Review: Horror Short Story: “A Peep at Death” by Peter von Geist

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The narrator of this little tongue in cheek peek into the afterlife is standing by creek near where he is staying one day, taking in the scenery when he hears a the crack of a rifle. Before he has time to do or think of much else, he’s on the ground. The bullet has torn into his heart. He finds he cannot control his limbs. He cannot speak, though his thoughts are clear. He’s quite dead. When the man who shot him comes running up, wild with terror, he realizes he can read hearts as clearly as faces. His killing was accidental. This gave me some comfort; it was so much sweeter to go out of the world thus, than to die by the hand of an enemy. He’s brought to a house and laid on a bed where a coroner examines him and pronounces him quite dead, thinking, all the while about the price of stocks. For such an early piece, this had quite the sardonic attitude. There’s no bitterness. Author Peter von Geist shows people time and again busy with their own concerns. The narrator berates one of the pallbearers for tripping over ever third stone on the way to the churchyard, and the minister for walking too slowly, as if they could hear a word he says. While the prose might be a little stiff and the ending a little sappy, this is a fun, enjoyable story that has otherwise aged quite well. I liked it. I couldn’t find much about author Peter von Geist, although he seems to be associated the The Knickerbocker. And I couldn’t help wondering if his name was a penname, given the subject of the story, as “geist” is German for ghost or sprit, as in poltergeist (literally, “noisy ghost.”) But it could also be the name he got from his mom and dad. This is available at an online photocopy through Google Books: _____ Title: “A Peep at Death” Author: Peter von Geist First published: The Knickerbocker January 1843 Source: ISFDB