One #2
But I can count the individual hairs growing on Esther’s legs, so my vision is not a problem for once. Is this my Spiderman moment? Did I get bit by my hot, soft butch coworker, and suddenly my nearsightedness is gone?
I reach up and touch my face to check if my glasses are there, but my hand goes past where my glasses should be and passes completely through my face.
“What the fuck?” I bolt upright. Pretending to be asleep while Esther ignores me, or remembering how I got in her apartment, are so much less concerning than not being solid. “Oh no. No. No, no, no. This cannot be happening.”
I pat my body, but my hands just…pass through my stomach.
“Dr. Voigt, are you seeing this? What the fuck is wrong with me?” I ask, panic cracking my voice as my hands frantically pass through each other. “Oh, what the fuck was in that wine? Did I take anything last night? Like, acid?”
Esther doesn’t respond, merely shifts her weight from one foot to the other, checking her watch again.
I scoff. “Uh…Esther? Dr. Voigt?”
“Could she be out of the office today?” Esther mutters to herself. “I hope she’s okay.”
I gape, fighting the ache in my chest that threatens to break me. Is this bitch seriously ignoring me? I refuse to accept the alternative if she’s not. “Can we focus on the fact that my body is no longer corporeal?”
“Oh, could she have gone to campus?” Esther, as stunning and intelligent as she is, ends all of her sentences in upspeak, and it drives me up the fucking wall. Especially now when I need her to pay attention to me!
“Look, Esther. Or, Dr. Voigt…” Rubbing my forehead out of habit, I shudder from the willies when my hand passes through where my brain should be.
“I don’t remember how I got here, or what happened last night, so I’m sorry if I said something or did something horribly inappropriate and unprofessional.
But I’m kind of freaking out at the moment, and I need you not to ignore my existence.
Somehow, you turning me down is not the worst possibility here. Please, I need to still exist.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, gut sinking when it does nothing to shut the world out. I can still see Esther perfectly. This can’t be happening. I have to… I frown, grasping for any reason why this feels like a nightmare.
I have to…
I have to water my plant.
Is that it? I shake my head, horror sinking deeper and deeper as reality claws away at my disbelief. There has to be more purpose to my life than watering a fucking plant. “Just…tell me I’m real. That I’m alive. Anything?”
“Boo, it’s pants time! The worst time of the day.” Stepping into her slacks, Esther bounces to tug the khaki chinos over her round hips. Something I would want to watch a million times, if I weren’t in the middle of an existential crisis about my metaphysical state of being.
“Can you see me, at least?” I get up. Or, I try to. I don’t so much as “get up,” as generally doggy paddle my way into an upright position. Floundering a few feet to where she’s standing by the window, I wave my hand in front of her face. “Ugh no! I don’t want to be floating!”
Esther walks through me, and, oh, it burns!
The inferno raging throughout my body and soul makes me cough. My gut twists as if I’m about to spew fire. Yet somehow, the searing pain is less disturbing than the fact that she just walked through me!
“Oh, I don’t like that for so many reasons!” I gag, coughing as the burn settles back down to a cold nothingness. “Fuck. Am I really dead?”
I didn’t think ghosts were real. Like, yeah, I’ve studied the possibility of ghosts since I was the weird, quiet girl with an unhealthy obsession with the paranormal, to the point where I’ve become a recognized expert in the modern discourse of metaphysics.
But between the pseudoscientific measurements, and anecdotal stories from people who were briefly brain-dead, no one has ever come close to proof of any afterlife, let alone a sustained liminal existence between life and death.
Yet, my coworker just walked through me. My mouth twists into a bitter imitation of a smile. “Proof enough for me.”
With a more genuine smile on her face, Esther hums to herself, downing the rest of whatever is in her mug. Coffee, presumably, but I can’t smell it. Or anything, now that I think about it.
“Can you hear me?” I shout, my voice breaking as reality sinks in. My voice is so hoarse and muted, so full of desperation to be heard, that it chokes me. “Please, hear me!”
“Let’s go, computer! Change of scenery today!” Snapping shut her laptop on the table, Esther puts it in her bag, grabbing her keys as she closes the studio door behind her.
“Seriously? You’re leaving? I might be dead and a fucking ghost, and you’re leaving?
” I walk—or float, rather—to the studio door.
So far, the evidence shows that she’s unaware of my presence, but I don’t care.
I want to live in denial a little longer, desperate for more time to process my situation before I accept my fate.
My therapist from undergrad would be so proud that I can finally sit with my feelings. How far I’ve come: In death, I finally want to shout at someone, allow myself to be angry out loud, to nurse my hurt and self-pity, instead of drinking it away.
The door swings open, and everything burns as Esther passes through me again in her rush back inside. Gagging in pain, I resolve to keep that from happening as much as possible.
She shivers and mutters to herself, “Forgot my shoes again.”
“Oh, so you regularly forget to wear shoes?” The absurdity of the situation makes me laugh, and it comes out in an unhinged cackle.
This is just so perfectly Esther—meandering, naive, and inexplicably endearing.
“This is a thing for you? Walking through ghosts and going outside without shoes on? Just another average day?” All of my thoughts just flow right on out of my mouth.
The sound is muted, lacking an echo that I’d never noticed was there until it wasn’t.
My carefully guarded filter protecting the world from my thoughts is no longer needed in the afterlife.
“She can’t hear me anyway. Why hold back?
” I scoff. “If only that therapist could see me now! Selective mutism, who?”
“Shoes, computer, pants? Check! Wallet, keys, phone? Ready to go!” Esther walks through me again, incinerating me before I can doggy paddle out of the way. She shuts the door behind her and into the hallway. This time, however, I go with her.
Not by choice. No, I would rather stay put to figure out what happened. Be alone with myself to calm my racing, depressing thoughts. To figure out a plan. To come to terms with this. Maybe cry a little. Or a lot! Either way, some alone time sounds heavenly.
But no, as if a rope is embedded in my sternum, I am pulled with her, right through the solid wood door that Esther locked mere moments ago, floating headfirst after her down the stairs.
“Fuck.” The ache in my chest finally cracks open. Instead of grief or tears, I am overwhelmed by a numb, apathetic daze. “I am dead.”
My only regret is how little I care.