s.s howler {was it casual?}

“Lemke’s lips twisted. “I don’t need her back. Justice ain’t bringing the dead back, white man. Justice is justice. You want to get out of here before I fix you wit something else. I know what you and your woman were up to. You think I doan have the sight? I got the sight. You ask any of them. I got the sight a hundred years.”
― Richard Bachman (Stephen King), Thinner

“That’s right, isn’t it?” Harry urged him. “You died, but I’m talking to you. . . . You can walk around Hogwarts and everything, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Nearly Headless Nick quietly, “I walk and talk, yes.”
“So you came back, didn’t you?” said Harry urgently. “People can come back, right? As ghosts. They don’t have to disappear completely. Well?” he added impatiently, when Nick continued to say nothing.
Nearly Headless Nick hesitated, then said, “Not everyone can come back as a ghost.”
“What d’you mean?” said Harry quickly.
“Only . . . only wizards.”
“Oh,” said Harry, and he almost laughed with relief. “Well, that’s okay then, the person I’m asking about is a wizard. So he can come back, right?”
Nick turned away from the window and looked mournfully at Harry. “He won’t come back.”
“Who?”
“Sirius Black.” said Nick.
“But you did!” said Harry angrily. “You came back — you’re dead and you didn’t disappear —”
“Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod,” said Nick miserably. “But very few wizards choose that path.”
“Why not?” said Harry. “Anyway — it doesn’t matter — Sirius won’t care if it’s unusual, he’ll come back, I know he will!”
And so strong was his belief that Harry actually turned his head to check the door, sure, for a split second, that he was going to see Sirius, pearly white and transparent but beaming, walking through it toward him.
“He will not come back,” repeated Nick quietly. “He will have . . . gone on.”
“What d’you mean, ‘gone on’?” said Harry quickly. “Gone on where? Listen — what happens when you die, anyway? Where do you go? Why doesn’t everyone come back? Why isn’t this place full of ghosts? Why — ?”
“I cannot answer,” said Nick.
“You’re dead, aren’t you?” said Harry exasperatedly. “Who can answer better than you?”
“I was afraid of death,” said Nick. “I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn’t to have . . . Well, that is neither here nor there. . . . In fact, I am neither here nor there. . . .” He gave a small sad chuckle. “I know nothing of the secrets of death, Harry, for I choose my feeble imitation of life instead. I believe learned wizards study the matter in the Department of Mysteries —”
“Don’t talk to me about that place!” said Harry fiercely.
“I am sorry not to have been more help,” said Nick gently. “Well . . . well, do excuse me . . . the feast, you know . . .”
And he left the room, leaving Harry there alone, gazing blankly at the wall through which Nick had disappeared.
Harry felt almost as though he had lost his godfather all over again in losing the hope that he might be able to see or speak to him once more. He walked slowly and miserably back up through the empty castle, wondering whether he would ever feel cheerful again.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“My name? My name is nothing compared to Orion.”
“No, I love your name. You’ve got tons of nickname opportunities. I got O, and that’s it. Oh, actually, I also had people calling me ‘Oreo’ in high school. Hated that.”
“That’s bad, but at least you didn’t have to deal with ‘Valentino’s Day’ every Valentines Day. I had to ask out my friends’ crushes for them like I was Cupid.”
“I’m so sorry, Cupid.”
“It’s okay, Oreo.”
― Adam Silvera, The First to Die at the End

“Here sits a man, he thought, here sits a man dressed in a mossy green sportcoat purchased at one of the best shops on Rodeo Drive; here sits a man with Bass Weejuns on his feet and Calvin Klein underwear to cover his ass; here sits a man with soft contact lenses resting easily on his eyes; here sits a man remembering the dream of a boy who thought an Ivy League shirt with a fruit-loop on the back and a pair of Snap-Jack shoes was the height of fashion; here sits a grownup looking at the same old statue, and hey, Paul, Tall Paul, I’m here to say you’re the same in every way, you ain’t aged a motherfucking day.”
― Stephen King, It