by Y G Maupin
Birdie turned to Sarah at her right, “So, should we go check on Beryl? Make sure she’s ok and all?” she said, not wanting to leave the house where it seemed all the cool stuff was going on.
“No.” Alice replied to her. “I know from last night she was upset and she takes sleeping pills that are quite a doozy, so she’s probably just still asleep.”
Anesta stepped forward with surprise “Even more reason to check on her, don’t you think? Gods, what if something happened to her in her sleep? She drank at least two bottles herself last night.” Anesta stepped back and took out her cell again and called the funeral home to check in. There were several people on staff overnight and at this time of the day, it should have already been open for at least three hours.
“She’s fine. We’ll catch up to her when we try again later. For now, let’s relax as best we can. T should be here any minute.”
Nine
Across town Calvin had been calling out at the retirement home. “George? Where are you? Hey George?” He wandered among the trees. All of a sudden, an older man poked his head out from behind a cypress. “I’m right here you old fart, what do you want?” Calvin hurried over and watched as the other old man peered through a patio door where retirees were participating in an exercise class.
“She’s not there today. I was waiting to see my girl Lila, but I can’t find her.” He searched the faces of the women, some of them in wheelchairs almost all of them sitting going through arm movements and circling their wrists. Calvin impatiently tapped his shoulder. “Look, I want to talk to you about something and I know that you know what’s going on around town,” he accused him.
The other man spun around.”Ug, not you too. I’m not interested, so go do your trick or treating scaring the bejesus out of people without me. I don’t care!” he shouted, and hurried away to the other side of the building.
Calvin ran to catch up to the older man. “I don’t want you to come with me, I just need your help in understanding what I need to do. Please stop. Dammit man, give me a break I can’t walk as fast as you,” Calvin pleaded.
Being dead he couldn’t have been out of breath, yet he struggled with the other spirit. George stopped, shoulders drooping. Turning around he walked back to the other man. “Fine. Stand up.”
“Oh thank you.”
“Shut Up”
Calvin was surprised at the other man’s curtness. Why wasn’t he looking forward to the chance to go back?
“Look I know what you want to know. I’m going to tell you how to do it and then you leave me alone, you got that?” he asked, poking Calvin in the belly with his bony finger.
Calvin was still taken aback. “Sure. I got it.”
The older man continued to walk and after about a minute, before he turned around to see Calvin stock still. “You coming?” he asked, turning back. He continued walking to the other side of the parking lot where one of the town's parks was busy preparing for early spring picnics that Sunday. George found a bench and sat down. Calvin shortly joined him after hurrying across the street.
George pulled out a cigar and lit it. No smoke came out of his mouth but it was lit. “Are you sure you should be doing that?” Calvin asked concerned.
“Why, do you think it’ll kill me?” George snapped and put it out on the ground. Calvin flinched. He hated asking George for help. George was the first person he had met when he crossed over, helped him to understand what had happened and the permanency of their situation in their new status of mortality. At first, Calvin cried and pleaded that there had to be a way to get back and that he hadn’t been ready to die. George sat with him and listened. After a while ,when Calvin had finished his sobbing, George explained how their new life would be now that he was no longer able to interact with the living other than to watch them go about on earth until they too passed and made it across.
“But how long will that be?” Calvin asked, sounding like a child.
George shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? To us, it seems like an eternity being away from the living. To them it could be weeks, months. All you can do is watch and wait.”
So Calvin waited. And nothing significant happened. His oldest son had a new child with his wife, a daughter. He saw them bring her home from the hospital. He stood at their window not having mastered that part that allowed the spirits to float through walls yet, he was still new to the whole process. He watched as his old house was put up for sale and eventually sold. All of his belongings sold at a yard sale, and what couldn’t be donated or gifted was left at the curb. He had stood in the gutter rummaging through boxes of old knick knacks and ash trays, broken records and old magazines remembering the first time he had read that edition or listened to the song when it had been in the top forty. This was what was left of his life when he was living, in the trash. Like him, it was forgotten and tossed to make its way to the landfill. He had trudged his way to the backyard of what had been his home and sat on the porch swing, unable to go inside. George had urged him to move on and leave behind the sentimental trappings of the living. And now here he sat across from him. There was an opportunity to go back and the excitement was so strong, the possibility so palpable, that he measured the words as he asked George to help. Calvin didn’t want to anger George again and lose the chance to learn the process.
“Ok. I know that you know how to get across. Just please, please explain what I have to do,” Calvin carefully spoke his words. George looked up from his arms as they were folded across his chest. He had been dead for thirteen years, and every day that went by he was angry that his wife had still not made it to his side.
“First, you’ve got to find someone that is on their way out. It can be anybody. So, if you want to hang out in old folk’s homes or that of the terminally ill, be my guest. You’ll only be a vulture like all the other spirits looking to get back. But those are the hardest trips to catch back. You’d be waiting on their bated breath,” he scoffed at his own joke. “The easiest way is to be there when someone is about to do themselves in.” He let the words sink in and looked at Calvin for a response. Seeing none he continued. “The easiest ones are the ones that are on the edge of ending it all. Maybe, all they need is a little push. You’re going to give them that little push, so to say. To make it across. And once they do, voila, you’re in like Flynn."
George waved his arms like a magician. “Now pay up.” He held out a hand to Calvin. Confused, Calvin reached into his pocket with George bursting out in laughter. “How the hell are you going to pay me, you don’t have any money and I don’t have a way to spend it?” he guffawed, as Calvin withdrew his hand from where a wallet no longer existed, feeling foolish for falling for the trick. Still laughing George stood up and grabbed a stick sending pigeons flying away from the movement.
“Understand that when you do make it across, you don’t know who you’ll be or where you’ll end up. And no kids, forgot to add that. Killing kids is a no no, it’s frowned upon so don’t do it. “Calvin nodded in agreement. The very idea of causing a child’s death made him uncomfortable. “Besides, they don’t get to come back,” George said, staring off into the distance, remembering the death of a child he once knew, decades ago.
“Ok, so how do I know that I’ve done it right?” Calvin asked.
George shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. No one comes back or sends a letter to say that they made it over ok and that the weather is fine. All I know is that you leave and you don’t come back until you die again.”
Calvin felt rejuvenated, if only a little, at the prospect of being able to come back to earth alive and doing all that he had meant to do when he had been alive the first time. “Oh and one more thing. Be careful that when you do go across, you’re doing it alone. I’ve heard that others try to piggyback off of your death and make the jump with you. From what they said, it’s a mess and it’s hard to finish the job of crossing over. So, make sure you’re alone and then let whatever happens, happen.” George started to walk away. “That
’s all I know, so go on now and you can leave me alone. I’ve got better things to do.” Calvin stood up and awkwardly waved goodbye to the spirit that didn’t care one way or the other what Calvin did. With a skip in his step, he walked east to get closer to the town he had grown up in. He had an idea of who he might want to see.
“Is she dead?”
“How would I know, we’re both here, aren’t we? No one hasn’t gotten to move on? No, I think she just passed out again. Those damn drugs. Either she doesn’t take enough or she's too heavy to make a difference, I don’t know.” Two spirits were leaning over the slumped body of Beryl, on the cool tile of her kitchen in her condo. Her last vision was of a spirit couple drifting into her home after catching them eavesdropping on her. In life Todd and Carla were married. Since they had perished together accidentally last year in a boating accident on the lake, they continued their wedded bliss from the other side.
“What are we going to do? I thought she was our best bet,” Carla whined. She didn’t like this woman’s kitchen. Hers had been nicer, even the one in their lake house was nicer than this one. This kitchen was tacky with the trappings of a single woman.
Beryl began to moan.
“Shhh. She’s waking up. Let’s hide and see what we can work with,” Todd said, hurrying over to the hallway leading to the bedroom where the light was dimmer. Carla just stood over Beryl, watching her moan again and struggle to wake up.
“Come on!” Todd hissed. Carla slowly drifted over to where he was standing. “You don’t have to be so bossy. We don’t even know if this is going to work. Also, she’s just one person. We’re two people so we need two bodies to get across.”
Carla looked at her nails. She hoped that whenever she made it over that she found a good nail salon. She had spent the last eight months with the same color and it was getting on her last nerve.
“Look, we’ve got to go with what we know. And I remember seeing this woman at the pharmacy every time we were there. I mean, every time. She has no life, I mean, look at this place.” Todd gestured to the condo that was stuck in the 90’s in décor. “She’s obviously alone. You never see anyone come over. She has TWO CATS,” he emphasized, and floated further down the bedroom. “We’ve never seen her have sex with anyone. It’s pathetic.” He floated back from Beryl’s bedroom. Carla passed him in the hallway to sneak around in the bedroom. It was only recently that they had figured out how to squeeze through walls and doorways, for some reason windows were too difficult to pass through. It may have had something to do with the porosity. Since they had been dead, they spent most of their time near the lake, watching other people have fun and sometimes die. The deaths were most common in the summer and when there were floods and men, it was usually men, insisted on fishing in the flood water. Todd and Carla had been in their early thirties when they had passed over, having been married and childless for five years. Todd hadn’t cared one way or the other, he had been enjoying life, but Carla had cared. She watched all of her girlfriends get married and balloon with child after child while she stayed slim. And childless. She was torn either way, which to her, meant that it was good that they hadn’t had kids at that point. Besides, their child would have died with them that afternoon had they had one.
Louder moans came from the kitchen and the heavy steps as Beryl got up, drank the water in her glass and shuffled into the living room. Her cats were hiding behind her palm tree and were watching her and the spirits that Beryl didn’t know were still around. To her she had hallucinated it all. Suddenly, her cell rang. Beryl moaned, “I just sat down, god damn.” struggling to get back up from the couch. Now where did she leave her cell? Looking around for where the sound was coming from she locked eyes with Todd and now Carla appeared behind him. Beryl remembered that they were the same people that had been in her window then in her kitchen. They looked familiar in a way, she had seen them several times before but she couldn’t place the faces or circumstances. All she knew at that point was that they were dead. She remembered they were dead, not only because of gliding through the wall part, but because she was now starting to remember the hoopla in the news last year when they had died in the lake. It was all coming back to her now. Seemingly perfect couple that had it all, dying while boating intoxicated. They had a prescription drug addiction and Beryl remembered being questioned about how often they were coming in. She was clean in her interactions with them, although she had noticed that they alternated picking up their sedatives when the prescription was presented. But they were definitely dead and now they were in her house. In a panic, Beryl backed away and ran into her coffee table, breaking right through it like an old western saloon fight. The cats scattered from their hiding spots as Beryl screamed louder, until she passed out from the fear again. Todd and Carla stood over her body for the second time in the last half hour. Looking at each other, Todd motioned with his head and Carla followed him out the front door and down to the other condos near the lake.
Ten
The ladies sat with either coffee, tea or a stronger drink in their hands, waiting to see whether they should start or not. The serving woman popped her head in without opening the sliding doors and caused them all to jump.
“I’m so sorry.” Apologizing, she materialized the rest of her body to the side where they all sat. “Are you sure that no one is hungry? I made fresh biscuits and I made wonderful eggs and red eye gravy to go with them,” she offered, hoping to entice them to eat. They slowly shook their heads and Sarah spoke up, “No dear, we’re not ready at this time to eat. Perhaps something closer to brunch will be better.”
The spirit appeared confused. “Brunch? Is that like lunch? I’ve never heard that word before, let me see what I can make.” And with that, she drifted back through the sliding doors that adjoined the kitchen.
They all turned to each other wide eyed holding their breath. Alice and Birdie gulped their drinks. Finally, T and Sharon walked in and they all breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank the stars you are here. Now we can start,” Alice said.
An hour later ,Alice had finished with her part. Sarah had contributed here and there, but Alice did most of the talking, utilizing her skills as a former trial lawyer presenting her case. T and Sharon sat in shock on opposite sides of the room--neither saying a word. Birdie played with the cat and Anesta was pacing on the far side by the window, every now and again checking outside as if the new people were sure to arrive at any moment.
“Alright, let me get this straight,” Sharon responded, sounding very much like her husband, the police officer, talking to unruly teens. “You’re saying that spirits have figured out how to come back, get in the bodies of people and start living again? How? I mean, how long has this been going on and is it everywhere, I mean, is this happening in China, Australia, the Netherlands?” She was confused.
“We don’t know yet.” Alice answered, but Anesta spoke up. “I do.” She said quietly stepping forward for her turn at bat. “I’ve been talking to my sister since about five this morning.” T inhaled quickly and her hand flew to her mouth. Spirits of loved ones were contacting their earthly relatives as well?
“Most of you know already that my twin sister died when she was about ten-years-old. She had drowned at a swimming pool party. My clairvoyance only manifested itself after puberty, so it was weak at that age. Apparently hers not only bloomed, it fast forwarded at death. Add to that the ability to slip between worlds. She’s traveled and spoken with many other spirits and all of this from what they have gathered seems to have started six months ago. The veil is thinner in this area. It’s what allows us to practice and find success a little bit better than other novice witches.” At this, Birdie sat up to protest but stopped when Alice shook her head.
Anesta continued. “It took several months of observation, interviews or interrogations depending on the cooperation of the others and they boiled it down to two different actions. First, there is a way for a spirit to get loose from the world of the afterlife. They just need to co
nvince someone to give up their life here on earth.” Sharon sucked in air so quickly at the thought. Suicide! Anesta looked at her and continued. “They have to be directly responsible for causing that person to take their life. Or, take the life of another.” At this Anesta paused for effect. That was one of the bigger concerns that her sister had explained to her.
“Spirits, despite having lost their bodies, can still make their presence known. They can be suggestive and they can move things in a room. They can make people believe they’re losing their minds, hence the whole killing themselves part.” She pointed out. “But another thing that is easier for them to do, is just to invade a body and use it to accomplish their will. A possession for a time. Anjolie said they had only witnessed it to last about ten or fifteen minutes. The majority of the spirits that are interested to come back aren’t as strong because they tend to be newly dead. Like a year or less.” She stopped to take a sip.
T jumped in to ask, “So, possession and suggested suicide. That’s just great. What can we do about it? I honestly have no idea what our role is in this whole process. It sounds like we need to be more aware of our surroundings and, I don’t know,” she ended, exasperated. “This is just too confusing as to what we have to do, or even if there is anything to do.”
Sarah softly chided, “We have to think of something. Think of the consequences. Imagine someone being possessed as they’re driving down the street and they mow down a crowd of youngsters while taking their own life. People that you thought were healthy and happy all of a sudden goaded into killing themselves all for the senseless desire for a do over.”