Dates anchor haunting by marking failed alternative futures

Evidence

Haunting is about a staining of place with particularly intense moments of time, and, like David Peace, with whom her work shares a number of affinities, Ford is alive to the poetry of dates. 1979, 1981, 2013: these years recur throughout Savage Messiah, moments of transition and threshold, moments when a whole alternative time-track opens. 2013 has a post-apocalyptic quality (in addition to being the year of the London Olympics, 2012 is also, according to some, the year that the Mayans predicted for the end of the world). But 2013 could also be Year Zero: the reversal of 1979, the time when all the cheated hopes and missed chances are finally realised. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 483

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines haunting as ‘staining of place with intense moments of time’ — a crisp conceptual formulation for ‘ghostly’ research.
• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s broader hauntology project and to historical studies of 1979 as a lost political turn; also resonates with the editor’s own reading on Thatcherite turning points.
• SEED: The idea of a ‘Year Zero’ that reverses a political defeat — 2013 as the reversal of 1979 — could anchor an essay about counterfactual futures keyed to specific dates.