SWITCHING OFF

            The faces flickered past like frames of old film. There was a fly buzzing somewhere in my room. The total silence of everything else made the incessant buzz and thump of the fly butting up against a window almost deafening. I glanced around with a vague thought of swatting the fly, but I couldn’t see it so I didn’t get up.  Instead I returned to the endless stream of faces before me.

            I’d downloaded the app about two months ago. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Of course, given the function of the app, I knew that I was looking for some kind of connection, romantic in nature, details to be determined.

            As I flicked through the countless faces, countless teeth and tongues and middle fingers, the same thought ran through my head like a skipping record.

            This isn’t healthy.

            Two seconds or less on each face, dismissing whole people with lives and thoughts and fears with a swipe of my thumb. Doesn’t drink? Gone. Drinks too much? Gone. Forehead too big? Gone. Face tattoos? Gone. Loves Trader Joe’s? Gone.

            This can’t be healthy.

            Maybe I was being too picky. My own profile wasn’t going to stop any presses. Dylan Jones, age twenty-five, unemployed but seeking. Buried in college debt. Social drinker, regular smoker. Interests include books, classical music and trying new foods.

            Christ, if I saw me on the app, I’d swipe past without a second thought too.

            Haze. There was a ringing in my ears. It grew gradually, rising towards a breaking point, and still my face and body wouldn’t move. I lay, sprawled on my ragged second-hand sofa, wailing internally.

            The fly, buzzing and beating against the window, created the rhythm which was my being.

            The thing which finally roused me from my paralysis was—always was—cigarettes.

            I got off the sofa, found the pack of Marlboro No. 27 Blends which had fallen from my pocket and checked to make sure I had my lighter. I left my phone, which was still charging, plugged into my speaker. I stepped out of the apartment. I was on the first of three floors, and there was a common area which was smoke-friendly only about twenty feet from my door. From there, as I lit my cigarette, I could still hear my music faintly through the window of my studio. More importantly, I would be able to tell if the music suddenly got softer, meaning that there was a notification on my phone. As I smoked, I listened intently. Debussy poured consistently through my window panes. No pause. I knew, even as I listened, what I was listening for. The absence of notifications made me feel pathetic; pathetic for hoping, pathetic for listening, pathetic for not even being able to take a five minute break to smoke without thinking about it.

            I smoked three-quarters of the cigarette, snubbed it out in the ashtray which lay on the small round table and went back into my apartment.

            I knew there wouldn’t be any notifications. I’d been listening. But I tried to pretend like I hadn’t been listening, so I picked up my phone and glanced at the screen. Still a blank. I opened it up, checked my email for job leads. Also blank.

            Nothing ever moved these days.

            I lay back on the couch. I left the phone where it was, feeling too lethargic even to pick it up. I was okay. I told myself over and over again. I was okay. I was okay. I was okay. Thousands of people were unemployed right now, with Covid-19 ravaging the country. I had gotten my stimulus check, I was receiving unemployment, I was looking for essential work. I was doing everything I could. I would be alright, just like the country would be alright, just like the world would, eventually, be alright.

            Sometime in the afternoon, I think it must have been around three o’clock but I can’t really be sure, I went out and bought a bottle of bourbon. I didn’t really know why I was doing it. In fact, once I got back to my apartment, I couldn’t even remember which store I’d gone to in order to purchase the liquor. Everything was a blur. Time was a blur. I was a blur.

            I’d left my phone charging on my small coffee table while I went out. When I got back, the stereo was playing a Chopin Nocturne. I liked the piece, so I let it continue. I opened the bottle, got some ice from the freezer and poured myself a drink. Whether or not it was happy-hour somewhere in the world didn’t really matter.

            I got down a tumbler glass and brought it along with the bottle with back to the divot I had made for myself on the cracking leather sofa.

            The Nocturne ended. I poured a drink and took it neat, sipping. I didn’t really feel like getting drunk, but I didn’t want to stay sober either. Keeping with Chopin, the next song on the auto-play list was his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B Flat. The slow hits of the piano rung through the apartment. In the silence between those heavy strikes, I could hear the fly, still going tirelessly at it, buzzing around.

            I finished my first drink before the Sonata was over. I got up for the phone, intending maybe to find some cheerier music. When I opened it, I was startled to see that I had a match on the app. I set down my glass, unplugged my phone from the charger so that I could take it with me back to the sofa. I sat down heavily, eyes glued on the screen. I’d had matches before, but not very many. The conversations with those, when there had been conversations, were shallow and short lived. I found that I never knew quite what to say over text. I felt that I would be better in person, but I couldn’t figure out how to bridge the gap and invite them out to meet me. Nobody had invited me out either, so maybe it was the same for the women on the app. I didn’t know.

            I looked at the profile of the woman who had matched with me. Her name was Sethera, not a name I’d heard before. I wondered if that’s what she went by, or what nickname she could have derived from it. She was a year younger than myself, twenty-four, with wavy dark hair that hung down past her shoulders, dark, rich eyes behind wire frame glasses. I scrolled through her photos. She was laughing, her tongue just barely sticking out through her teeth, eyes squinting in her joy. I could feel the energy of that laughter through the screen of my phone. She had a simple tattoo of a compass on her left inside wrist and a detailed tattoo of a coin on her ankle. Her profile said that she was self-employed, interested in books and mythology, spiritual by religion. There was a darkness that emanated from her in all her photos, even the ones in which she was laughing. It was a darkness that I couldn’t quite understand, not like the sad darkness of the depressed or the raging darkness of the hateful. Something about this woman called to me, reached right out of the phone and took me by the throat. Something in her eyes, as if she knew mysterious, peculiar, secret things which she would not tell. Her photos all portrayed her doing normal, young, fun things. Drinking at a bar with a girlfriend, hiking along a cliff on the California Coast, picking her way through an autumnal pumpkin patch, and still this mysterious energy drew me in and drew me on. What was it about her that made me feel I must meet her? Within seconds it became a necessity to me. I had to meet this woman. I had the feeling that, somehow, everything rode on it. It was all in her eyes, and still I couldn’t really put words or even coherent thought to it.

            While I was thinking all this, the phone buzzed again. She had sent me a message on the app. I was dumbfounded. The women very rarely texted first here, and even when they did, never so immediately. I opened the message.

            “Hey Dylan! I saw on your profile that you like books too. What are you reading right now? Any good recommendations?”

            In the surprise of her texting me first, I suddenly forgot every book I’d ever read. I looked around my apartment in a panic. There were books scattered here and there, little piles of things I’d picked up and started to read, a few that I had finished, some that I had intended to read but never got around to. I hadn’t read anything in the last month or so. My motivation had dropped to almost zero, and every time I’d picked up a book, my eyes went over and over the same few sentences, leaving me with nothing. I replied to her text.

            “Most recently I read The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson.” I said, “Good read, but I liked Fear and Loathing better.” It was true. The Rum Diaries was the last book I’d finished, but I couldn’t really remember how long ago that was. Months, at least. I followed the text with a question, putting the ball back in her court. I didn’t want to let this one slip by being a one-sided texter. “What about you? What are you reading” then, after some thought I added, “and why?”

            She responded right away with “A Wild Sheep Chase by Murakami. I’m actually rereading it for the fourth time because it’s my favorite book. I love magical realism and Murakami pairs it with mystery so well! I can’t get enough.”

            I’d never heard of the book. A quick Google search gave me a confusing summary. Something about a lonely boy and mysterious girl and, for some reason, a sheep-man. Curious.

            I chatted over text with Sethera far into the night. I let the Chopin roll on and on. The sweet, sad suites and nocturnes fit my mood perfectly. Tender, tender is the night. Sethera talked about a lot of things. Politics, art, food, movies, families, vacations, philosophy.

            The text conversation was good, but I still didn’t feel like I could quite connect. Again, something about myself always felt missing in virtual conversation. I couldn’t quite get it down on the little phone screen. I wasn’t as boring as I sounded in the little letters. There was more to me in the flesh, there had to be. Still, Sethera didn’t seem to mind my texting. She responded quickly, personably.

            We texted for a few days, feeling each other out. The more I learned about her, the more questions I had. I got the sense that there was something about her hiding in the shadows, lost in the mist, concealed by her cheerful attitude. There was a secret there, and I wanted to know what it was. She had told me that she was fascinated by mythos, by the occult and the spiritual. Her tone seemed to change when she talked about that. The pert, chipper banter vanished and she was suddenly direct, almost curt. I wanted to find out more, but I didn’t know how.

            We finally crossed the bridge at her suggestion. She said she’d like to get a cup of coffee with me, and asked if I was free that night. I told her I was. Of course I was. I was never doing anything. It was about eleven in the morning when she asked that, and we set plans to meet at a coffee shop about a mile from where I lived. She said she had some things to do that day, something related to her self-employed work, but that she would be free around seven that evening.

            I told her I would see her then, that I was looking forward to it.

            And then I settled in to wait. Over the next eight hours, I don’t think my heartrate ever slowed below 120. I was sweating in spite of the chilly October air and breeze. I smoked incessantly, fuming like a mechanized anxiety generator.  

            At two o’clock I decided to take a nap. I needed to pass the hours, otherwise I’d show up for the date like a nervous wreck. All the time I’d spent alone, waiting for something like this to happen, it had felt like things were taking forever. Now things were going so fast I felt like I couldn’t hold on. I was on the edge of losing my grip. I needed to calm down, take it easy. Breathe.

            I took off my clothes and lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. The blinds were closed, but the autumnal sunlight crept in through the cracks and created a dim glow that painted the room pale grey. Sleep wouldn’t come. I hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks. I felt that I was never really awake, never really asleep, never really here, never really there. Stuck in the grey area, the in-between. Floating in mist, drifting in a sea of fog. Things happened around me like fever dreams, dreams happened with the grit of daily reality. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

            I lay in bed and thought about Sethera. Maybe she was a dream. Maybe she was something I had made up in my quiet desperation, a subconscious answer to my loneliness, my longing for connection. Dream or not, I would be at the coffee shop at seven. Dream or not, I was going to meet this woman. The feeling came back, stronger than ever, that it was immensely important I meet her. She would tell me something, teach me something, show me something. She was going to touch me. I could feel it already, touch me in ways I had never been touched. Like maybe she would touch me for the first time in my life. Really touch me.

            I was floating in and out of the dream, laying on the bed, drowning the pale sunlight. A fly buzzed. Maybe it was two. There was no way of knowing if it was the same one from before or if it had found a way out and others had come to fill the vacuum it left. The sound droned on and on, like a distant radio tuned to a static station.

            I must have dozed. It was six o’clock before I knew it. I got up, took a shower, dressed. I pulled on a sweater and my suede jacket, trying to look both dressy and casual at the same time. I left for the coffee shop at a quarter till. It was only about a five minute walk from my apartment, but I didn’t want to be late.

            The coffee shop was cozy and humid in the chill October evening. Walking in, I was greeted by the hum and whir of the espresso grinder, the smell of coffee beans, aromatic teas, hot water. I looked around. I couldn’t see Sethera anywhere, but it wasn’t easy to tell. Everyone waiting for drinks was wearing a mask. I was looking for dark hair and glasses, for an approximate build, but all I’d seen of Sethera was pictures so who knew? Maybe she’d cut her hair, or her weight had changed or something. Looking around, though, I was pretty sure that she wasn’t in the coffeeshop. I was going to wait for her to order so that I could buy her drink, so I went back outside. There was a little patio seating area with tables and chairs and ashtrays. I didn’t know if Sethera smoked, but I had a pack of Marlboro No. 27’s burning a hole in my pocket and I needed to calm down before she got here. I sat down at a table. There was nobody else on the patio, so I didn’t feel bad about smoking. I took one out and lit up. The first drag was exquisite. Maybe it was the thrill of meeting a new person, a beautiful woman, the anticipation and excitement, but the cigarette hit me differently. I shut my eyes, savoring the mellow flavor. I almost felt alive. Listening, I could hear the sound of evening birds, the gentle rumble of light traffic, the buzzing a few insects. There was no escaping those flies, I suppose.

            I was halfway through my cigarette when someone called my name.

            “Dylan?” A female voice, high without being shrill, silky smooth. I looked up and there she was. She hadn’t put on her mask yet, so I was sure it was her. She looked exactly like her photos. She was wearing a black and white patterned jumper that looked like silk with long pants and three quarter sleeves. The bottoms of her pant legs were pegged and tucked into the mouth of well tended leather combat boots. She wore her hair back, with a black and white bandana tied as a headband. A few curly fly-aways hung appealingly around her face, creating the impression of a dark brunette halo. She was standing on the edge of the patio, peering at me, making sure before she came over.

            “Hi, are you Sethera?” I asked. She nodded and came over towards me. I placed my cigarette in the ashtray and got to my feet. She had her hand out and we shook. She flashed me a smile. A little crooked but genuine and unique.

            “Nice to meet you.” I said.

            “The pleasure’s mine,” she replied, “Shall we go in?”

            “Sure.” I pulled on my mask and followed her into the coffee shop.

            “What do you drink?” she asked, looking up at the menu.

            “I like black coffees, or cappuccinos if I’m treating myself.” I said, “What about you?”

            “Black coffee, usually. Or cold brew if it’s hot out.” she said. When we got to counter, she ordered a black coffee and a cappuccino and pulled out her wallet from her bag before I could do anything.

            “I was going to treat you.” I said. She smiled at me behind her mask. I could see the crinkles in her eyes.

            “I got you this time. Maybe you get me next time.” she said.

            “Fair enough. Thank you.” We stepped back. A moment later, the barista placed our drinks on the counter. Sethera grabbed them, handed me the cappuccino as went back outside.

            “I thought we might walk,” Sethera said, “Do you like to walk?”

            “Sure,” I said, looking around, “It’ll be getting dark soon, though.” The evening was already turning to dusk, the sunlight fading, hidden in burnt orange clouds drifting towards deeper colors; mauve, magenta, periwinkle, indigo.

            “I don’t mind the dark.” Sethera said lightly, “Actually, I prefer to walk at night.”

            “Why’s that?” I asked as we started off down the sidewalk. I sipped the cappuccino. It was only average. A good cappuccino is hard to come by, but I certainly wasn’t going to do any complaining.

            “I think darkness is peaceful.” Sethera answered my question, “It’s cooler at night, its quiet. It sort of lets you think, you know? I guess I’ve always been a little bit of night owl.”

            “I’m the same way.” I said.

            “Does it ever make you scared?”

            “What? Night?”

            “Yeah, night.”

            “I suppose so. More so when I was younger.”

            “I get scared at night.” she said, and flashed me another one of those crooked smiles. It was getting more endearing every time I saw it.

“I thought you said you liked walking at night.”

“I do. Maybe scared isn’t the right word. Hold on, I’ll find it.” We walked on silence for a moment while she thought about the right way to say what she was thinking. “It’s like, I’m never quite sane at night. Does that make sense? It isn’t bad. It’s not that I’m scared of something happening to me. Things just seem different at night. A little bit crooked, a little out of focus. Like, at night, you feel like you have to tilt your head to get a good look at things. Does that make sense?”

“Not really” I said, and we both laughed, “But I think I know sort of what you mean. I guess I feel the same way.”

“Maybe that’s why I like walking at night.” Sethera went on, “It’s more interesting. Everything’s a little bit curious at night.” 

Dusk fell into night, true and inky. We walked until we came to a park. I’d finished my cappuccino and dropped the empty cup into a trash can. Sethera was still working on her coffee. Casually, without much of a thought towards it, she started through the park. I stayed close by her side. We weren’t talking much now, but the silence between us felt comfortable. I felt connected to this person, as if I would follow her anywhere she wanted to go, without question. There was a sense of safety with her that I couldn’t put words to, and I knew that I would botch it if I even tried. It was as though she were the exact person I’d been looking for. Not that she fit a certain type or checklist of traits that I desired. It was as though I’d been looking for her, Sethera, specifically. And finally I’d found her, or she’d found me, and now things would be alright.

Sethera was talking, saying something about remembering park like this when she was a kid. I listened. She had a charming voice, very cool and comfortable. Yeah, now that she was by my side, or I by hers, things would be alright.

And it was in that realizing that things were going to be alright now that I realized things hadn’t been right. For a long time, things had been very much not right.

I pulled myself out of this thought to find Sethera staring at me, eyes sparkling behind glasses.

“Lost in a deep one, huh?” she asked, smiling. I nodded, sheepish.

“Sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Don’t worry. All things wander, especially our thoughts. It’s up to us to corral them back where they need to go. And here you are, so I guess you did it!” her voice was teasing me playfully. She reached out and took my hand. Her fingers slid in to lock with mine. It felt natural, without awkward pawing for the right grip, without feeling that I would crush her hand in mine. She led me, turning back here and there to smile or bouncing with juvenile energy, across the grass, through dotted trees and benches, towards the playground on the far end of the park.

            The park was closed, and the playground was unlit. It was an old structure, wooden and shaped like a fantastic castle. Bridges hung between towering embattlements, worn down by years of running feet, joyful children, imagined wars.

            Still leading me by the hand, she took me up the narrow stairs to the top point of the play structure.  Up there, the air was still and quiet. We leaned on a railing, looking down at the twisting tunnels and arching slides, the wood chips, the grass beyond.

            “I can’t remember the last time I was on a playground.” I said. She looked over.

            “Try.”

            “What?”

            “Try to remember. When’s the last time you actually remember being on a playground.” she said. I thought, reaching instinctively for the pack of cigarettes in my jacket pocket. I pulled it out, then hesitated.

            “Mind if I smoke?” I asked.

            “Not at all. Got one for me?”

            I held out the pack to her, and she took two. She placed them both gently in her lips, produced a lighter from her bag and lit them both. Then she took one out and placed it gently in my lips. It was a sensual thing for her to do, and I gazed at her in bewilderment. But I liked it. I liked it a lot.

            “Don’t get too excited.” she said, her voice breathy, almost a whisper, “you were remembering the last time you were on a playground.”

            I smoked the cigarette, leaning back and looking up at the sky. A bat flitted spasmodically across the, barely silhouetted against the dim starlight.

“I think I must have been twelve or thirteen.” I said, “I know I was in junior high school. There was a school dance. My friend had bought some marijuana and I’d never tried any, but we were going to smoke it. We cut out from the dance early, walked down the street the elementary school. It was night. We smoked the weed out of a soda can. I got high, and I got scared. I remember sitting on the end of the slide, holding myself, wondering if I was ever going to be okay again. It was a really terrible feeling. I think that’s that last time I was on a playground.”

“Hmm.” she answered to show she was listening, but she didn’t add anything.

“Kids, right?” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood, “Being a teenager was such a shitshow.”

“Was being an adult any better?” Sethera asked. That threw me. Something about the way she said it didn’t sound right. I laughed again, because I had to assume she was kidding.

“What about you?” I was still trying to turn the conversation away from its suddenly dark energy, “When’s the last time you were on a playground?”

“I go on playgrounds all the time.” Sethera answered, “Usually at night, but sometimes in the day too. Right up there with the kids. Whenever I see a new one, I have to go on it. It’s kind of like a tradition.”

“Why?”

“I like what they represent, I guess. It was the best thing ever when you were a kid. I guess I don’t want to lose that feeling. That excitement, that thrill. A whole world where you can do anything and be anything. What a great world that would be to live in, you know?”

“Huh.” I didn’t really know what to say to that. I continued smoking, lighting another one to take the edge off the growing silence. I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable, but still I had the overwhelming sensation that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, with exactly who I was supposed to be with.

“Things aren’t right anymore, are they?” Sethera said, apropos of nothing at all. It was the perfect phrase, though. I’d been feeling that. It captured the whole idea that had been plaguing me, buzzing about my head for months. Nothing was right anymore. Everything was wrong, somehow.

“No,” I said, “Things aren’t right anymore. At least, not for me. I don’t know. Are things right for you?” Sethera looked over at me, smoking. She smoked slowly, savoring the cigarette. She was nodding.

“Yeah,” she said, “I think things are right for me. Right in a weird, fucked up kind of way. I never thought I’d be where I am, but I think it’s where I’m supposed to be.”

“I was just having that exact feeling.” I said.

“I know.” Sethera said. Mysterious, this girl. I looked away, not sure how to continue.

“So,” I said finally, feeling somewhat lame for referencing back to the app because I was out of things to say, “Your profile said that you’re self employed. What do you do?”

“I’m a shepherd.” Sethera said simply. I blinked at her.

“A shepherd?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow,” I said, “and you live around here?”

“I live a little ways out of town, sort of nestled in the base of the foothills. I drive in town often, though.” she said. I laughed. She smiled back at me, that crooked, wonderful smile. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing. I just didn’t expect you to be a shepherd is all.” I said.

“Because I don’t look like Bo-peep or have a crook cane?”

“I guess.” I said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t know much about modern shepherds. How did you get started doing that?”

“When I was young, I guess I had a sort of gift.” Sethera said. “I always had an ability to find things, to connect things, to cross bridges and feel my way and lead others on that way. I didn’t really know what to do with it until I was a little older. When I was nineteen, I got started. I started finding the lost ones, and I knew it was what I had to do. Since then, I’ve been a full-time shepherd.”

“You talk about your sheep like they’re people.” I said, smiling.

“I never said it was sheep.” she answered gravely. I started to laugh, but something caught in my throat. She wasn’t kidding.

“I don’t understand.” I said. She came close to me. The smoldering butt of my cigarette was still hanging from the corner of my mouth. Drawing near, she took it, flicked it over the rail. She ran her hands down my face, tenderly. She looked into my eyes, and I thought for the first time how very sad her eyes were. Laden with a long sadness, a deep, heavy sadness that had lived in her forever. She brought her face close to mine. I didn’t move. She kissed me, ever so gently.

“Souls.” she said. “I shepherd souls.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. She wasn’t kidding. She wasn’t crazy. I could see all that. She meant exactly what she said. What was wilder than her revelation was that I believed her. I believed her completely and immediately.

“What’s that like?” I asked, my voice whispering. I was scared. Frightened. Not of her, per se, but by the sudden gravity she carried.

“Sad, mostly.” she answered, “Souls that need a shepherd are lost. They’re confused and hurting. They don’t know where to go.” she reached out, took one of my hands in both of hers, looked down at it, then back up into my eyes. “Most of them don’t even know they’ve died.”

I wished desperately that she would start laughing, that this whole thing was just her weird sense of humor. I could feel that desperation like a burning in the back of my eyeballs. I needed for her to be kidding me.

She wasn’t.

“Do you understand?” she asked me. Her voice was soft, full of all kinds of tender emotions.

“No.” I said, and I felt angry all of the sudden. I pulled my hand away, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you’re joking, it’s not very funny. It’s kind of fucked up, actually. Bringing me out here and saying something like that.”

Sethera did not take offense at my outburst. She continued to look at me, eyes full of sorry sympathy.

“Most go through a bit of denial first. It’s alright. Take your time, think things out. Ask me questions. Just know that I’m not here to harm you. Nothing can harm you now. Have another cigarette.”

I turned away yanked the cigarettes out of my pocket and fumbled one into my face. I could feel my heart racing, or could I? Tension, everywhere. Pulling me in all directions, ripping me apart at the seams. And yet, everything was still dead silent, dead still. Dead.

            “Do you want me to say it?” Sethera asked from behind me, “Would that help you?”

            “No.” I said, “No, I don’t want that. I never want to hear it.”

            “You know what I’m saying, though?”

            “Yes, I know what you’re saying. It’s fucking crazy, though. How could I be? I’ve been doing things all day, I’ve been living in the apartment, going places. Well, I guess I haven’t been going many places, but some places.”

            “Let me ask you this,” Sethera came to join me by the rail. I held out the pack of cigarettes to her, and she took another one. She lit it up, took a puff and let out a cloud of smoke. “Things have felt different for you, haven’t they? For a little while now?”

            “Yeah” I said, “Everything’s different. The pandemic, we’re all social-distancing and everything. Of course everything’s different.”

            “But it’s not that, is it? Something has felt wrong inside you. You feel hollow, empty. You don’t feel really attached to anything. You feel like you’re forever running through the motions of life, never really losing or gaining anything.”

            “Yes.” I said. My hands shook, and the cigarette in my fingers sent up a wavering trail of smoke to vanish in the sky.

            “When a soul...lingers on,” Sethera chose her words carefully, looking out over the darkened park lawn, “it goes on running through the motions of the body it’s left. Of course, because it is no longer living, no longer real in the corporal sense, it cannot really exact any change in its environment.”

            “This is all bullshit, though!” I stated, suddenly blazing with memory, “I can interact with my environment.”

            “Can you, though?” Sethera glanced at me from the corner of her eye.

            “Yeah. I’ll give you an example. Just a few days ago, the day you contacted me on the app, I went to the store and bought a bottle of bourbon.”

            “Mmhmm. And can you remember which store you went to?”

            “No, why?”

            “And did you pay with cash or card?”

            “I…”

            “Can you picture the face of your cashier?”

            “No”

            “Did the bottle get you drunk?”

            “I didn’t have that much.” Her questions were unsettling. Moving closer, she took my hand in hers, gave a comforting squeeze. As frightened as I was, being around her still gave me the sense that everything would be all right.

            “You’re running through the motions. None of it’s real. Soul, subconsciousness, whatever you want to call the ethereal entity, is trying to make sense of its suddenly new environment outside the body. You’re doing what you know, and when you can’t, you pretend you can without realizing you’re pretending.”

            “If that’s true, how are you holding my hand right now?” I asked, looking down at our interlaced fingers.

            “I have a gift.” she said.

            “So are you a spirit, or a soul or whatever, too?”

            “Nope, I’m still here. For now. I will be one day, though. Everyone will.” She looked far away and a trace of the smile crossed her lips, “I wonder if I’ll need a shepherd too.”

            “So, this is really what you do? Your ‘self-employed’ work?” I asked, “You’re a ghost hunter?” Her face snapped towards me, all humor gone.

            “I hate that. Never say that. First of all, I’m not a hunter. I’m not here to kill or destroy. I’m here to help you. Secondly, you’re not a ghost. ‘Ghost’ makes people think of horror movies or little kids in bed sheets with the eyes cut out. I look at you, I don’t see either of those things.”

            “What do you see?”

            “Pain.” she said softly, turning to face me fully. The bitterness of her outburst was short lived and now she was sympathetic again. “I see a lot of pain in you. You’re lost and confused. You feel like you’re missing something, missing out on something. You feel cheated, robbed. I think probably you were. You were a young man, taken too soon.”

            “How was I taken?” I asked, my voice catching on the words. I felt sick. I leaned over the rail and vomited. She patted my back.

            “I don’t know.” she said, “I can’t tell those kind of things. But you were, and now you’re here, and as long as you’re lingering on here, you’re going to be in the state of blank misery. I’m here to help you, if you’re ready. I’m not here to force anything on you.”

            “Ready for what?” I croaked, still hanging my face over the railing.

            “To switch off.” she answered. I spit out the last of my bile and looked at her. I couldn’t think straight. Switch off?

            “What has to happen?”

            “Well, if you decide you’re ready,” she said, “I’ll take you to a certain place. There somebody will help you to the other side. You’ll stop feeling like you’re caught in between. I imagine that must be terrible. Neither here nor there. Never really touching anything.”

            “The other side? There’s an other side?”

            “Yes.”

            “What is it?” I asked. This was the answer to all religious questions I ever had. I wasn’t to be satisfied, though. Jesus got to live on in mystery.

            “I don’t know. I can’t go with you there. I can only bring you to the contact point.”

            “Where’s that?”

            “8th Street is the closest one, I think.” she said.

            “8th Street?” I was shocked. She said it as though she were looking for the nearest Thai food restaurant.

            “Yeah. I can’t go with you beyond there, but you’ll never be alone. There will be others to help.”

            “People that can go back and forth across from this side to the other?”

            “That’s right.” she said, “They’re curious people, to be sure. Not really people, mind you, but very kind. You have nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about at all anymore, actually. It’s all finished. You can relax now.”

            I thought about that. I found strange comfort, to my own surprise. Not that my life had been particularly stressful or filled with extraordinary struggle. But I didn’t have to try at all anymore. I could just let go, drift away. Switch off.

            “Will it hurt?” I heard myself asking.

            “Not at all,” she promised.

            Another long, long silence. Silence that echoed in eternity. No flies anymore.

            “I’m ready.” I said. She took my hand in hers, kissed my finger gently.

            “It’s a good thing, Dylan. You’re doing the right thing. You can feel good about it.”

            She led me by the hand off the play structure and we began walking towards 8th street. I felt a peculiar sense of relief as we walked. I felt almost jovial, though not quite. The solemn morbidity of what was happening still hung over me.

            “So, did you just happen to come across me, then?” I asked her as we were walking. “On the app, I mean. You’re just there looking for a date and you found me?”

            “Not really.” she laughed softly, “Truth be told, I don’t think I’m really looking for a partner. My life is a little too strange for that. If I meet someone that can understand and get along with what I do, I’m certainly not going to meet them online.”

            “So what were you doing on the app, then?”

            “Searching for souls.” she replied simply, “It is my job, after all.”

            “On a dating app?”    

            “You’d be surprised. Dating apps are full of souls like yours. Souls who don’t know they’ve passed. Empty, hollow souls who feel that everything’s gone wrong and they don’t know what to do or where to go. That’s why I use the app. It’s more efficient than trying to track them down in the street.”

            “Oh.” I said. We walked on. The houses in this part of town were old. Towering Victorians in the night, shadowed by large overhanging tree branches. Lush lawns and quiet snaking pathways into gardens with fountains, statues of naked cherubim. We took a left onto 8th and walked another few blocks. Sethera brought me to a stop in front of a house. I looked at it. The house wasn’t what I was expecting. For a portal between worlds, I’d been preparing myself for broken windows, Draconian spires, spiderwebs and howling laughter. It was none of this. It was clean, two story English Tudor with brick and ivy growing up the walls. The lights were all out, but evening in the darkness the house seemed welcoming. The only light was a small lamp illuminating the address: 8118A

“This is it.” Sethera said.

“Do I just go up and knock?” I asked. She shook her head.

“You stay back here a minute. I’ll go up, make sure everything’s okay, then I’ll come back and get you.

“Alright.” I said. Sethera began walking up the pathway to the door. Halfway she seemed to remember something. She stopped, unlaced one of her boots, then continued on. She knocked on the door. I pulled the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, opened it up. There were only two left. One of them had been flipped upside down, the lucky cigarette. An old tradition. I took the other and lit it, watching Sethera. Somebody answered the door, but I couldn’t really see the figure. I got a sense of a tall, thin man, but his form was silhouetted by light of the doorway. To my curiosity, Sethera took off the boot she’d unlaced and held up her foot. I squinted through the darkness. She was showing him her ankle for some reason. They talked for a few more minutes. I finished the cigarette, dropped it to the ground and crushed it out with my shoe. I sighed, took out the lucky. I held it for a minute, rolling it in my finger tips. Last one.

Last one.

I lit it, took a deep drag. I wanted to savor the feeling. I didn’t know what anything would be like after this, but I had the feeling that nothing would be the same ever again. Sethera was coming back down the path.

“They’re ready for you.” she said.

“Can I finish my cigarette?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“I’d offer you one, but this is the last one in my pack.”

“Good timing.” she said. I smoked. She held my hand. I felt calm.

“You’re a good person, Sethera.” I told her. “You’re a really good person. I’m glad I met you.” 

“I’m glad I met you too, Dylan. Things are going to be alright now.”

“Yeah, I think they are.” I said. The cigarette had burned almost all the way down. The marking, the No. 27 label, still showed. I dropped it into the street, turned to Sethera.

“I’m ready.”

She put her hand in the crook of my arm and lead me up towards the house. She stopped on the porch again, and the door opened.

“Welcome, friend.” said the thin man, “Come inside, there’s a little to do before we cross.”

Sethera left. In the street, my last No.27 burned, smoldered, finally went out.