Chapter 19 - Bins of a Tether
Another week passes, but at least by the end of this week, I finally feel ready to ask Claudia to help me let him go. I had approached her desk at work, but her suggestion takes me by surprise.
“A séance!?” I shout far too loudly in the front office foyer.
The room turns to look at me. I lock eyes with a few people, but it’s raining and most are returning from the office from their lunch breaks–soon, they continue their way, shaking the rain from their umbrellas or heading toward the kitchen for a cup of coffee or tea to keep them warm.
Claudia doesn’t even blink.
“A séance, yes,” she repeats calmly and casually, like she had suggested after-work drinks, or a cheeky tarot pull, not a psychic-led ceremony with the undead. “Or something like one. Bin-based, obviously.”
Right. Obviously. She rummages around her desk, clearly avoiding my eyes as I stare at her with betrayal.
“I thought you meant, like… journaling. Or breathwork,” I mutter, shifting my mop bucket behind me like it could shield me from spiritual responsibility. I really need to stop using it to hide myself–it’s never worked out well for me.
“Please. Breathworks' for people whose curses don’t involve orgasmic trash.”
I blink. “You’ve said that out loud before, haven’t you?”
“More than once.”
She finally looks at me, expression softening. “You don’t have to do it. But if you’re still hoping for closure, this might be the way to… lift the bin lid, so to speak.”
I don’t answer. Don’t nod. I just stand there in the foyer, feeling the weight of another week without bin whispers, or amber eyes, or ghostly limbs curling in the recycling bin.
Eventually, she hands me a paper bag. Inside is a bundle of wax-sealed herbs, a candle that is shaped like a traffic cone, and a piece of cloth that smells like burnt cinnamon and mildew.
“Tonight,” she says, voice low. “Be mentally prepared.”
The rest of the day passes in a fog.
I mopped a hallway I had already mopped.
I had stared at a bin for ten minutes before realizing it isn’t full—it is just me who is empty.
Someone in IT asked if I am OK, and I responded by refilling the hand sanitizers in their break rooms and backing out like I had been caught crying in a supply closet.
“You alright, Oscar?” asks Jeff from Audit, as we cross paths by the elevators.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“You look… dimmer, somehow.”
I want to say, “Fuck off, Jeff!” but I say, without thinking, “Ha, yeah, you’d be dim too if your bin-spirit boyfriend evaporated right before your eyes.”
“Wait, sorry?” He pulls back and looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, nothing,” I brush him off.
He shrugs and offers me half a donut, which I had pocketed and then promptly forgotten about. It is that kind of day.
When the building had emptied and it was time to go, I stood for a moment by the janitor’s closet—our old haunt. The bin is still there. But now it is just a bin.
It doesn’t purr. Don’t moan. Doesn’t ask to be held.
I left the office without speaking to anyone else.
Claudia meets me outside the building and comes home with me that night. I agreed to her idea as I need closure. I’m keeping the metaphorical bin lid open just in case Eddy comes back, but I feel he won’t and I need to find a way to move on.
Along with the original stuff Claudia showed me earlier today, she reveals some candles shaped like little frogs, salt she says is from some coastal witch commune, and a Ouija board made from an old pizza box.
“Recycled mysticism,” she says with a wink, lighting the candles and placing them in a wonky circle around the living room rug. “Bin-Spirits love a DIY project.”
I don’t ask if this is real.
I don’t need real.
I need possible. I need to do something about the ache in my chest that still hasn’t faded. Maybe it never will.
Claudia has me sit cross-legged in the centre of the candle circle. She mutters something under her breath—half Latin, half gibberish—and pours the salt in a sloppy ring around me.
“I call on the trash that lingers. I summon the soul that haunts the drainpipes and dumpsters,” she says, eyes closed, arms raised dramatically. “Come forth, Grouch of the Bin. Your janitor misses you.”
Nothing.
Not even a flicker of candlelight.
I want to laugh. But I don’t.
Claudia opens one eye, checks her surroundings, then opens the other.
“Oh, fuck!” She looks defeated. “I spoke with my mum, and she said this was a surefire way to get the spirit to come out.”
“Maybe he is really gone…”
She shoves the pizza box toward me and plops an upside-down empty glass on top.
“Let’s see if he still can communicate.”
I sigh. “This is ridiculous.”
She shrugs. “So was dating a cursed Bin-Spirit. Try.”
We sit together, our fingers barely grazing the mug, and ask questions.
“Eddy, are you here?” I tentatively ask.
Nothing.
“Do you have a message for Oscar?” Claudia continues.
Silence.
“Are you… still tethered to this realm?” I ask.
The mug jerks to the left.
I gasp. Claudia narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t me.”
It slides again. Just a nudge. A twitch. Then, nothing.
We wait.
Eventually, Claudia leans back, removing her hand.
“Well,” she says. “That’s… not nothing.”
I stare at the board. At the unmoving mug. “What does that mean?”
She looks at me, the bravado gone from her voice. “It means he might still be here. Or something of his. Tethered, maybe. Or just… not ready to pass.”
I swallow hard. “Could he come back?”
“I don’t know,” she says softly. “Magic isn’t a recycling policy.”
“But it’s hope?”
She looks at me long. Slow. Then, nods. “Yeah. It’s hope.”
That is all I need.
“Don’t get any funny ideas, Oscar. Spirits need to be respected.”
“I know,” I say as I help her pack up. My intention is to have her leave my apartment immediately. I fake a yawn. “Jeez, look at the time, I am tired!” I stretch. “I should get to bed.”
“Oh, of course.” She stands up. “Just remember, if it’s meant to be, he will come back.”
I nod, say goodbye, and close the door.
My heart wants to break through my chest. That mug had moved. It fucking moved… he is here. I know it. I peer out my window and see Claudia’s car missing. This is my chance.
I take out my phone and can see it is only 10:30 pm. I have plenty of time to walk back to the office and check out the back alley.