Ghosts Next Door

Ghosts Next Door
by Lopaka Kapanui

Feb 28, 2022

Feb 25, 2022

Lākou 2022

They were a part of the beautiful silence of Māha'ulepū before too-curious tourists began to arrive.

Feb 24, 2022

Feb 23, 2022

Story 2022

Often times when one is in the presence of a master, what they impart to you is secondary to the mana they impart with the lesson.

Feb 22, 2022

Who 2022

 Let me organize my thoughts so that I can clearly convey the matter of which I am about to transpose to paper, so to say.

Feb 20, 2022

Legend 2022

Why would you stand in front of a mirror and repeat something like bloody mary or record a video in the mirror hoping that someone else in the bathroom other than yourself would suddenly manifest?

Feb 19, 2022

Perspective 2022

Our office occupies an entire floor at the state building on Punchbowl.

Feb 18, 2022

Help 2022

Sharelle Embrocia tells me that her car ran out of gas on an unfortunate late night on that long stretch between the Waipio uka off-ramp and the one to Mililani mauka.

Feb 16, 2022

Sidi 2022

When we first moved into our home in Waipahu, our little corgi mix immediately took to resting and sleeping under our bed.

Feb 15, 2022

Jobs 2022

The old Blockbuster video had a few ghosts in it, that's for sure.

Feb 14, 2022

KEWPIE 2022

Bohemians from California are what they called themselves upon meeting people here on ʻOʻahu while making introductions.

Feb 11, 2022

Far 2022

No matter how far I drive, how long the road, how many hours, the length of time.

Feb 9, 2022

Sikki 2022

Nick, of all people, was entirely unaffected when Daddy Sikki passed away.

Feb 8, 2022

Doula 2022

Colon cancer didn't make me cry with self-pity or make me mad because it came at an inopportune time.

Feb 7, 2022

Make'ole 2022

He achieved immortality through kūpaku, a ceremony where someone who has died has their spirit captured and put back into their body.

Feb 6, 2022

Mood 2022

Deep, low, and brooding, the cello sonata filters through the open garden of the Mānoa mansion on an early noon Sunday. The occupants are not moving about as much as they are retrieving bottles of wine to fill their glasses and other tiny morsels of food to private places on the large property where they can sit quietly with a book or a suite of music playing on their iPods. It isn't that they are anti-social; it's because it's Sunday, a day of reflection and quiet. Others are yet asleep in their beds, having turned in late the previous evening, knowing that there were no pressing matters the following day. Yet a few more are aroused to make love while still half asleep, and even then, when they've reached their crescendo, they lay languid, slowly moving out of bed. Celia Wong sits in the atrium with the cello between her legs treating the instrument as an intimate companion, knowing the right way to press the strings to the fingerboard so that it would yield forth the cries of ecstasy that would pierce the air and cause the birds high up in the trees to weep. She came every Sunday at the prick of noon, just she and her cello, walking through the seven-acre property and through the old abandoned mansion until she reached the atrium, which connected the front part of the home to the larger, more gothic second part. The atrium had otherworldly acoustics, which made the sound of her cello fill the entirety of the space. It was as if a whole new dimension came to being. Her friends warned her not to go there because of the property's reputation for being haunted. Celia paid them no mind and went anyway. The mansion burned down with all its sleeping occupants inside; they were all asleep after a large party the night before. There was liquor, weed, harder drugs, and much debauchery. When the hour approached early noon, a fire broke out and spread quickly, killing everyone inside. The ghosts that Celicia's cello brought forth might have been the manifestation of what each person intended to do the following day. Although each occupant never lived to do it, perhaps their intentions survived their physical death? It couldn't have hurt that Celia's cello music made the process easier. Strange that those apparitional spirits never bothered Celia herself? Perhaps it was because Celia was literally the instrument they could live through, if only for the length of an early Sunday noon in Mānoa.



Feb 5, 2022

Kekela 2022

1918 was when the influenza epidemic killed more than 2,300 persons in Hawai'i.

Feb 4, 2022

Doors 2022

Short and to the point, thatʻs what this is so that you donʻt lose focus or get distracted.

Feb 3, 2022

Daphne 2022

She was remembered as someone who felt the world and everything contained with much too much feeling.

Feb 2, 2022

Plans 2022

John Teves was completely brokenhearted when his wife never came home one night after work.

Feb 1, 2022

Podcast 2022

Today I sat for a podcast that featured haunted places and people in specific locales in Hawai'i.