ANNOUNCEMENT - LAST MINUTE REMINDER!!! Entries for the "Desperate Ends" Winter anthology are due tomorrow - NO EXCEPTIONS! Remember that Cia has temporarily taken over anthologies so please let her know if you have any trouble posting your submissions.

Thanks to our Prompt-guru Comicfan, we bring you two great new prompts:

Prompt 190 – Creative
Tag – The Note
You came home to find a note that listed everything about you, including your last lover, and where you hide your toys. There isn’t a thing listed in that note that is wrong. The bottom line tells you to meet the sender tonight at a very private and expensive club. You are even told what clothing of yours to wear. Do you go?

Prompt 191 – Creative
Tag – The Holiday
Describe your perfect holiday.

Hmmm - two totally different but interesting prompts. I can't wait to see where people go with them. Try your hand at one (or both) - but when you do, share it with the community in our Writing Prompts Forum!

So - Prompt 189 gave a premise:

You moved into your new place a few weeks ago. You fell in love with this classic old building the moment you seen it. Once you thought you had the whole place the way you wanted it you noticed something was off. Things kept being moved around, furniture rearranged, and even pictures moved to different rooms. At first you were willing to think maybe you were just that forgetful but as you describe your new place to someone who has lived in this town their whole life you get a different story. Your new home is the site of a famous murder and it is suspected to be haunted. Who is your ghost?

And while Mark92 has a great take on this, I think joann414's revenge - um, I mean alternate take made me smile quite a bit more.

I hope you enjoy it as well - it is is in it's entitirety:

Cassie dropped her boxes to unlock and door and said," Look on the bright side. We got it for half of what it was worth and they had done all of the repairs that were needed. Stuby even hired someone to clean it before we moved in. The only drawback is having those two idiots as neighbors."

" Having them as neighbors is bad enough, but that haunted crap still bothers me. After all, Mark admitted a few wierd things happened in the six months that they were here. Let's put the last of the boxes upstairs and light a fire and eat our pizza in front of it. There's a couple of bottles of wine in the fridge that KC sent over by Mark as a housewarming gift."

" Sounds good to me girl because I am tired from lugging these damn boxes all day. The unpacking can wait." Cassie replied.

A couple of hours later the two girls had finished the pizza and the first bottle of wine. Pushing herself up from the floor, Cassie took the empty pizza box to the kitchen and retrieved the other bottle of wine. Pouring both glasses full, she clinked hers to Jo Ann's and said, " Here's to perfect roommates and new beginnings." She jumped when she heard a loud thump from upstairs. " Those guys better not be in this house trying to scare us. If they are, they are going to have hell to pay.

Jo Ann got up to retrieve her pistol from her purse, hoping that it was the guys so that she would not have to use it. Tip-toeing up the stairs, the two half drunk girls stopped when they heard noise coming from one of the bedrooms. Opening the door of the room a frigid wind greeted them because the window and shutters were open. Hurrying across the room to shut them Cassie shrugged and said, " I guess we left it open when we were airing everything out yesterday."

Staggering a little as they went back down stairs, the dug out their sleeping bags, grabbed a pillow off the couch, and settled in front of the fire to watch tv and finish the wine. After an hour or so, the sound of glass shattering tore the girl's attention from their Christmas movie. Putting the wine glasses on the hearth, both headed to the kitchen, tiptoeing as carefully as two drunks could tiptoe. Jerking the door open, Cassie and Jo Ann gasped when they saw the tall whispy man standing in their kitchen. " Who are you and what do you want?" Jo Ann demanded.

Turning toward them, the man replied. " What happened to the two guys that lived here? I got to live out my wildest fantasies watching them every night and now they are gone. Please, I am in limbo and until I can find happiness and contentment, I will not be able to crossover to the other side. I was the victim of a homophobic hate crime and my soul was finally finding peace when the boys moved in and I got to watch them live happily the kind of life that I had wanted for myself."

Jo Ann and Cassie looked at each other, both fighting tears at the spirit's admission having no doubt of the validity of his story. Both reached for his hand, eyes widening when their fingers only passed through his, not feeling anything. Motioning for the spirit to follow them, they led him to the big picture window in the side wall of their kitchen. Drawing the drapes, Cassie and Joann pointed to the newly built cabin a couple of hundred yards away that was brightly lit with multi-colored Christmas lights around the edge of the roof and had a large decorated pine on the front lawn. Following the apparition out onto the front porch of their house, they could hear the loud Christmas music coming from Mark and Stuby's house and even see the two of them through the window as they danced happily to a catchy rendition of " Rockin Around the Christmas Tree." The ghost danced happily toward the house and the two girls dropped their wine glasses onto the porch as he danced right through the logs into the boy's cabin.

The next morning Cassie turned in her sleeping bag to see Jo Ann putting wood on the fire. " Was it a dream, or did it really happen?"

" It really happened. We gave our ghost to Mark and Stuby. " Merry Christmas to the three of them."

" Mimosas?" Cassie asked.