somebody watching over me
Lilith
Who am I?
I’ve drifted through so many vessels it’s easy to lose sight of myself. You can forget who you even are.
What’s my name? I still have one, don’t I?
Sorry, that’s the body talking . . .
I want to be in a vessel that nobody wants to look at. A port, besotted with blackberries and currants. Such cheap, fortified
wine. People pass us by, paying us little mind. Occasionally a coin will clink in our cup, the rattle of spare change the
only acknowledgment of our existence.
We simply sit here, on the street, in our moldering clothes, our decrepit skin, and watch the world drift. Time passes and
we bear witness.
The itch is overwhelming but so be it.
We’re yearning to burn.
I’m hiding. I’m hurt. I’m angry. I’m all these things at once and it’s hard to make sense of them, consumed by these conflicting
emotions.
What’s happened to me? What have I become? How could I let this happen? To me? Just when I thought the abyss was the lowest
I could go, look at how far I’ve fallen here on earth.
Should I go back? To Jordan? No. It’s simpler to sink into a body no one will see.
No one is looking for me here.
Does water ever know what it is until it’s contained? Is an ocean an ocean without the surrounding land corralling it? Do
the boundaries of existence dictate what we are?
Am I a demon simply because I possess this vessel?
What if I had no host? What would I be to Jordan then? What would I be to myself?
What am I?
I’m looking for definition. A shape to fit. It feels as if we’ve been stripped away, an oyster shucked from its shell.
There’s the itch, spreading itself. A fury of fire ants. I feel the burning urge to dive into that open chasm, pour forth,
leaving my present vessel behind and inhabit another.
No. Stay. I restrain myself. I wish to stick here. Look at us. How proud we are. Call it commitment. Fidelity to this flesh, no matter
how deep the itch to switch gets.
See? I can stick to one host. Jordan may think I have commitment issues, but look at us now. Am I devoted to this host? Hardly.
I simply wish to prove to myself that I am not frivolous with this flesh. That I’m capable of commitment, if I found the right
host.
They’re out there, somewhere. I just haven’t found the right vessel yet.
Clink-clink. The clatter of coins brings us back. “Have a blessed day,” we mutter.
“You, too,” a man says, continuing on his way. Wait. We recognize that voice.
Jordan. He’s here. Has he been looking for us?
Does he see?
Where is he going? Nowhere, it seems. Always wandering. No destination. He turns and takes a new direction, venturing down
a separate street.
Is he trying to hide? From who? Us—or himself?
We’ll follow. Already I’ve swapped to another body. A fresh vessel. Another man. Zinfandel. His skin itches. He is on his way to class. The local college. He’ll be a little late today, unfortunately. It is time for him to take a walk. To wander.
I drift, as if on a stream, channeling through body after body, simply to keep up within the river of Jordan. Remain near.
Every vessel I pass through offers me new secrets. It becomes tedious at times, all these deeper recesses. Their neediness.
We almost lose sight of Jordan. I need to catch up. Find a fresh vessel. So I drift ahead, pick up our pace, swimming upstream
through a series of people, one after another, swimming, pushing forward, body after body until—
“Would you like anything else with that?” we ask with a facsimile of a smile. It doesn’t feel like us, our face. I am hiding
behind these eyes. The woman behind the counter offers me a warm hovel to peer out from. Other servers rush around us, busy
ants swarming about their hive, but we remain rooted to the register, looking out at Jordan.
“That’ll do, thanks.” He doesn’t see us.
See me.
His attention drifts, a restless spirit unable to find a house to haunt. His thoughts wander, so listless. Does he notice
this woman before him, standing behind the counter?
Look at our smile. Our eyes. What does he see?
“Have a good day.” We stop ourselves from saying his name. He never said it—not to this skin—so we hold our tongue. I want
him to see me. Sense my presence.
“You, too,” he offers before walking away with his coffee, casting himself off into this city, adrift once more.
I abandon this body behind the counter and follow after, slithering through the processional of customers until I reach the
very end of the line, then exit the café.
This body will do. For now.
A man. Grenache. He came for coffee before heading to work, much like every other day in his simple existence . . . but today, he will venture through the streets for a bit. Take a leisurely stroll. Today, he has nothing but time. Not a care in the world. This world, at least.
Jordan walks through the streets, unaware of his surroundings. He seems to be in no rush, lost in his own world. His thoughts.
What is he thinking about?
Does he sense our presence at all? He must. Why not test him? To see if he can feel us?
Feel me?
I never linger in one body for long, simply drifting from one vessel to the next, following alongside him. Behind him. There
have only been inches between us at times.
So close.
We’ve even shared the same breath, capturing the very air that has left his lungs.
Can’t he feel us? Why doesn’t he see me? We could make our presence known. Tempting. It might frighten him. Push him away. So we simply linger. I drift. We follow.
We have given Jordan ample opportunity to see us, sense our presence, testing the very limits of our surreptitiousness. We’ve
occasionally grown bold and spoken to him.
“Excuse me,” we ask in our present flesh. “What time it is?”
“Yeah. Hold on one sec.”
We wait. Watch him fumble for his watch. It almost angers us, these sensations Jordan manifests within. Possessed by these
feelings. We don’t want to feel them. Do we?
“Two thirty-three,” Jordan offers.
“Thank you.” Again, we are tempted to say his name. If we did, his world would change. Collapse in a breath. He’d know he
is not alone. Never alone. Never again.
Jordan wanders the streets without a destination. We’re right behind him now. He seems so lost. Astray. He barely drinks his
coffee, holding the cup as he roams the streets.
He occasionally stops in front of a shop. He doesn’t stay for long. These stores offer him nothing. We sense he wants more. Food offers him no flavor. Music offers no notes. The vibrance of life is lost, and yet, here he is, searching, desperate for a connection.
Jordan stops before a worn-down storefront. We see it now. Where he’s heading. Let’s see if we can get there first.
The bell rings above us. The smell of mildew is thick in our nostrils. Dust suspends itself in the air. Not an unpleasant
scent. Pages of decay. Time immemorial. These tomes have been read already once before, no longer fresh, the shelves filled
with bent spines. Cracked paperbacks lined like caskets, a mausoleum of stories, yearning to be revisited.
Jordan wanders down the aisles, adrift. Searching for something. What, we wonder.
He hasn’t sensed our presence.
Yet.
We are quick to make our way to the woman sitting behind the counter, a book open in her own hand. “Hello,” she says. All
sun. How pleasant. Unassuming. She’s lost in a world of words. Her red hair is held up in a bun by a pencil, piercing the
knot of rusty locks.
“Looking for anything in particular today?”
“Just browsing,” we say, quick to see if Jordan is watching.
“Let me know if you have any ques—”
We touch her freckled hand. Lightly, but it is enough. She goes silent as I pour forth from my present vessel and root myself
within.
Let me in . . .
Cassandra. Lovely Cass. A ruby-colored tempranillo. She has lived here for only a few years. Very few friends. This store
has become a home for her. Books, she believes, fulfil her. How interesting. Cass will lose herself in a novel. Leave her
own body behind, abandoning this sphere and inhabiting the pages of a book. Her own possession.
Are novels vessels in and of themselves? Temporary ones, at least. Caskets of the imagination. Lay your body down and fill
this tome. Put on someone else’s skin for a bit.
Let’s swap, shall we? Cass can read in her dreams while we take a turn with her body. Rest, we whisper, pushing her down into the deepest recesses of her favorite book.
My turn now. My time inside.
We slip out from behind the counter, making our way to Jordan. He does not turn when we approach, quietly drawing near, unaware
of our closeness. Our proximity.
“Can I help you?” we ask from behind, lifting our voice up an octave.
He turns, offering us the slightest smile. “Just looking, thanks.”
We pull a book off the shelf. “Have you read this one?”
He takes the book from our hand. Studies it. “Can’t say I have, no.”
“You might like it . . .”
“You think?” He holds it up, presenting the cover to us. “Eat, Pray, Love?”
“Oh, I know.” We are tempting fate. Taking a great risk. Still, we push. Press. “You strike me as the soul-searching type.”
“That so? Well, now . . . You learn something new about yourself every day.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Surprise me.”
So Jordan wants to play. “What’s the last book you read?”
“Me? Let’s see . . .” He sighs, reflects. “Been a while since I was in the best headspace for a new book. Now I’m trying to
get out of my mind. Live in someone else’s for a spell.”
“Why is that?” We are curious, so curious.
“Long story.”
“We have time.” To prove our point, we turn to take in the emptiness of the store. This shop is ours. No one else’s. He is
our only customer. Even our last vessel has left, stumbling out of the store, probably wondering how in the world they got
here.
“Fair enough.” He laughs a bit, nothing but air. His exhale tastes good to us. “I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but . . . I’m actually looking for something.”
“Thought so. What is it?”
“You can’t laugh.”
“We would never.”
“Promise?”
We hold up our hand. “Cross my heart.”
Hope to die.
“Okay.” He takes a moment. Is he blushing? “Do you have any books about . . .”