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May you write your magnum opus and find your new favorite story in 2026!

Ghosts Are Jerks

By: Richard M. Sanders

Dr. Polansky’s sleep study discovery shattered medical understanding.

Ghosts were real, and they were absolute pricks.

Jimmy the ghost snickered, hovering over Patient 47. “Hey, Tommy, check this out… Sleep apnea!” He inserted two ghostly fingers up the patient’s nose while his buddy Tommy jabbed phantom fingers into the patient’s ears.

“The living suck,” Tommy giggled. “Douchebags.”

The research team watched helplessly through new interdimensional spectral cameras as centuries of medical mysteries unraveled. Insomnia, night terrors, even that weird feeling of falling while drifting off—all pranks by dead a-holes with eternity to kill.

Even death hadn’t improved their personalities.

© 2025. Richard M. Sanders

Richard M. Sanders is a neurodivergent writer from Taunton, Massachusetts. He studied writing with Gary K. Wolf, author of “Who Censored Roger Rabbit,” and lives with his wonderfully neurospicy family, who inspired him to start writing again.

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