This is a stop-motion animation I made for my June Project for English class. I wanted to investigate the ideas surrounding ghosts that had appeared in many of the books we read for class (The Things They Carried, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and my term paper book, Station Eleven). My materials were newsprint paper, tracing paper, thread, pen, and pencil, and it was set on the background of a cutting mat. In the animation, I changed the materials and writing style to convey different ideas behind the words, like the changing emotions of the narrator or the motion associated with them.
Text
Coming back it feels as if I’d never moved away. Except now I see the ghosts. I suppose they were always there. I step into the shade under a blue-green awning to recheck the address. It’s only a few blocks from where I used to live.
I walk from sun to shadow to sun. Out of the corner of my eye the windows seem to reflect shapes behind the glass, ghosts in the apartments, staring down at me.
I keep walking. Past the bubble tea place I’d go with friends on the weekend. Past the old deli and the vacant lot, still vacant. And the ghosts keep multiplying. There’s the ghost walking from the subway, the ghost chatting with her friends, the ghost swinging on the empty swing set.
There’s the ghost of every person I could have been if I’d stayed. Ghosts that keep on living, ghosts that don’t know they are dead.
Or maybe I’m the ghost here.