Eight
Inever imagined the afterlife would be so…
domestic. Wearing only boy shorts and an oversized tee, Esther dances to an upbeat, campy playlist, while she bakes chocolate chip cookies after dinner.
I sit (kind of) in the only chair in her studio apartment, legs crossed as best as I can without floating as I watch her.
My foot keeps bobbing in time to the music, which sets me off balance; I have to reground myself into the chair every few minutes.
It would feel incredibly romantic and sweet, if I was actually here with her, stealing spoonfuls of cookie dough or tucking in the loose curls that escape her topknot.
If I could respond to her constant soliloquies, so that she would have someone to talk to besides herself.
If I could have an actual conversation with her. If she could hear me.
If I wasn’t dead.
“Now we press the dough into a large cylinder,” Esther announces to her invisible audience.
She doesn’t even know I’m here to hear her, let alone that my heart is slowly breaking from how bittersweet this is.
“The recipe says to refrigerate it for a couple hours or even freeze it.” She giggles.
“Fuck that, I’m impatient. We’re skipping that step. ”
Even her attempt at an assertive “fuck that” is said in a lingering singsong that makes me melt at how impossibly sweet my East is.
That soft voice narrates her life and my death, the musical upward lilt my anchor to myself.
The overly innocent affect in her tone has grown on me more than I could have ever predicted, especially when we’re at home, just the two of us.
Strange how Esther’s tiny pink apartment has become home.
Nowhere I’ve stayed before has ever felt like one.
Not since Angel was born, and Mom kicked Dad out, and I no longer had anyone who cared about me.
Now that I’m dead, I finally understand what home is supposed to feel like.
Not that Esther cares about me, necessarily.
But she is worried about me, and I care about her, far more than I ever cared about the family who scorned me.
Somehow, that is enough to make her my home.
According to Harriet’s expertise, I’m Tied to Esther because she was my strongest emotional connection to the world when I died.
As sad as it is that a coworker I had only known for six months and spoken to in passing is my strongest emotional connection, Harriet’s hypothesis fits.
I cared for no one other than the Esther in my dreams.
My parents are dead. Or missing? I don’t know if Mom’s ever been officially declared dead.
Hell, I don’t know if they found her—living or otherwise.
Regardless, I haven’t seen her since she kicked me out on my eighteenth birthday.
Dad vanished from our lives when I was six and Angel was two.
Mom said he drank himself to death, “and good riddance!” I always hoped he’d come back for me, to save me from her. But he never did.
To my surprise, my brother Angel called me a few years ago, early on during the Pox.
After over a decade of silence—longer really, because the distance between us stretched back years before we last saw each other as teenagers—he looked up my office phone number at my old job, to tell me Mom was missing.
I told him I didn’t care. When his attempt to guilt trip me didn’t work, he cussed me out for being heartless. I hung up on him.
Admittedly, not my most empathetic moment, but it was true.
The second her legal obligation to me was over, Mom sent me packing.
Her kicking me out was the nicest thing she’d ever done for me.
From everything I remember about Angel, that one conversation, and his social media posts, he’s inherited her delightful personality.
I never really made friends. Professional acquaintances at best. Cash was the closest thing to a friend I had, and it would be more accurate to say he was my academic advisor and mentor. I met his wife and kids on occasion, only in a professional capacity.
But Cash looked out for me. He encouraged me to research topics I was passionate about and to publish my work, as niche as my lit reviews and book proposals were.
He sent me job openings and recommended me for the adjunct job that eventually went to Esther.
Knowing Cash would have wanted me to take over his position was a big part of why I applied for the vacant associate professor role he left behind.
Gilda was very blunt when she offered the role to me, citing his recommendation as the primary reason I got it. I hadn’t impressed her that much when I interviewed for the adjunct opening, but now they needed someone with a similar academic background to Cash.
Which, if I read between the lines, meant that I was the “diversity hire,” replacing the only Black professor in the department.
Gilda would never admit that, of course, but Cash and I had vented to each other about our experiences being Black in academia enough to hear what was left unsaid.
While she has never been the most inclusive colleague, to put it mildly, Cash respected Gilda for reasons that I still don’t entirely understand.
Cash always saw the best in people. Even me.
I hope he knew how much I appreciated him. I doubt he did.
“My dough is a little sticky. There’s probably a way I could fix it, but I’m just going to keep going.
Hands are always washable!” Esther laughs to herself, fingers coated in cookie dough.
Her laugh is enough to make me smile as I hug myself.
At least I have the real Esther now, even if she doesn’t have me.
Cash has been dead for almost a year, which means I’ve been alone for a long time; the dreams of Esther were the only company I had.
Dreams of her cooking a romantic dinner for me, asking me questions about my life that I never bothered to answer.
Dreams of vanilla-sweet kisses and her thick thighs pressing around my ears.
Dreams of sky blue eyes gazing into mine, and soft whispers of how she wishes she were brave enough to talk to me in real life.
Those dreams warranted a strong enough emotional connection to keep my soul from moving on.
And if that isn’t just so on brand for me—falling for a gorgeous woman in my dreams, even though I could barely say hello to her in passing.
I’m surprised I cared enough to be Tied to her.
To stay Tied to her for nearly three months now.
Though if it’s possible to Untie myself from her, I haven’t figured out how.
Moving on sounds appealing, based on how Harriet described it, just disappearing into nothing.
Just like my life, my death must have been pretty uneventful too.
I still don’t remember dying, so it probably wasn’t too traumatic.
I hope, anyway. If it wasn’t alcohol poisoning that did it, the wine probably helped keep the pain down from whatever it was that took me out.
It feels wrong, being dead and not remembering how I died. Not caring much, either.
“How long should I bake these again?” Esther’s hands, still covered in cookie dough, wave in the air while she elbows her tablet, trying to unlock it to see the recipe.
Part of me wants to try tasting again, just to have the excuse to lick her fingers.
But that would burn and admittedly, it’d be hella creepy.
And I’ve already tried tasting sweet several times, so it’s not like I can use that as an excuse.
The only flavor I have left is bitter, and Esther doesn’t eat many bitter foods; her coffee is mostly sugar and cream, and the only wine she drinks is rose, which looks sickly sweet.
“Eleven minutes,” I call loudly. Harriet said Syd used to hum along when she sang to them. Maybe Esther can hear me subconsciously. I should find a way to keep track of how many times I have to say something before she “hears” me.
I’m in no hurry to move on: I don’t know if Esther can subconsciously hear me. If I can taste bitter or not yet. Or how I died.
For as much as my life was nothingness, my death has been…
somethingness. Not abundant by any means, but more than my life was.
I have a home, someone I care about, and so many curious questions left unanswered.
This is my last opportunity to live life to the fullest, for lack of a better phrase.
Uncomfortable as it is, this opportunity denies me my usual escapism.
I could embrace this time with Esther that is… whatever the opposite of escapism is.
I frown. “How did I publish so many books and articles with this vocabulary? Am I getting less articulate in death?” Another good question to study.
Perhaps related to my short-term memory struggles from compulsory insomnia.
Or perhaps the sense of self I fight to reclaim every morning, as if some words go missing every time I claw my mind back to sanity.
“Eleven minutes,” I call again, as Esther huffs in frustration, sucking on her fingers to clean the dough off so she doesn’t get her tablet sticky.
Even if I can’t share my experience or prove any of it is real, this has been an incredibly satisfying experience.
Hypothesis after hypothesis, all inconclusive yet intellectually stimulating.
Can I feel the heat of a fire? Can I impact my physical environment in any way?
Can I sense other ghosts (besides Harriet, who is nearly as bright as I am) beyond catching the faint outline of their shroud? Can Esther hear me?