.com/