Chicago is filled with ghosts. Baby ghosts that scream from the bottom of dumpsters. Old ghosts who haunt their own sad apartments. Ghosts that haunt construction sites. Tough guy ghosts. Ghosts that don't take shit from anybody.

The old man sat on the wrought iron bench, a perfect gentleman: bushy sable collar, manicured beard, and monocle. The girl beside him wore a yellow dress with a white pinafore overtop, and she sparkled like a gaslit snowflake.

Making the last fold, Simon watched the origami raptor traipse across the table, tumbling against the already made paper cranes. Two dragons lay scorched after setting fire to themselves.

“I’m about to do surgery,” Francesca said, a daisy-adorned satchel of tools on her shoulder.

“That’s nice.” Her mother flopped a pork loin onto a cutting board.

There was a ghost girl. She talked with the dead. It didn’t do much for her popularity among the cafeteria crowd at her local high school.

It started with the butterflies.

Amelia’s uncle gave her a butterfly-hatching kit for her birthday. Five larvae sat like dead lumps at the bottom of a small cup, until one morning, Amelia woke up to five Painted Ladies.