Eleven
The first sprouts of purple oxalis peek through the dead stems crusting the pot.
Right on schedule, as Esther retrieved my stuff from the alley about a month ago.
Finally, a sign of life, some proof that I existed beyond Esther’s stress.
She’s made a ritual of watering the plant every Friday at ten in the morning, just like I used to do.
For someone who forgets to put shoes on half the time she leaves her apartment, Esther’s far more capable than I was.
“To be honest, Luce, I understand none of this shit.” When I turn around, Esther is chewing her bottom lip in concentration, her face shadowed from the bedside lamp behind her.
My course notes are scattered across her pink duvet.
She’s talking to my notes, not the real me, but I still feel that glow of acknowledgement whenever she directs her monologue to my name.
It happens more often now that my stuff is in her apartment; anything related to me is directed to the plant or my notes, or the dress hanging on her closet door.
“How the fuck does astral projection relate to death?”
I can’t help but snort at her exasperation; Esther must be frustrated if she’s swearing about work.
While she’s not really talking to me, I answer anyway, as if this is a real conversation.
“It doesn’t, not directly. It’s an example of how esoteric conceptualizations of metaphysical planes were informed by cultural constructions of the afterlife, and vice versa.
” I smile at her fondly. “Esther, for the nine millionth time, you need to compare my course notes to the essay prompts. There should be a matching doodle in the corner to tell you which notes line up together—I’m pretty sure it’s an owl, in this case.
” I peek over her shoulder. “Or is that a bat? No. Owl. Yes, look for the owl doodles. Sorry, I’m bad at drawing. And organizing my thoughts.”
Maybe if I repeat myself enough, her subconscious will pass along the message. It’s the least I can do. I didn’t do her any favors with my chaotic course notes. No one else was supposed to read them, let alone understand them.
I float over the bed, looking for the essay prompt in question among the mess.
“You’re trying to process this section as one big picture, but there’s one medium picture, and four small pictures as examples.
The prompt explains they should choose an esoteric concept with roots in another culture, and then explore how a noted esoterist’s cultural and religious paradigms adapted that concept. ”
And just like that, I’m in professor mode, words flowing out of me, the way they never could unless I was in front of a classroom.
“Take the astral projection as an example since that’s the one you’re stuck on.
The Theosophists often appropriated and misinterpreted concepts from other cultures—South Asian, Egyptian, et cetera—in reaction to and rejection of Christian morals and beliefs.
But they understood concepts like astral projection through the lens of those beliefs.
So instead of an ancient practice of self-discipline to achieve siddhis, they understood out-of-body experiences through a Spiritualist lens, as if their soul left their body through magic.
So it doesn’t exactly relate to death, at least not my own experience of it thus far, but it ties into cultural understandings of our physical bodies and spiritual consciousness. ”
“Ugh, this hurts my brain! Why can’t this be as easy as intersectional hermeneutics?” Esther weaves her fingers through her hair and massages her scalp. Her brown curls cascade across her face as she hangs her head.
“Because some of us thrive in escapism, instead of self-awareness.” I shrug.
I am—was?—a proud queer Black woman. But I also grew up with the brunt of my mother’s skewed ideas about religion, purity, and independence verbally beaten into my psyche.
I know this, and yet I have never made any serious attempt to overcome it.
I was in therapy just long enough to recognize it.
Then I finished undergrad, and I never bothered to find another therapist to truly unpack it all, the way I probably should have.
Instead, I got a damn Ph.D. in Philosophy, because death was the ultimate escape from the world.
Philosophy allowed me to study existence and nonexistence through reason, logic, and knowledge.
Discourse, lit reviews, and a thesis let me keep enough psychological distance between academics and reality to keep my trauma tightly packed away.
I never wanted to die, despite my therapist’s concerns about passive suicidal ideation, but I did want to know what to expect when I eventually left the earthly plane.
“Ah, here!” I spot the scribbled owl in the corner of the bed, sticking out of a three-ring binder. Grounding myself, I jump up and down on the corner of it.
Sure enough, the paper rustles a bit, and Esther leans forward in curiosity. “I’m going fucking crazy.” She frowns, shaking her head. But she picks up the binder anyway, paging through it.
“Sorry.” All my studies about death, and here I am, dead and still stuck here, ignorant of how I came to be a ghost. Haunting my work crush, who got stuck with double the workload because I fucked off to ghosthood.
I always thought ghosts had unfinished business.
But I never had business to begin with, let alone finish.
“You know, I really hope teaching three intro classes isn’t my unfinished business.
Please, this is already embarrassing enough that no one cares that I died, without my higher purpose being as boring as grading essays. ”
Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’m supposed to have business to finish that I never let myself have when I was alive, and now I’m stuck.
It’s been five months, and according to Harriet, I’m just as bright as the first day we met.
I don’t understand why. With how detached I am, how apathetic I’ve always been, how unbothered I am about eventually fading into nothingness, I should have no reasons to stay.
Sure, I am curious about the afterlife. Sure, I enjoy being forced to spend countless hours with Esther.
But why haven’t I started to dim?
I wrinkle my nose. “Do I actually have to process my baggage before I can ‘move on’? How the hell does everyone else move on so quickly then?” Harriet said most ghosts move on in a year, often less.
“With how fucked up the world is, there’s no way that’s enough time for everyone to process their shit.
Do they just stop caring, or do I really have that much more to process?
Is everyone else just better at being dead than me? ”
I can’t sleep now that I’m dead, so I should have plenty of time to process my past. But I feel even more scattered and confused since dying.
Instead of making peace with myself, my regret for all of the wrong choices I made when I was alive has deepened into an endless chasm.
And death means I’ve lost any chance to bridge the abyss I left behind.
“I wish you were here. I wish you could explain it to me.” Esther rubs her eyes. A sniffle escapes her, echoing in the silence of her tiny studio apartment.
“I am, East.” I ground myself again, smacking the owl doodle she still hasn’t seen. “I’m trying to help. Look at the owl! Hoot hoot!” I laugh at myself, but the sound comes out hollow and pathetic.
With her face buried in her hands, Esther doesn’t notice any of my attempts to make the owl doodle move.
Bridging that chasm of what-ifs is all I can think about.
I’m more determined than ever to stay tied to Esther.
My deepest regret is never talking to my East when I was alive.
Being Tied to her doesn’t exactly make that regret easier to bear.
My other deepest regret—if I’m allowed two deepest regrets in the endless abyss of my own making—is that no one else gave a shit about me.
Angel was the only other person who might have cared, but I burnt my bridges with my brother long ago.
I used to pride myself on my independence, on seeing myself above all of the codependent relationships others fell prey to.
The way Mom taught us. Now, realizing just how alone I was brings me shame.
Maybe that’s why I’m Tied to her, why I haven’t started to fade.
Was Esther the last person who cared about me?
Or was she the last person I cared about?
We barely spoke when I was alive, and yet I’m sure she’s the only person who worries about me.
How could I pass up this opportunity to know her?
How could I leave the person who makes me laugh more than I ever did when I was alive?
How could I move on from my only Tie to this plane, when she still cries for me?
When I care for her now more than ever? When, for the first time in my life, I know what it feels like to call someone home?
Esther sniffles and wipes her eyes, finally leaning back against the headboard to blink her tears away. “I wish you were here,” she whispers again.
I ground myself and awkwardly pat her shoulder, ignoring the fiery burn of her Life under my palm.
She can’t feel it beyond a chill against her skin, but I still want to comfort her, and the pain is an unpleasant distraction from my bittersweet turmoil.
“I wish I was too. I mean, I am here, but not in any meaningful way. Sorry. Not a super helpful distinction. Although it is a little weird that I’m comforting you when I’m dead-” I cut myself off, struck at how much I’ve forgotten how to be the silent, independent Dr. Monae—the version of myself that survived out of spite and pride, who found fault with everyone so it wouldn’t hurt when others found fault with me.
“You give me bad habits, East. My filter is gone. I used to be quiet. I could go for days without making a single sound. And now I fucking ramble out loud like you do.”
Esther hums, as if responding to me, even though that’s impossible.
“You know, Syd would be better off taking this class with you. They ask so many questions, and I feel like shit because I can barely grasp the basics. They seem almost as obsessed with death as you were.” Esther wipes her nose on her bare knee.
“Gross, babe,” I say without thinking. My heart sinks as I slowly glide back along the bed to sit next to her. “Fuck, why did I call you that?”
I have to stop pretending this is more than it is. Haunting someone is the worst situationship. Domestic bliss with the woman I’ve been slowly falling for from my perspective, a paranormal stalker from hers. This isn’t… I bite my lip, unwilling to acknowledge what I wish it could be.
This is too comfortable; maybe I should try to move on.
Both spiritually and emotionally. Eventually, she’ll meet someone alive.
For my sake, I can’t be all hung up on her when she does.
I can’t settle in this place that isn’t meant for me.
My future is destined for nothingness, not lying to myself as I cling to the impossible.
“I hate that I’ve accepted that you’re probably dead so quickly.
You might be alive somewhere, or just got another job and didn’t bother to tell Gilda.
Which would be hilarious, so I hope it’s true.
” Esther chuckles, then shrinks, hugging herself tighter.
“But I can’t help but feel like you’re gone.
I wish there was a way to know for sure, to learn how you died. ”
“That makes one of us,” I snark, finding solace in the bitterness that has always been my comfort zone. “I know I’m dead. I’m a damn ghost, after all.”
Even if I could tell her I’m dead, I don’t know how I died.
Especially since they didn’t find my body in my apartment.
The last thing I remember from being alive is setting the bougie box of wine on the coffee table after dinner, filling up my mason jar, and turning on Ghost Hunters.
That’s all the memory I have, other than flashes of my dream of Esther that night.
I wouldn’t have left my apartment normally, and I certainly don’t remember leaving.
It’s like I vanished in my sleep. Just a temporary visitor to that apartment, to this job, this life, just a fleeting impression with no real disturbance, no legacy, no lasting impact. Except for Cash, and now my East.
“Is that why I’m here? Am I supposed to solve the mystery of how I died?
” Wishing I could fix everything for the hurting woman next to me, I frown, leaning my head back against the headboard.
I’m grounded enough that I can almost feel the wood behind me.
That would imply that being a ghost is a kind of test by a higher power, and, to be honest, I haven’t seen any evidence of that.
But maybe that’s part of the test. Maybe I’m supposed to have faith that some higher power cares about my soul enough to provide the answers I need.
I laugh, my frustration making me delirious.
“If that’s true, that blows. I’m never going to pass that test.”
I don’t have faith in anything, let alone God.
Or some burnt-out detective who already gave up on me.
As much as I know I should, I don’t even have faith in myself that I’ll ever move on.
Not when I might still might help Esther do the job I left behind, when I still have more to discover about life after death, when I finally get to connect with the woman I’ve dreamt of since the day we met.
Esther lets out a quiet sigh of determination and picks up the binder again. I ground myself again, poking the owl with my foot, since that seems to work better than my hands, fighting the pain when I touch Esther’s thigh through the paper.
It seems to do the trick. Esther shivers, and her eyes narrow as she notices the drawing. “What’s this?”
“That’s your essay prompt that will make everything crystal clear,” I explain, letting my concentration go.
It’s getting easier, this humanity shit.
I can focus for so much longer now than I could before.
It’s almost enough to give me a little faith that maybe, with my help, Esther will get through the worst of this. “Hopefully, anyway.”
I certainly don’t have faith in Detective Barrett. Poor Esther has been pestering him for updates on the case, and he hasn’t even tracked down Angel yet. But I appreciate that she’s pushing. It’s nice that at least one person cares. Lord knows Angel won’t.