When You Come Back To Me - 1. Story

When You Come Back To Me

By Sabat

 

Do you believe in ghosts?

I didn't until I became one, but trust me, when you're floating upwards, looking down on your body, you start to wonder if maybe it isn't time to rethink some of your beliefs. That's the thing about death, it has a way of shaking its fist in your face and shouting 'Believe this'.

Contrary to popular opinion, in your dying moments your life doesn't flash before your eyes. There was to be no longed for Hollywood version of my life to get misty eyed over. No spectacular dance routines or characters bursting into song mid sentance. No special guest stars or well lit kisses in the rain. Not even a makeover scene set to an 80s soundtrack. Nothing but a dreamlike view of yourself as you leave your life behind. There's no moment of revelation where the universe makes sense and your purpose on earth is made clear or any other kind of epiphany, if that's what you're looking for then search elsewhere, I'm afraid death isn't for you.

I remember feeling calm as I drifted away from my body. I was suprised by the amount of blood pooled around me but somehow I felt disconnected from it all, like it wasn't really me. I'd become some sort of mannequin, made up like a crime scene from one of the cop shows my parents loved to watch. Anyway how could I really be dead, I could think, I could see. I told myself I must have passed out and that I was imagining the whole thing, but even as I tried to convince myself that that was the case I knew that if it was then I'd be able to wake myself, as I could if I was having a bad dream. Force my eyes to open. Tell myself this isn't real, this can't be real, but if it's not then why don't I wake up?

So instead of waking up I kept slowly drifting away from where I lay. As I travelled through the air I tried to look around but everything was a haze, I moved what I thought were my hands in front of my face but there was nothing there, or was there? If I focused hard I thought I could make out the imprint of my fingers in the air, no more than a shimmer in the light. The edges of my vision blurred, a darkness was moving in on me. From the corners of my eyes an encroaching shade, wisps of smoke filling the air, swirling in front of me. I looked at the ground, my body seemed so far away now. I wanted to reach out and take my hand, I was struck by a feeling that this wasn't right. I felt like a huge mistake was being made and I was just going along with it willingly.

I've changed my mind, I don't want this. Let me go back. I don't know if they were just thoughts in my head or if I actually said them out loud, but it made no difference. I was moving further into the smothering inky darkness and losing sight of everything else, my body no more than a smudge in the deepening shade.

My world faded to black.

oooOOOooo

I think I passed out, I'm not sure how long for. Everything is dark and I can't feel anything, my body is just numb. I'm not even sure if I'm stood up or sat down. I can hear voices around me, two distinct voices, both of them are male.

"Hello?" My voice cracked as I spoke.

"Don't be scared." One of the voices said quietly.

I could hear them whisper to each other but their voices were too low for me to understand what they were saying. I strained to make out even a word or two of their conversation but without luck.

"I know you've probably got a million questions you want to ask us." The first voice spoke again. I couldn't be sure but I thought it sounded closer this time, somewhere off to my left.

"You're dead." The second voice snapped, it lacked all the warmth of the other speaker's tone.

"Don't tell him like that. Break it to him gently."

"What? Where am I, who are you?" I gasped as I tried to move. I wanted to run away, either take myself far away from these two people, whoever they were or at least find some kind of light so I could see what was going on but I couldn't move. If only I could make myself believe that this was some kind of game, a joke at my expense but for those words 'You're dead'. Why did I believe them?

"We'll explain everything. Just give us time." The first voice replied. "My name is Carlton and this is Stefan."

"And we'll be your guides to the afterlife." The voice I assumed belonged to Stefan said sourly.

"Stop it." Carlton snapped in a tone that bordered on annoyance.

"Why? It's not like the shock can kill him and he's got to find out the truth somehow. Don't prolong the agony I say."

"Do you remember how you felt when you first arrived here." Carlton asked. I assumed the question was aimed at Stefan.

"Do you? I just wanted to know what was happening, I couldn't have cared less how I was told." Stefan replied.

"Well just try to be tactful. It's going to be a lot for him to take in."

"He already knows most of it, they always do. It's just getting them to accept it that's the problem." Stefan said in a low voice. It was hard to make out where he was in relation to me, in front of me maybe? I tried again to move my arms or legs but still couldn't feel anything.

My mind wasn't functioning, there was an elephant in this room that I was doing my damndest to ignore. The thoughts that were rolling around in my head couldn't be true, they just couldn't. I kept picturing my body on the floor and all that blood that surrounded me. I tried to force an image into my mind of me taking a breath or making some movement, anything to prove that there had been some life in me as I'd watched from above but nothing would come. It was like I'd forgotten what I'd ever looked like and now all I could remember were those cold staring eyes and the skin so pale it seemed certain it would be ice cold to the touch.

"Just tell him and lets get this show on the road." Stefan said with bite. His attitude conjured up thoughts of eyes narrowed with contempt as they stared in my direction. Stefan spoke in a tone of voice I remembered only too well from my nights of bar work. The venomous snap of someone so jaded with their existance they sought refuge in alcohol and bitter sarcasm, each one believing their lofty ambitions to be some modern day Dorothy Parker rather than just a mean cynic. I'd refused to bow to them then and I wouldn't start now, no matter what my circumstances.

I had so many questions to ask but the ones that I really wanted the answers to, about where I was and what had happened to me seemed so obvious I didn't want to ask them, I couldn't bring myself to give these people the confirmation they expected that I was clueless about my situation and at their mercy. Instead I decided to call their bluff.

"Well is this Heaven or Hell, or Purgatory, what?" My voice had a slight shake to it as I asked the question, I hoped they wouldn't notice. Even as I asked the question I regretted it. What if they actually gave me an answer?

I could hear quiet laughter nearby.

"Well. Which is it?" I continued.

"You don't have to be defensive Jensen." Carlton said with a concilatory tone.

"You know my name." I replied, not exactly suprised by this news. A feeling of dread was growing in me.

"We know a lot of things. Would you like us to share them with you?" Carlton asked, he sounded so close now I was sure I could touch him if I could only make my arms work.

I paused for a moment and considered my options. Tell them to leave me alone and hope they listen, spend who knows how long here in the dark hoping for a miracle. Maybe ignorance was a state of mind I could get used to, if only I could believe that, then things might be so much easier but really I knew I had to hear what they were here to say and so I silently made a wish and then answered. "Yes."

"As I said my name is Carlton and this is..."

"Stefan." The gruff voice interrupted. "We've been assigned to introduce you to your new existence."

"Don't mind Stef. He's had quite a few orientations lately and most of them have been religious. Never an easy crowd. Sorry you're not into all that are you?" Carlton said.

"Not really." I replied.

"We'll do our best to make this as painless as possible." Carlton continued, his voice had something about it that I found relaxing and in spite of the nerves I felt, I seemed to calm as he spoke. "Now can you feel anything?"

"No." I answered.

"That's to be expected. It'll take some time but things will return to you. Look at it this way, you couldn't walk at birth could you?" Carlton asked.

"No but I could at least see." I replied.

Stefan laughed. "The reason you can't see or move or even, in case you haven't already noticed, breathe, is that you haven't accepted what has happened to you. Once you manage to do that your eyes will open."

He was right, I wasn't breathing and I hadn't even noticed. I gasped and tried to inhale but nothing happened. I felt dizzy from the shock. Calm down Jensen I told myself, think, you just can't feel yourself breathe. It was a poor excuse but it was all I could think of so I clung to it.

"You remember seeing yourself? Remember moving away from your body?" Carlton asked.

"Yes." I whispered. Maybe I thought if I said it quietly enough it wouldn't be true.

"Well we're sorry but that was your death. You're now being readied for processing". Stefan said.

I lay there, not seeing, not moving, not breathing, just listening as Carlton told me what they were here to explain.

oooOOOooo

I was dead and my spirit or soul or whatever you wanted to call the spark that resided in my physical being was all that was left of me. This place I was in now had no official name, different people called it different things. The cell, the pen, preparatory or prep, God's lobby, ground floor, Heaven's waiting room, Hell's courtyard, the pit stop, examining room, processor, cloisters, the sea of ghosts or ocean of spirits. Names were unimportant though, what mattered was the purpose of this place. I had arrived at the next stage of existence.

The process had started even before my death. When your time on earth is nearing its end your essence struggles to leave your body and the disruption that causes is noticed here so they prepare for your inevitable arrival. Carlton and Stefan were my welcome wagon.

Where I am now is where I'll stay until I'm ready to move on, it's a place of quiet and relaxation where I can consider my life and make peace with all that I've left behind. Stefan and Carlton argued at this point, so much for quiet and relaxation. Stefan thought it was being made to sound like a health spa, he took over the description and said if it was going to be compared to anything it should be a cinema. You go into the dark to look over movies of your life. Maybe my life would flash before my eyes after all. Then when you're done you step out into the light and get on with your life or death or whatever this was.

The time people spend here varies, some take a while to come to terms with what they've lost, some never manage it, others barely pause on their way upwards. The religious rarely hang around, they can get quite upset that this isn't the heaven they were promised or in some cases the hell they expected so they move straight on. The very young are guided onwards, it's felt it's kinder than leaving them down here where they have difficulty comprehending what has happened to them. When I feel ready to go all I have to do is move upwards. They couldn't explain it as well as they wanted but they said movement here was like swimming by thought, you feel like you're floating and your mind controls your movement. Somewhere above us is the point where you can crossover to the next reality, no one knows for sure what is past that point but anyone who has travelled close to it has described a feeling of complete euphoria and no one who has felt that has been able to remain here for long, they all return to the frontier and cross over, the pull is just too great to resist.

Stefan explained that when I'm ready, when I've accepted where I am, I can be shown the potential of the place. There's a way to return to your old life to observe what is happening in your absense.

Carlton said they would leave me for a while but they'd be nearby if I needed them. He added that I should think about my last memories before I awoke here, if I did that I would see the truth. With that advice they left, I couldn't see them or hear them but somehow I could feel them leave. I was now alone and I was scared.

Trapped there in the dark with no external stimuli my mind turned inwards and soon I was, despite my best efforts, focusing on the sight of my bloody body. Flashes of various close up images played through my mind, my neck twisted to the left, my mouth agape, the lips scarlet. The bright red of a t-shirt that wasn't meant to be red and those eyes, the eyes that just stared out at nothing. Everything was telling me what the truth was but still I tried to deny it.

Suddenly my attention was drawn to a change in my surroundings. There in the corner of my vision was a white dot, a tiny pin prick of light. I couldn't help but stare at it and watch as it grew, slowly but surely despite my efforts to suppress it, I willed it to vanish but it kept on expanding, blossoming like a match pressed into a piece of black card, burning away the darkness before me. Looking into the light I could see a multitude of flickering, changing colours, it was like watching oil poured onto water. Before I realised it the luminessence was washing over me. I tried to retreat into the remaining darkness. It felt like I was in a cave looking out onto a bright summers day, it seemed so warm and inviting out there I was tempted to just step out into the light and see what really was out there.

In the end I didn't need to go anywhere, the light came to me, sweeping over me. I basked in its warmth and watched as it intensified, glowing white, blinding my sight like a camera flash. It took a minute for my vision to return but when it did, what a sight I was presented with.

oooOOOooo

I can best describe it as a sea made of mist, its colour and shape everchanging. One second it rolls like waves, the next I can make out the outline of faces, torsos, bodies in motion and then still, all bobbing in this artificial sea. The closer I look the more it seems to be countless people blurring into an amalgam and the colours, oh the colours, every shade you can imagine sweeping out to the horizon like some kind of otherworldly watercolour. I've never seen anything like it, if I could inhale it would take my breath away.

Every now and again this sea erupts and a jet of colour sprays upwards forming a vague human shaped mass of sparkling matter which soars out of sight. When that happens the mist before me takes on the look of molten lava, the eruptions bursts of boiling liquid.

I look down at my body, or where my body should be, in its place is a swirl of blue and purple and pink. I'm struck by the urge to stick my fingers in and see if it ripples but I'd need to find my hands first. There must be some way to reform my body, people out there are managing it. I try to imagine what my hands held out in front of me should look like and gradually as I concentrate on that one image, fingers seem to form in front of me, hands, the vaguest impression of arms. Looking around again at the shapes coming out of the fog I remembered what I was told about it being like swimming, I should have asked if that meant you could drown, I only ever learned enough in the pool to prevent going under. I tried to move my hands in a doggy paddle like motion, it felt like moving against a strong current or what I imagined wading through melted toffee would be like, however I was moving, slowly and with great effort but movement none the less. I paused for a moment, unsure as to where I was actually trying to move to. It was then that I heard the sounds for the first time, a low hum at first, growing the more I listened for it. Given the surroundings it came across as the rush of water but there in the background were words, speech, the accumulation of countless conversations all blurring into one wall of sound. I found myself hearing snatches of sentences and realising the voices were all different.

"Don't worry, you'll soon learn how to just hear the voices you want to." Carlton said as his shape rose in front of me. He was just the barest impression of a figure, pale yellow fading to white at the edges, a stocky blur that at first glance seemed to be a large smudge.

A second figure rose next to him, taller, thinner, more defined with a slightly angular appearance to it. It was the most intense violet colour, at some points so dark it almost seemed black but which as I stared turned to a deep ruby shade.

"Welcome to our home." The second figure said, it was Stefan.

The two of them continued to describe my new surroundings and the rules that governed it. No need for sleep or to eat or drink. The form my body appeared as could be altered at will once I'd practised enough. This place was filled with spirits, literally made up of them but they would only make themselves known when they wished to. As they talked they would pause every now and then to ask if I had any questions but I couldn't think of anything to say, this was all too much for me to take in.

"You said I could go back home?" I enquired, glad to have finally found something to say and hopeful that the answer would result in my returning to some more familiar surroundings.

"Eventually." Stefan said, Carlton muttered something in agreement.

"I wouldn't recommend you get too hung up on that just yet. Give yourself some time here first."

They moved with me, slowly as I was still having trouble controlling my movement. As we travelled voices would occasionally greet us, sometimes coming from actual figures in the steaming mist, other times just detached sounds. The further we travelled the easier I found it and I could now fashion a more defined body for myself.

Carlton described travelling back, wanting to clarify that it wasn't so much a full on return to your life as a visit to places that had been important to you. Manifesting yourself in say your home or a friends place or as was often the case, the scene of your death. The visit would always be as an invisible presence and often would last only a moment.

Stefan lagged behind as he paused to speak to a figure that had appeared to our left, a small tan and grey creature who from it's place on the peripheral of my vision appeared to take on the shape of a rodent stood upright. It was only when I turned to look fully at the image that it morphed into a short androgenous human.

After travelling on a little further Carlton announced he would leave me alone again to give me a chance to absorb the new information I'd received and to give me space to practise controlling my form. Once more he pointed out that he would be within easy reach and then he vanished as if swallowed by the fog. I held out a half formed hand in front of me and pushed away, watching as my fingers stretched out to twice their usual length. I couldn't quite manage to pull them back to their normal size and they flopped down, dangling there as if they'd melted.

A figure appeared in front of me, female shaped and a pale blueish green in colour. She moved in close and grabbed me before I could work up the momentum to move away.

"Greetings." She said warmly before letting me go. The contact had left my body tingling, it was an amazing feeling and it was all I could do to not grab hold of her again. I looked down at myself and saw that I was now glowing a bright pink colour.

"I'm Magda." She announced.

"Jensen." I replied

"You must call by to see me when you're settled, all the new arrivals visit. You'll make so many new friends . Promise?"

"Promise." I replied.

She dived in to hug me again. My whole being was ablaze, it was like the moment you take the first plunge on a rollercoaster, that heady weightless feeling. Her cheek brushed mine and heat blossomed over my face. To use an often over used phrase, this was better than sex and shockingly it was with a woman.

"Well I must dash. Remember to visit, don't make me hunt you down." She said with a giggle before gliding away, her hands waving at a group of figures in the distance.

I took a moment to reflect on my situation. Everything I was experiencing was so new that I was forgetting why I was here and indeed where here was. I was dead, it was a sobering thought. The chills from Magdas hug a moment ago faded to leave only a cold feeling in my centre. What was I going to do here?

oooOOOooo

As it turned out I didn't get much of a chance to dwell on my situation. People kept coming up to me to introduce themselves and even when I was left alone there was always conversations I could listen to or join in on. I'd never had such a busy social life. It was only when people would excuse themselves as they had places to be that I would remember what Carlton and Stefan had told me. Nobody ever explicitly said where they were going but it was assumed by me at least that they meant the real world.

I took myself away on my own, explaining to anyone that asked that I too had places to go.

Somewhere out there is my life, sorry I should say out there 'was' my life. It's strange thinking about it now, it really does feel like another world, which of course it is but I'm still suprised. I thought there'd be much more of a connection for me but when I think about it now all I can focus on is how much energy I wasted. Things that seemed so important to me at the time, what were they worth really now that I look back.

My obsession with the physical, while no worse than anyone else I knew seemed so pointless now. Wearing the right things, having the current look, being with the correct people, what I owned, what I said, who I did, everything contributing to creating some image that I convinced myself mattered. It all seemed such a waste now.

What did any of it really count for in the end. To leave behind a corpse that had a wardrobe full of unworn must have items, a group of mourners who would actually worry about how they looked at the funeral service. A tragedy that only counted because I was young rather than because I actually mattered as a person. It's not that I regret my life, although I do wonder how things might have been different. I just look back and marvel at the attention I paid to such small things.

Carlton had warned me to be careful, he said that no matter what I feel like at the minute the fact is that our connection to the past is all that keeps us here. I might talk about how ordinary and unimportant things back there now seem but so many people remain stuck here unable to move on because they can't face up to the fact that they have lost something important. I had wanted to ask why he hasn't moved on, from the things he says it seems like he's been here a long time and I know he would tell me if I did ask but I'd rather he chose to talk about it. He says he has no idea what keeps Stefan here, despite countless attempts to find out, all he knows about his past life is that something happened involving his family. Someone once told him that when Stefan first arrived all he would ask was where was his brother, but he's never mentioned him to Carlton.

I look around at the mist of people here with so many reasons for not letting go. Some of them whisper the nams of the person they can't forget, others talk openly about the life 'out there' as if they were a real part of it. I wonder what keeps them here, observers in a life they play no real part in anymore. Maybe it starts out as not wanting to leave until they know their loved ones are okay, I can understand that, I could imagine it's the selfless reason they cling to, telling themselves they're forsaking paradise for a chance to watch out for the people who mattered to them. That excuse can only work for so long though, lives do move on, they have to and so at some point surely you've got to realise that you're watching people who bear no relation to the ones you once knew. Wouldn't you get angry if you watched people get over the fact that you were gone or is that just me? I could believe that's why Stefan's still here, cursing the fact that he wasn't as important a fixture in peoples lives as he thought he was.

Now that I thought about my past seriously my curiosity about what was happening back there without me was such that I couldn't wait to look. I tracked down Carlton and Stefan who gave me a tutorial on how to access the world, apparently all I have to do is let my mind drift and wait for a memory to come to the forefront then focus on it until it fills my thoughts, if I can hold onto that memory and concentrate it should become 'real' to me, like a picture I can step into. It's not guaranteed to work and theres no real control over where your mind will take you, although Stefan says that with practise you can go anywhere, something Carlton doesn't believe. To return here I have to click my heels and say "There's no place like home." I pretended I didn't get the joke and waited for them to explain that I just need concentrate on the fact that my place wasn't in whichever memory I found myself in, once I remembered it wasn't real it would fade away, bringing me back here. I was told it might take time for me to get it to work and even then I may not be able to control my thoughts enough to fully form the doorway I'd need to enter the other world. I should just take my time and not expect results too early on. With that they moved away from me to give me space alone, Stefan hung back slightly until Carlton was some distance away.

"It's not as hard as he makes it seem. If you believe it's going to work it will." Stefan whispered to me.

"Okay." I replied, unsure what else to say.

"You know some people say you can affect the world once you're there."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Where do you think the stories about poltergeists come from? Some of us have learned how to move things, to affect things while we're there." He sounded quite proud as he said this.

"What about Carlton?"

"Forget Carlton, he's limited by his own hang ups. Don't do this, don't do that, it's no wonder he had such a miserable life. All I'm saying is try it, you probably won't be able to do it but why not see?"

With that he drifted off leaving me alone. I set to work straight away, clearing my mind which was hard to do when it was so filled with ideas and expectations. Where would I go to, where did I want to go to? Would I be able to affect things the way Stefan claimed he could? Then as time wore on it became, why isn't this working, will it ever work? What am I doing wrong? I felt like giving up, I was frustrated with myself for failing. I should have asked Carlton or Stefan what happens if I can't do it, am I stuck here forever, will I ever be able to move on if I can't look out there and make peace with the past?

I settled down to try again, letting the sights and sounds around me fall away until I was alone in silence and there I stayed, waiting, just letting my mind drift and trying not to expect anything to happen. It felt like falling asleep, that's the best way I can describe it, I barely even noticed it happening. You start to remember a moment from your past and at first that's all it is, a memory, then it seems to solidify as if someone is drawing the scene around you. The colours sharpen, the textures deepen and before you realise what's happening you're stood there, you've gone from looking at the photograph to being inside it.

oooOOOooo

My old room at my parents house. It hasn't changed a bit since my school days, same bed, same desk, same wardrobe with the door that would never close properly. There's the marks from where I stuck my posters on the door and the huge ugly rug that covers the burn mark on the carpet left from a scented candle accident, yes I really was that gay.

It's amazing how no matter how far behind you think you've left your adolescence all it takes is a return to a scene from it and you're right back there, the same awkward kid who wondered when things would ever go their way. Would I have matched up to my teenage self's expectations? Probably not but then I had dreams way beyond my abilities.

I move around the room slowly, taking in all the details. Everything is so still that it feels like it's a frozen scene I'm standing in, a snapshot from my past. I would say it was creepy but as I'm the one floating in the air I don't think I have the right to call anything creepy. Just then the curtains billow out as a gust of wind blows through the room, I move to the window which is slightly ajar, probably left that way to air the place. I focus as intensely as I can manage and try to picture my hands in front of me pushing on the window, I'm trying to close it but nothing happens and I must admit I'm disappointed. I know Stefan told me there's only a few people who can affect the physical world but you still hope that you'll be one of that select group. I rest on the bed, an old mortal habit given that I neither need nor am able to rest anywhere, I doubt I'm even actually touching the quilt cover, I mean for all the difference it would make I could be hovering inches from the ceiling but it does seem appropriate that I at least try to act like I used to in this room.

So here I am at the scene of my misspent youth. The drink, the drugs, the sex, well there was a little drinking, the occasional smoke and zero sex. Not for a lack of interest on my part, it just so happened that the objects of my lust never seemed to return the sentiment, or acknowledge my existence if truth be known.

There was Mr. Henry, my chemistry teacher and subject of so many of my teenage fantasies that if just half of them had come true he would never have the strength to teach again, or walk for that matter. I was seventeen and old enough to know better but I still dreamed of a world where his wife and kids were forgotten and he declared his lust for me.

Ross, who dreamed of making movies and the last I heard was a drummer in a band. I adored him because he was nice to me, but he had a girlfriend, as did William and Lee, two other crushes. I don't know if you're noticing the pattern here but now that I think about it with the number of straight guys I fell for it's no wonder I stayed untouched for so long.

William was tall, blonde and incredibly sweet. I hated Molly, his girlfriend who seemed to thrill in treating him like crap and eventually cheated on him with his older brother, how I longed to comfort him and slap her, sadly neither came close to happening. Lee was dark haired, brown eyed and had the most amazing body I'd ever seen, getting changed for football became like a safari hunt for me, peeking between coats and bags that hung above the benches as I studied my prey, knowing that staring for a fraction too long would give away my position and lead to exposure. I used to hold my breath as I tried to time my glances to coincide with the removal of his shorts. I swear the one time I remember seeing him fully naked I gasped. With those eyes and those thighs and everything in between he was just made for sex, a thought obviously shared by Tina his girlfriend at the time, who fell pregnant and became the school's poster child for the perils of not using contraception.

I wondered if my parents missed me. I hadn't exactly left on the best of terms with them and I think the last time I spoke to either of them was in a phone call six weeks prior to my death, but the fact is I was their son, they'd have to mourn me wouldn't they? Maybe that's why I'm here, to find out how much I meant to them. I tried to shake away the doubts I was feeling, what did it matter what they thought, it wouldn't change anything, but the fact is it did matter to me. In my last months I'd missed them but I'd refused to admit it and while I'd not spoken to them for weeks that was as much down to me as them. It's that old cliche, so many things I'd never said because I always thought I'd have the chance to put things right later on. I would never have admitted it but they hadn't been bad parents, they let me do pretty much what I wanted, trusting me to not screw things up too much.

I moved towards the closed door leading out into the hallway and tried to grab the handle, as with the window nothing happened, I considered trying to just move through the door but thought it best to not try anything like that just yet. I was obviously limited to this room for now. I turned back towards the window and as I did I spotted a glint of light on top of the bookcase that stood by the bed. It was the chain they'd bought me for my eighteenth birthday, I'd worn it the night I died. It lay on top of some folded white material, a t-shirt which although it must have been washed countless times still held the shading of stains across it's front, blood is a devil of a stain to get out. Faced with this evidence of my demise I didn't want to be here any longer, I couldn't face thinking about what had happened.

Looking around the room again I began spotting other things that had been added since I'd last lived here. A photo on the desk of me taken on holiday last year, books I'd bought and never had a chance to read piled next to it, a snow globe I'd been given last Christmas by my grandmother, items that I'd last seen in my own home and which were now placed here. Mementos of my life since I'd left this place now brought back to hide my absence, it's like it's all there just waiting for me to return. This place didn't feel like a step into the past anymore, it's not the preserved scene of my teenage years where I can sit and remind myself of youthful crushes and sexual yearning, pretending I'm a teenager all over again. This is the room I left all my innocence in, never to return.

My surroundings began to fade as instinctively I pulled away from this world and its reminders. It was like coming out of a dream, the walls melting, colours washing out. Slowly I became aware of voices near me and I realised I was back in my reality. I could sense Carlton was nearby but he wasn't his usual strong prescense, I didn't say anything, I didn't really want to talk to him. I was mad at myself for being so easily affected by what I'd just experienced, all I could think about was trying again and doing better this time.

"They say the first time's the killer." A voice behind me spoke, it was Stefan, I hadn't noticed him there.

"It was, it was fine." I stammered. The thought crossed my mind, had I just missed him approach me or had he been there all along watching?

"I'm sure Carlton will be all ready to offer you some words of wisdom in a minute."

"But you thought you'd get in there first?" I said without thinking. If I hadn't still been unsettled by my recent experience I doubt I would have had the nerve. Stefan laughed.

"You didn't manage to make yourself noticed over there then?" He asked although it seemed more of a statement than a question.

"Maybe I didn't try." I said defensively.

"Everyone tries."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to talk about what had happened but I couldn't trust Stefan to be helpful. I wanted someone to tell me I hadn't failed by being so easily spooked.

"Where is Carlton?" I asked.

"He's off in his own world. Probably wasn't expecting you back so soon. He'll be off watching his son most likely."

"He has a son?" I asked, suprised by the news.

"Had a son. Why does that shock you? Straight people die too you know."

"I just thought."

I was suprised by my own assumptions and prejudices. What had made me think that only someone who had been gay would have wanted to help me?

"Not that it matters much up here but he's as straight as I guess anyone can be. If it makes you feel any more comfortable, I was, in my past life a flaming homosexual." Stefan said sarcastically. "I'll leave you alone, you probably want to try going back."

"How was your first time?" I asked, forcing the question out before I lost my nerve.

"Depends which first time you're talking about. I take it you mean my first trip back?"

"Yeah." I answered.

"I survived it. That's about all you can do with your first time."

"Were you scared?" I asked.

"What's there to be scared of? What's the worst that could happen, death? Been there." Stefan sighed. "Look it gets easier, well slightly easier. Trust me, and don't worry about how much it affects you. When it doesn't affect you, that's when you want to worry. Now if you'll excuse me."

As soon as Stefan left I put myself back under, eager to return to my parents house and to do better this time. However when the process of travelling back ended and my surroundings solidified I found that I wasn't back at my parents. I was at a bus station, I knew straight away where it was, Market Street station, where for 6 months I'd caught the early morning bus home after finishing work in the bar.

I looked around the station, it was almost deserted. A few people stood at the far end of the concourse but other than that it was empty. I thought back to when I'd used to stand here, back then I couldn't have told you anything about how busy it was because I only had eyes for one thing, one person, one man.

I didn't know his name or a single thing about him but I knew that I loved him. I realise how ridiculous that sounds but you never saw him, he had something about him that drove me crazy. He was older than me, with dark curly hair and blue eyes and a permanent shadow of stubble across his face that hinted at a hairy chest, yes I really had put that much thought into what the parts of him I couldn't see would look like. Every morning when I arrived to catch the bus he would be stood there dressed in a suit and holding a briefcase. I'd stand at the back of the station leaning against the wall just watching him, adoring him, silently wishing he would look my way. Of course if his glance did fall in my direction I looked away instantly.

In my defence I hadn't yet had a proper relationship so I guess you could call this an extreme version of safe sex where everything was carried out in my head. I did dream of actually getting to know him although a part of me suspected that reality could never live up to the fantasy. I had all kinds of ideas for how we'd be introduced to each other, all very contrived and calculated. I'd ask him the time and we'd get talking and realise how much we had in common, that was dismissed as involving me speaking to him and being worth getting to know. An alternative plan involved my getting off the bus just ahead of him, taking the route he walked along and dropping a piece of paper with my phone number on it so that it landed right in front of him. Yes, I did know where he went to when he got off the bus but it's not quite as psycho stalker as it sounds, most of his journey was the same as the one I took home and it's not like I followed him all the way to the office block he worked in.

On the mornings when I finished work early I would walk around the town stalling for time so I could be there ready to catch the same bus and see him again. I knew it was all a bit sad and pathetic especially on a freezing cold winter's morning when I could have been at home an hour ago and instead I was staring in the window of a closed shop desperate for the time to tick by but I was constantly struck by the very real fear that every day might be the chance I'd get to see him. I knew nothing about him he could disappear from my life in an instant and I'd never know why or how.

That moment came in the spring when a day or two without him being there when I arrived at the station became three and four and five days, then two weeks, three. I stopped counting after a month. A part of me cursed my lack of nerve in letting chances fall through my fingers, another part said that the imaginary time I'd had with him was more than I'd have ever have had in reality.

Of course he's not here now, I look around again just to make sure but nothing. A bus pulls up and a couple of passengers climb down the steps. It's not the bus I used to catch and I have no idea where it is headed but I move towards it and climb inside. Back then I'd always make sure he got on before me so I could pick a prime spot just behind him on the other side of the bus where I could have a full side view of him for the whole journey. Watching as he touched his hair, checked the time on his watch, when he did that I could see the hairs on his arms and I would swoon like a Victorian lady.

I'm now stood in the aisle of the bus. There are a couple of people sat near the front and a few at the back but nobody else gets on after me and so the driver starts up the engine again and begins to reverse the vehicle. It is at this point that I realise I haven't quite thought this through for although the bus is moving I am not. The windscreen rushes towards me and I slap into and through it as a roar of noise overcomes my senses. I land on the road and watch as the driver, oblivious to my sudden exit continues to reverse. Both the bus and myself seem to be intact although the shock of having my whole body pass through a solid object has me shaking and before I have a chance to control it I'm slipping out of this world again.

oooOOOooo

It takes me a moment to regain my composure. This time I manage to laugh at my sudden exit from reality. I'll know to avoid moving vehicles in future. As I calm down I notice the sound of voices raised in excitement around me. I join in the commotion by asking what's going on.

It looks like I missed all the fun while I was away. Apparently while they were on the other side, one of the more shall we say tempermental characters around here ran into the middle of a seance their wife was participating in. I don't think I mentioned that anyone claiming even remote psychic abilities are pretty much despised here. Thieving con artists is one of the nicer descriptions afforded them. I'm not sure why everyone gets so worked up about it, maybe I just haven't been here long enough. Carlton says it's pretty hard to not be biased once you've seen someone you care about fed words that are supposed to be from your lips, he seemed hurt when I laughed and told him I didn't know anyone who'd waste their money trying to contact me, I couldn't think of what to say to make things okay between us. Stefan told me later that the reason Carlton and the others get so upset about the subject is that every time they come across a clairvoyant they hope that this will be the one that can hear them and will pass on their messages, but everytime they're disappointed. He was really keen to hear about what happened with this guy, Kurt I think his name is, Stefan loves the gossip I guess.

Apparently this Kurt fellow was visiting his old home and he dropped in on his wife and a bunch of people he didn't recognise sat around the kitchen table. He had no idea what was going on at first and was shocked when he heard them mention his name. Then his wife took the hand of the man sat next to her and asked a middle aged guy sat at the opposite end of the table if Kurt approved of her marriage plans. This so called psychic said that Kurt wanted his wife to be happy and that he thought Jerry was just the man to take care of her. Well Kurt most certainly didn't want his wife to be happy, especially not with another man. He wanted her to stay true to him and hurry her way towards an after life reunion, so when he heard that he was supposedly blessing this union he went beserk. According to Stefan he'd never shown any aptitude for altering the real world but this situation had made him so mad he tapped into his rage and went all out. A vase, a wedding gift from her parents, was pushed from the sideboard, family photographs flung across the room, he struck this Jerry person across the head twice, knocking him to the ground and then he set to work on the psychic, actually trying to strangle him. I was shocked but Stefan seemed impressed. It was only the fact that he got so worked up over his wife's supposed betrayal that he lost focus and ended up slipping back here that stopped him doing even more damage. Stefan tried to talk to him but he was so furious that once he'd finished ranting about what had happened he flew straight up and left this world for the next in a shower of sparks.

I've been warned before about the dangers of hanging around here too long. Some people are tempted to wait for a big reunion with the people they left behind, so they wait and they watch and slowly but surely the people they're waiting for move on with their lives, meet new people, form new relationships and you end up either realising that when they arrive here they're going to be wanting to see not you but the people they left behind or even worse, you grow bitter and angry as you watch your influence fade until you're just a memory in the lives of people who are still the focal point in yours. For the lucky few there is a tearful reunion, but even then there are hazards. What happens when the person you're supposed to love finds out you knew they were going to die and did nothing about it. The rational mind says there was nothing you could have done to save them but for a lot of people trying to deal with the facts of their death rational doesn't come into it.

Knowing when to get out, it's the skill everyone says you need here but when I ask how you know nobody seems able to tell me. I see some of them move on to the next level, soaring upwards like flares, the rainbow coloured trail they leave dissipating as they disappear into the distance, but so few of them actually say they're going or explain what told them it was time. I've asked Carlton and Stefan but they just say the same as everyone else. "You'll know." They have no answer when I reply. "What if I don't?"

oooOOOooo

I've been spending more and more time out there, trying to get my memories to take me places I want to go to, with limited success. I find myself heading back to my parents house a lot, mainly to my old room although a couple of times I've briefly found myself in my fathers study where I used to go to read on hot summer nights, curled up on the old sofa in there with the ceiling fan running. I saw my mother in there the other day but only for a few seconds, the shock of the door opening and seeing her enter the room sent me straight back here and when I calmed down enough to return she'd gone. She looked tired, her usually immaculate hair just tied up and her face makeup free. I would try and make my way out of the rooms I awoke in but the change in surroundings seemed to affect my concentration too much and I'd find myself dropping out of reality if I strayed too far.

I spoke to Stefan today to try and find out what I'm doing wrong. Why am I limited to just one or two scenes from my past when there's so many places and people I want to visit that I just can't seem to find a way to. He said that I'm so scared of failing that I'm not really trying. If I put all of myself into returning to a specific place and it doesn't work then that's final, there's no way around it, so he says that I hold back, telling myself I'll do better next time. He tested me by asking where I really wanted to travel back to and I paused, I didn't want to tell him. He said that proved his point, until I was happy to own up to where I wanted to go to I'd never have the nerve to actually go there.

I thought about what Stefan had said, questioning myself over where I did want to go and why it was so hard for me to admit to. I don't think he's right about my being scared of failing, I think what I'm scared of is that there is one thing I want to do, one person I want to see, before I'll be ready to move on and it's the moving on that I'm really scared of, but I have to do it, right? I can't stay here forever. I vow to really try this time, no holding back and so I relax and let my thoughts flow back to the last time on earth that I was truly happy. As I try to focus in on thoughts of that place I make myself speak out loud.

"I want to see him again. The only man that counted. The only man I really loved."

Michael James Monroe, Mike, my Mikey, the man I died for.

oooOOOooo

My surroundings blurred and then came sharply back into focus. I wasn't back in my old room or anywhere in my parents house, this was someplace new, as I started to look around the images faded, I could feel myself slipping away. I forced myself to concentrate, making the room solidify around me again.

I looked around slowly, I was too scared to dream I'd made it back to where I wanted to go but as I took in my new surroundings my hopes rose. I didn't immediately recognise the room I was in but it did have a familiar feel, it was when I saw the jacket hanging over the back of a chair that I knew I'd made it, it was his. It was then that the room made sense to me, the old memories flooded back and I saw that while the decoration and the furniture might have changed the structure of the room was as it had always been, this was his guest bedroom, which had been our study back in the day.

The walls shimmered, it felt like I was about to slip away again but I didn't, I clung on and when things finally settled I began to slowly move around the room. The walls were white whereas they had once been blue, most of the furniture had been removed and in it's place were boxes piled up against the far wall. Tins of paint and old dust sheets lay on the floor. The one window in the room was covered by a large blanket, the bottom of which brushed against the tops of several large black plastic sacks which were stuffed to overflowing with what looked like clothes.

The door to the room was open so I headed towards it, trying to stay calm. I was conscious of every movement I made, so determined was I to not let this moment disappear on me. Every step I took was followed by a pause as I checked that everything around me remained steady. I couldn't believe I was here again and I couldn't risk losing it.

I stood in the doorway, my hands close to the frame but not quite daring to touch it. I wanted to step out of the room and explore, maybe find some sign of him but I couldn't risk it. Just then a shadow passed along the hallway and into my line of sight he stepped. He looked just like he'd done the last night I'd seen him.

"Michael." I whispered

oooOOOooo

I first met Mikey at work. He'd been dragged along to the bar by some of his work colleagues who I recognised as regulars. They were all laughing, having a great time and he looked so out of place it was painful to watch.

Alex, another of our regulars, had been sat chatting to me all night. He nodded in Mikey's direction and tried to make a bet with me that he was straight. I thought he was probably right but to be sporting I took the bet. While we tried to work out how to settle the wager Mikey came over to order a drink. Alex considered this to be our chance and decided to go for the subtle approach, turning to Mikey and asking if he fancied a screw. To his credit Mikey didn't miss a beat in replying that he'd rather have a beer. I gave him the drink on the house and reluctantly conceded defeat to Alex. It might not have been conclusive proof of his being straight but I didn't want to see what Alex had planned next in the quest for discovery.

I saw him a few more times over the following weeks, usually with the same bunch of guys but once or twice on his own. The bar was widely known for its gay clientele but it wasn't unheard of for a straight guy to wander in, maybe he liked the atmosphere. Still, I started to wonder if I hadn't settled on the bet a little early. I would share a few words with him when he came over to order a drink but that was the extent of our contact, then one night we had a rowdier crowd than usual in. A bunch of out of towners had rolled up, already pretty drunk and getting progressively more so. I thought they looked like trouble, they were already hassling some of the other drinkers who they'd decided were in their way. I headed over to try and calm the situation but before I knew what was happening one of the group had me in a headlock as the others laughed and jeered. I could see a couple approaching to help me but I held out my hands to warn them off, I didn't want this turning into a brawl.

"I've caught myself a cub." The guy who had me trapped said to a chorus of cheers. "Who wants a piece?" He asked as his free hand slapped my ass.

"Pass him over here." One of his friends shouted.

"I'll give you two hundred for him." A voice said calmly.

I strained to look up. It was Mikey. He stood in front of the group fanning the air with a bunch of notes. Just as suddenly as I'd been grabbed I was released, I remained doubled over, rubbing my throat.

"We have a buyer." The guy who had grabbed me said as he stepped towards Mikey. He reached his hand out to take the money and as he did Mikey grabbed his wrist and twisted it around behind his back. The crowd closed in to rescue their friend.

"Any of you takes one more step I break his arm. Understood? You so much as breath in my direction I break his arm. You say another word I break his arm. Hell if I don't like the way you look at me I'll snap it in two. You got that? Good, now get out." Mikey said, twisting the guys arm higher to emphasize his point.

"Just do it." The guy being held shouted.

The group made it's way to the exit followed by Mikey still holding his prisoner. Alistair the bar manager hurried over.

"Police are on their way." Alistair said as he checked I was alright. I was stood up now, still rubbing my neck. We both watched as Mikey released his hold on the guy and shoved him outside after his gang.

"Looks like someone's found their knight in shining armor." Alistair said to me as we watched Mikey walk towards us. He didn't realise how true that was.

oooOOOooo

He stood in the hallway staring into the bedroom. I got chills as I thought he was looking at me but of course he was looking through me. His hair was the same shade of dirty blonde, a little longer than he usually wore it. His eyes such a pale shade of blue they seemed almost grey at times. He'd lost weight, his usual definition gone but he was still the same Mikey who could always be guaranteed to make my heart miss a beat. I can't believe I'm seeing him again.

He stepped into the bedroom, I just managed to avoid him walking straight through me. I watched as he headed over to the plastic bags under the window, rummaged through them and pulled out a sweater which he put on. Then just as quickly as he had entered he left. I stood staring at the empty doorway.

Seeing him again brought all the memories flooding back, everything I'd been denying to myself. How much I loved him. How much I missed him. How guilty I felt for leaving him.

The room melted away. I was travelling back and I didn't care, all I could think about was his face.

oooOOOooo

We sat at the bar after the commotion died down. I'd bought him a couple of drinks and we'd introduced ourselves properly. I tried not to stare at him but I couldn't help it, I'd never been rescued before. Alistair gave me the rest of the night off and Mikey offered to walk me to the station. I told him I would be fine but I didn't argue when he insisted.

Maybe it was the alcohol mixed with the sudden shock of the cold night air but I felt quite giddy as we walked through the city streets. I'd never noticed how good looking he was, back at the bar he was just one of many semi familiar faces but here stood beside me he was taking on other dimesions. We chatted about work, our lives, our interests, he was a computer engineer training in his own time for some qualifications he failed first time round so he didn't have much time for anything outside work and studying. I told him I was doing bar work while I saved to go to college. I didn't tell him I'd decided he was gorgeous and that I wanted to kiss him.

We arrived at the station in time to see my bus pull away. The next one wasn't for an hour so we went to an all night coffee shop Mikey knew to warm up. I told him I'd be fine if he wanted to head off but he said he could use a coffee himself to help sober up before he did anything embarrassing. I didn't dare ask what embarrassing thing he might do.

I missed a further three buses as we sat and chatted and drank awful coffee. I apologised so many times for keeping him there that he eventually had to tell me off. He brought his index finger to my face and pressed it against my lips.

"Shhh." He said and then realising what he'd done he quickly removed his finger and blushed so deeply he went scarlet. I felt my face flush.

"Sorry. I've embarrassed you." He apologised, staring down at the table.

"No, it's a sympathy blush. I'm only embarrassed because you're embarrassed and you don't need to be." I replied, feeling my face redden even more.

"Well seeing as I've already shamed myself I may as well go all out." He said quickly. "Have you got a boyfriend?"

So that was how we got together.

oooOOOooo

I lay back, letting the stream of colour flow over me, covering my face with my hands as I pictured his face, the moment when I thought he'd looked at me replaying in my mind. One part of me wanted to try going back but another and at the moment bigger part couldn't face seeing him again.

Carlton called my name. I looked over to where he stood and he moved closer.

"Everything alright?" He asked sounding concerned.

"Not too bad." I replied.

"I hope you trust me enough by now to know you can tell me anything, even the truth."

"Can I ask you something?" I said. I wasn't sure if I would have the nerve to ask the question I wanted to but I thought I could try.

"Of course." Carlton answered.

"Where do you go when you visit your old life?" I asked.

"Oh, all over the place. It varies." He said warily.

"But which of them is the place you want the most?"

"My parents house." He said after a long pause. I was suprised by his answer.

"Not your wife and kids place?" I asked. "Stefan told me." I added as an explanation.

"They moved." He said sighing. "I sometimes think that's the cruellest thing about this place, that we're tied to places not people. They sometimes visit my parents so I go there hoping to see them."

"But how can you face it? Seeing someone you used to spend every day with, knowing you can't be with them again, not properly. Reopening those wounds over and over. Every time you leave them is like dying again." I said, my voice cracking with emotion.

"But every time I'm with them is like living again." He said wistfully.

oooOOOooo

It took some time but eventually the temptation to travel back again overcame my fears and so I found myself in my father's study. I hadn't thought it possible that I'd end up anywhere other than Mikey's place now so I was a little shocked and if I'm honest disappointed. The next two tries both saw me back at my parents and even the fact that I saw both my mother and father couldn't cheer me. Maybe seeing Mike was too much and I wouldn't be able to return, some kind of subconscious defense mechanism having kicked in. I now realised that for all my previous bluster, not seeing him was infinitely worse than seeing him even if it was from afar.

My next try went better, I found myself back in the spare bedroom, it had been filled with even more boxes now, I looked at one of the ones which hadn't been sealed properly. It was filled with textbooks and files, stuff from Mikes studies. I wondered what it was all doing stuffed in here, how long had I been gone, he couldn't be finished with it yet. Maybe he was storing it here while he decorated, this room had already been repainted, I decided that must be it.

I decided to try leaving the room. I'd managed it a couple of times at my parents and I figured that as my memories of this house were more recent I might find it easier. Standing in front of the open doorway I focused on the hall outside, picturing myself there instead of the room I was in. I stepped forward and felt a shiver as I realised I'd made it.

Moving along the darkened passageway I headed to the end room, our bedroom. The door was almost closed but there was enough of a gap for me to peer inside. He was there on the bed. Lying on his side, legs bent, knees raised upwards, a half foetal position. He was fully clothed, his hands clasped in front of his chest as if in silent prayer. I stared at his face, his closed eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly as he breathed. He hadn't shaven recently, the yellowish brown stubble darkening his cheeks. I used to love him with stubble, even when it reached the length where it would itch and irritate him I would try and convince him to let it grow. The feel of his scratchy, rough hair against my face as we kissed would give me shivers even as I remembered how sore my skin would be afterwards, rubbed red raw and aching. My friends used to say I only did it so I had proof I'd been kissed. My friends said a lot of things, most of which I shouldn't have listened to.

I wanted to enter the bedroom and be closer to him. I wanted to lie next to him and hold him like I'd used to, when I would come home early in the morning and he'd need to get up and get ready for work himself but he would delay the moment as long as possible so he could be in bed when I got in, ready to hold me until I was warm. So many times I would fake falling asleep so he wouldn't feel guilty about leaving me.

The bedroom door wasn't open wide enough for me to try and get inside so I was stuck standing there, just watching and wishing. I felt guilty as I thought of the times I'd left him there under the pretense of going to work.

"I'd change it all if I could." I whispered. "I'm sorry."

oooOOOooo

After that visit I made my way back to Mikey's infrequently. I blamed a lack of focus on my part, I struggled to make my way anywhere. But in all honesty the problem was the guilt I felt when I saw him. I should have still been there with him, not here having to get by with just watching him.

Carlton and even Stefan tried to make me understand that if I felt that way maybe it was best for me to stay away from him for a while and I tried to listen to their advice but the pull was always too great. I'd visit him and be miserable, vow to not return and then forget the pain and just remember the heartache caused by not seeing him.

I managed to get through what felt like a few days before the urge to see him again grew too great and I found myself preparing to try and go to see him.

I arrived in what I eventually recognised as the living room in Mikey's place. The place looked like a disaster zone. I was almost glad that I wasn't there in body, in that mess, the filth that had built up. Dirty dishes and glasses stacked on every available surface. Empty pizza and takeout boxes scattered across the floor in front of the television which was switched on and playing away to itself. A can of beer lay on it's side, a dark patch surrounding it where the liquid had flowed out and not been cleaned up. Mike had never been the tidiest of people but this was beyond anything I had ever seen.

A noise behind me startled me. I turned to see Mike walk into the room carrying another can of beer. He took a swig from the can and sat down on the floor in front of the television. He looked terrible, his stubble was almost a full beard now and he had dark circles around his eyes, he looked like he hadn't slept or bathed in days. I knelt down in front of him, staring at him as he looked straight through me at the screen behind. He took another drink from the can.

"Michael. I'm sorry." I said.

I sat down on the floor next to him and turned to watch the television, hoping for some distraction from the surroundings. When I eventually turned to look at him again I noticed a strange glow surrounding him, a red and orange aura. I decided it must be something to do with my mind and tried to ignore it but it blazed ever brighter as I stared. I moved my hand close to the glow to see if I could feel any difference to the air around me but I didn't notice anything unusual.

I sat with him for a while just watching television, trying to pretend that I was really there and we were just having a quiet night in together. I was startled by the sudden ringing of the telephone, Mikey just ignored it and the answering machine picked it up.

"Michael it's your father. Are you there? I called work, they haven't seen you or heard from you in weeks, they'll only wait for so long you know. Why don't you come back and stay with your mother and me until you sort yourself out. You know you're not to blame for any of it, you couldn't have saved him."

oooOOOooo

I was back in the rainbow coloured mist before I knew what was happening. Trying my damnest to block out the sounds of that answering machine message and the memories it brought to the surface.

The last night of my life I had wanted to go out. After weeks of doing nothing but work constantly I had finally managed to get ten days off. That time was almost over and I felt like I'd done nothing during it. So I'd asked Mikey to take me to a new club that had just opened. He didn't want to, he said he had work to do at home but I argued with him saying he just didn't want to go anywhere with me. The fight blew up out of all proportions, each of us too stubborn to compromise. So I stormed off to get ready, saying I was going without him, which I did. That was what Mikey believed anyway, the truth was slightly different.

My sudden desire to go to a club was made up, an excuse to start an inevitable fight as I knew Mike would never want to go. I chose my argument and fought it with one wish, to get out of the house and feel justified in doing so. He had the chance to take me out and wouldn't, so I couldn't be blamed for going out and finding someone who would.

My friends complained about how boring I was, how I was too young to be all domesticated and needed to live a little before I was too old. I started to listen to them, heading out as a group every couple of weeks leaving Mikey behind. I could pretend I was just doing it to appease them but if I'm honest I enjoyed it, pretending I was single, leading a double life. I never did anything more than flirt with guys, maybe taking their number if they insisted but never planning to call, still I knew even that would kill Mikey. The thrill of it all made me wonder if they weren't right and I wasn't missing out on some fabulous life by being tied to one guy, so when Alex told me he knew a guy that I just had to meet, I agreed.

I headed out into the cold night air, wishing I'd worn a jacket but unwilling to go back and grab one for fear of losing my already faltering nerve. I hurried through the streets, trying to remember the way to the bar where I was supposed to meet this Tony guy that Alex had found for me. Perfect for you, Alex had said as he described him. But who's idea of perfect Alex's or mine? Anyway hadn't I already found someone who was perfect for me? What did I care if he didn't match my friends expectations of what was ideal, maybe it was them that needed to change.

I realised that I couldn't go through with this. I'd call Alex later to explain, if he was annoyed about it, tough. I spun around ready to head home, maybe I'd grab some food on the way, watch a movie with Mikey, enjoy what I had instead of imagining I was missing out on something. As I turned I bumped into a guy who had been right behind me. I opened my mouth to apologise but could only gasp. A pain was shooting across my chest. I looked down at the knife he was holding before it disappeared into my chest again. It looked so surreal I almost felt like smiling. I stumbled as he pushed me into an alley, I fell to my knees mesmerised by the slick darkness of the palms of my hands after they'd clutched at my chest.

"You look a million miles away." Carlton said. I hadn't even noticed him approach.

"Just remembering something." I replied.

"Anything good?" He asked

"No."

"I just wondered if you'd seen Stefan anywhere?"

"Not recently." I answered, trying to think of when I had last seen him.

"Well if he pops up here can you tell him I'm looking for him?" Carlton asked as he began to move away.

"Of course. Carlton, before you go. What does it mean if someone in the real world has like a glow around them?"

"Where have you seen that?" Carlton sounded agitated as he asked the question.

"Nowhere, I just heard someone talking about it. Why, what does it mean?"

"Nothing, it's just a trick of the light." Carlton stuttered.

"Tell me the truth or I'll just ask Stefan." I said, although I was starting to fear the truth. "Please tell me." I added.

Carlton paused as if considering his options. "Well I guess someone will tell you so maybe its better if it comes from me. It means they're almost ready to cross over to here. It's how we knew you were on your way. It starts off as a glow and grows until it's so bright we can even spot it from here."

I didn't know what to say. It couldn't be true and yet I knew that it was. Carlton wouldn't lie so the only other option was that I had been mistaken. Maybe it had been a trick of the light. I had to go back and make sure Mikey was okay.

oooOOOooo

I urged myself onwards, I had to move faster. There was no time to relax and wait for my surroundings to change, I willed them to change, forcing the walls and floor of Mikey's bedroom to appear around me. I wouldn't, I couldn't accept defeat this time, too much was at stake. I would make it to his place, nothing would stop me.

I looked around, I was here. Damn it, I was in the kitchen, not where I'd hoped to be. I moved forward quickly, no time for doubts, trust yourself Jensen, you can do this. I reached the doorway leading to the dining room and froze involuntarily, I'd intended to dash through into the next room, not giving myself time to realise what I was doing but I couldn't, I was scared. I held my hands out, my fingers reaching towards the invisible barrier I imagined in front of me. The scene on the other side of the door was a blur, it was like the picture was still loading in my mind. I could make out the vague impression of the table and the chairs but they were out of focus.

I had to move forward, I didn't have time to be scared. It was just another room, I knew what every inch of this place looked like, I could picture every last detail. I focused on the living room, making the blurred image transform into what I remembered. As I did that the kitchen began to lose its detail, I couldn't manage to hold both of them in my mind. I held on until the last moment, when the kitchen seemed to wash away and I felt myself losing my grip here then I dived forward into the next room. I looked around, I'd made it. Behind me the kitchen was just a square of darkness but that didn't matter, I'd done it. Now I just had to face that a few more times until I found him.

A crash sounded from upstairs. I dashed to the entrance to the hallway and stopping only for a second to let my mind catch up to my body, I pictured the hallway in front of me and moved into it. The actual process of shifting locations was getting easier but I noticed that the detail of my surroundings was faded. I was going too fast, panicking and if I wasn't careful I'd lose everything.

I reached the stairs and slowed as I climbed them, counting each step. I couldn't bring myself to think about what could have caused the crash. I wanted to race up the stairs, taking them two, three at a time, but I knew I would disappear from here if I tried. I had to pace myself, think of the photos hanging on the walls, remember each one as you near it, make this place your reality, forget about going anywhere else, this is the only place you can be.

I arrived at the top of the stairs and looked each way down the passage, I didn't know where the crash had come from but I noticed a line of light that shone from under the bathroom door. I moved along and stood in front of it, hoping I wouldn't hear anything, not when the door was closed. Let it be one of the other rooms, a room I could enter.

Silence. I was about to move along the hall and check the main bedroom when I froze, I thought I'd heard something. I listened at the door, there it was again, a quiet sob. He was in there, so close and yet he may as well have been on the other side of the world. I had to get in there but how?

"Open the door Mikey, please." I willed him to hear me but of course he didn't.

I recalled my experience on the bus. I could move through solid objects, that had been proven, sadly I hadn't managed to avoid falling back to the spirit world. What other option did I have though? I had to try. I attempted to picture the room on the other side of the door but I was too on edge so I just rushed forward hitting the door and passing through, an electric rush charging my body. I was now in a blank space that was being filled in, like someone was drawing the background around me, the basic geometry first then details and colours and there in the corner between the bath and the wash basin sat Mikey, tears streaming down his face as his shaking hands opened a bottle of pills and all around him a fierce blaze of bright orange as if he was on fire. I staggered forward towards him as the room around me froze and then rewound, the colours bleaching, details vanishing and then blankness as I was kicked out of the world.

oooOOOooo

"Stefan." I shouted.

I waded through the mist around me, still shouting his name as voices around me told me to hush.

"What is it?" Carlton asked as he appeared in front of me.

"Where's Stefan?"

"Right here." Stefan said, materialising beside Carlton.

"I need your help." I pleaded, grabbing his arm.

"With what?" Stefan asked.

"Mikey's locked in the bathroom. He's got pills, you have to stop him. Please." I begged.

He didn't say anything. He just turned to look at Carlton.

"It's not that easy." Stefan finally said.

"You can go anywhere, you can move things over there. Just stop him please. You've got to." I pleaded.

Carlton put his arm around my shoulder. "Jensen." He said.

"No, don't try and tell me it's meant to be. Stefan can stop it, he has to. I can't hurt Mikey again. Please." I was desperate now.

"It really isn't that easy." Carlton continued. "Tell him Stefan or I will."

Carlton stared at Stefan who looked away, avoiding his gaze.

"I can't do it." Stefan muttered. "I mean it can be done but I've not worked out how yet. I've just been researching it"

I sank down into the stream of vapour, devastated. Stefan had been my one chance.

"Look you can be here when he crosses over. You'll be together again. Maybe he's doing it to be with you." Carlton reasoned.

"Or maybe he's doing it because he thinks he's the reason I'm here and he's not. It's not his fault, it's mine. He's been punished enough." I cried.

Neither Carlton or Stefan seemed to know what to say next, they shifted uncomfortably on the spot. Stefan cleared his throat to speak.

"When I first arrived here I would wish that my brother would join me." Stefan said solemnly. "He was the one person in my god forsaken family that mattered to me. So I was thrilled when he got in the bath and took a knife to his own wrists. I wouldn't be alone anymore. His girlfriend found him, the doctors worked for hours to save him and they managed it, if you can call it saving. He'd fallen under the water when he lost consciousness, his brain was so starved of oxygen it was permanently damaged and I wished all that on him."

Carlton placed his arm on Stefan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"I can't go up there and help you but I can tell you what I know. Everyone I've ever met who says they've moved things and who I've believed has been angry or upset. You have to be so filled with emotion you're not thinking, forget you're not solid, forget everything that's happened to you. You have to believe in that moment that you never died." Stefan said as he stared in my eyes. "That is your reality, this is the dream."

oooOOOooo

I lay back and pictured the bathroom. Now was not the time to end up in my parents house or any random scene from my past. There was one place I had to get to and I couldn't accept anything less. The area around me washed away to be replaced by the outline of a room, so far so good. The walls began to solidify and the room take shape, it was my bedroom at my parents. I cursed and forced myself to try harder, altering the walls of the room, bringing them closer together, making the interior smaller, picturing the pattern and colour of the tiles that lined the place, adding the fittings and the lights once the structure of the room had settled. It was working, I was here.

I looked at Mikey, sat in the same place and still holding the bottle of pills. I told myself my hand was solid and I slapped at his hand, it travelled straight though. I tried again with the same effect, meanwhile Mikey tipped a pile of pills into his open palm and tilted his head back ready to take them. I tried to grab his hand but it was like clutching at air. I cried as I slapped wildly at him as his hand rose slowly to his mouth. A couple of the pills fell onto the floor tiles and he reached for them with his free hand. I made a grab for his hand and almost yelled out when I felt myself connect with him, the pills scattered across the floor. I was shaking, literally quaking on the spot from the joy and anger and excitement and sheer emotion of it all.

Mikey scrambled about on the floor trying to pick up the pills. I knelt down and grabbed his wrist, the contact sending vibrations running up my arm. I held tight and watched as the coloured aura that had surrounded him dimmed in intensity before fading completely. I struggled with him as he tried to break free, the look of confusion on his face giving way to fear. He tried to use his free hand to brush off whatever it was that was on his wrist until I took hold of that hand as well. His body shook as sobs wracked his body. I pushed his hands down to his side and held him, hugging him tight as I cried as well and before I knew what was happening he was hugging me back. Both of us sat on the cold, hard floor in a tight embrace, each knowing that this was the only place in the universe either one of us wanted to be.

"Why did you have to leave?" He asked through his sobs.

"Cause I didn't realise what I was leaving." I replied and held him tighter.

 

© 2008 Sabat

Story Discussion

Do you believe in ghosts?

I didn't until I became one, but trust me, when you're floating upwards, looking down on your body, you start to wonder if maybe it isn't time to rethink some of your beliefs. That's the thing about death, it has a way of shaking its fist in your face and shouting 'Believe this'.

Contrary to popular opinion, in your dying moments your life doesn't flash before your eyes. There was to be no longed for Hollywood version of my life to get misty eyed over. No spectacular dance routines or characters bursting into song mid sentance. No special guest stars or well lit kisses in the rain. Not even a makeover scene set to an 80s soundtrack. Nothing but a dreamlike view of yourself as you leave your life behind. There's no moment of revelation where the universe makes sense and your purpose on earth is made clear or any other kind of epiphany, if that's what you're looking for then search elsewhere, I'm afraid death isn't for you.

I remember feeling calm as I drifted away from my body. I was suprised by the amount of blood pooled around me but somehow I felt disconnected from it all, like it wasn't really me. I'd become some sort of mannequin, made up like a crime scene from one of the cop shows my parents loved to watch. Anyway how could I really be dead, I could think, I could see. I told myself I must have passed out and that I was imagining the whole thing, but even as I tried to convince myself that that was the case I knew that if it was then I'd be able to wake myself, as I could if I was having a bad dream. Force my eyes to open. Tell myself this isn't real, this can't be real, but if it's not then why don't I wake up?

So instead of waking up I kept slowly drifting away from where I lay. As I travelled through the air I tried to look around but everything was a haze, I moved what I thought were my hands in front of my face but there was nothing there, or was there? If I focused hard I thought I could make out the imprint of my fingers in the air, no more than a shimmer in the light. The edges of my vision blurred, a darkness was moving in on me. From the corners of my eyes an encroaching shade, wisps of smoke filling the air, swirling in front of me. I looked at the ground, my body seemed so far away now. I wanted to reach out and take my hand, I was struck by a feeling that this wasn't right. I felt like a huge mistake was being made and I was just going along with it willingly.

I've changed my mind, I don't want this. Let me go back. I don't know if they were just thoughts in my head or if I actually said them out loud, but it made no difference. I was moving further into the smothering inky darkness and losing sight of everything else, my body no more than a smudge in the deepening shade.

My world faded to black.

oooOOOooo

I think I passed out, I'm not sure how long for. Everything is dark and I can't feel anything, my body is just numb. I'm not even sure if I'm stood up or sat down. I can hear voices around me, two distinct voices, both of them are male.

"Hello?" My voice cracked as I spoke.

"Don't be scared." One of the voices said quietly.

I could hear them whisper to each other but their voices were too low for me to understand what they were saying. I strained to make out even a word or two of their conversation but without luck.

"I know you've probably got a million questions you want to ask us." The first voice spoke again. I couldn't be sure but I thought it sounded closer this time, somewhere off to my left.

"You're dead." The second voice snapped, it lacked all the warmth of the other speaker's tone.

"Don't tell him like that. Break it to him gently."

"What? Where am I, who are you?" I gasped as I tried to move. I wanted to run away, either take myself far away from these two people, whoever they were or at least find some kind of light so I could see what was going on but I couldn't move. If only I could make myself believe that this was some kind of game, a joke at my expense but for those words 'You're dead'. Why did I believe them?

"We'll explain everything. Just give us time." The first voice replied. "My name is Carlton and this is Stefan."

"And we'll be your guides to the afterlife." The voice I assumed belonged to Stefan said sourly.

"Stop it." Carlton snapped in a tone that bordered on annoyance.

"Why? It's not like the shock can kill him and he's got to find out the truth somehow. Don't prolong the agony I say."

"Do you remember how you felt when you first arrived here." Carlton asked. I assumed the question was aimed at Stefan.

"Do you? I just wanted to know what was happening, I couldn't have cared less how I was told." Stefan replied.

"Well just try to be tactful. It's going to be a lot for him to take in."

"He already knows most of it, they always do. It's just getting them to accept it that's the problem." Stefan said in a low voice. It was hard to make out where he was in relation to me, in front of me maybe? I tried again to move my arms or legs but still couldn't feel anything.

My mind wasn't functioning, there was an elephant in this room that I was doing my damndest to ignore. The thoughts that were rolling around in my head couldn't be true, they just couldn't. I kept picturing my body on the floor and all that blood that surrounded me. I tried to force an image into my mind of me taking a breath or making some movement, anything to prove that there had been some life in me as I'd watched from above but nothing would come. It was like I'd forgotten what I'd ever looked like and now all I could remember were those cold staring eyes and the skin so pale it seemed certain it would be ice cold to the touch.

"Just tell him and lets get this show on the road." Stefan said with bite. His attitude conjured up thoughts of eyes narrowed with contempt as they stared in my direction. Stefan spoke in a tone of voice I remembered only too well from my nights of bar work. The venomous snap of someone so jaded with their existance they sought refuge in alcohol and bitter sarcasm, each one believing their lofty ambitions to be some modern day Dorothy Parker rather than just a mean cynic. I'd refused to bow to them then and I wouldn't start now, no matter what my circumstances.

I had so many questions to ask but the ones that I really wanted the answers to, about where I was and what had happened to me seemed so obvious I didn't want to ask them, I couldn't bring myself to give these people the confirmation they expected that I was clueless about my situation and at their mercy. Instead I decided to call their bluff.

"Well is this Heaven or Hell, or Purgatory, what?" My voice had a slight shake to it as I asked the question, I hoped they wouldn't notice. Even as I asked the question I regretted it. What if they actually gave me an answer?

I could hear quiet laughter nearby.

"Well. Which is it?" I continued.

"You don't have to be defensive Jensen." Carlton said with a concilatory tone.

"You know my name." I replied, not exactly suprised by this news. A feeling of dread was growing in me.

"We know a lot of things. Would you like us to share them with you?" Carlton asked, he sounded so close now I was sure I could touch him if I could only make my arms work.

I paused for a moment and considered my options. Tell them to leave me alone and hope they listen, spend who knows how long here in the dark hoping for a miracle. Maybe ignorance was a state of mind I could get used to, if only I could believe that, then things might be so much easier but really I knew I had to hear what they were here to say and so I silently made a wish and then answered. "Yes."

"As I said my name is Carlton and this is..."

"Stefan." The gruff voice interrupted. "We've been assigned to introduce you to your new existence."

"Don't mind Stef. He's had quite a few orientations lately and most of them have been religious. Never an easy crowd. Sorry you're not into all that are you?" Carlton said.

"Not really." I replied.

"We'll do our best to make this as painless as possible." Carlton continued, his voice had something about it that I found relaxing and in spite of the nerves I felt, I seemed to calm as he spoke. "Now can you feel anything?"

"No." I answered.

"That's to be expected. It'll take some time but things will return to you. Look at it this way, you couldn't walk at birth could you?" Carlton asked.

"No but I could at least see." I replied.

Stefan laughed. "The reason you can't see or move or even, in case you haven't already noticed, breathe, is that you haven't accepted what has happened to you. Once you manage to do that your eyes will open."

He was right, I wasn't breathing and I hadn't even noticed. I gasped and tried to inhale but nothing happened. I felt dizzy from the shock. Calm down Jensen I told myself, think, you just can't feel yourself breathe. It was a poor excuse but it was all I could think of so I clung to it.

"You remember seeing yourself? Remember moving away from your body?" Carlton asked.

"Yes." I whispered. Maybe I thought if I said it quietly enough it wouldn't be true.

"Well we're sorry but that was your death. You're now being readied for processing". Stefan said.

I lay there, not seeing, not moving, not breathing, just listening as Carlton told me what they were here to explain.

oooOOOooo

I was dead and my spirit or soul or whatever you wanted to call the spark that resided in my physical being was all that was left of me. This place I was in now had no official name, different people called it different things. The cell, the pen, preparatory or prep, God's lobby, ground floor, Heaven's waiting room, Hell's courtyard, the pit stop, examining room, processor, cloisters, the sea of ghosts or ocean of spirits. Names were unimportant though, what mattered was the purpose of this place. I had arrived at the next stage of existence.

The process had started even before my death. When your time on earth is nearing its end your essence struggles to leave your body and the disruption that causes is noticed here so they prepare for your inevitable arrival. Carlton and Stefan were my welcome wagon.

Where I am now is where I'll stay until I'm ready to move on, it's a place of quiet and relaxation where I can consider my life and make peace with all that I've left behind. Stefan and Carlton argued at this point, so much for quiet and relaxation. Stefan thought it was being made to sound like a health spa, he took over the description and said if it was going to be compared to anything it should be a cinema. You go into the dark to look over movies of your life. Maybe my life would flash before my eyes after all. Then when you're done you step out into the light and get on with your life or death or whatever this was.

The time people spend here varies, some take a while to come to terms with what they've lost, some never manage it, others barely pause on their way upwards. The religious rarely hang around, they can get quite upset that this isn't the heaven they were promised or in some cases the hell they expected so they move straight on. The very young are guided onwards, it's felt it's kinder than leaving them down here where they have difficulty comprehending what has happened to them. When I feel ready to go all I have to do is move upwards. They couldn't explain it as well as they wanted but they said movement here was like swimming by thought, you feel like you're floating and your mind controls your movement. Somewhere above us is the point where you can crossover to the next reality, no one knows for sure what is past that point but anyone who has travelled close to it has described a feeling of complete euphoria and no one who has felt that has been able to remain here for long, they all return to the frontier and cross over, the pull is just too great to resist.

Stefan explained that when I'm ready, when I've accepted where I am, I can be shown the potential of the place. There's a way to return to your old life to observe what is happening in your absense.

Carlton said they would leave me for a while but they'd be nearby if I needed them. He added that I should think about my last memories before I awoke here, if I did that I would see the truth. With that advice they left, I couldn't see them or hear them but somehow I could feel them leave. I was now alone and I was scared.

Trapped there in the dark with no external stimuli my mind turned inwards and soon I was, despite my best efforts, focusing on the sight of my bloody body. Flashes of various close up images played through my mind, my neck twisted to the left, my mouth agape, the lips scarlet. The bright red of a t-shirt that wasn't meant to be red and those eyes, the eyes that just stared out at nothing. Everything was telling me what the truth was but still I tried to deny it.

Suddenly my attention was drawn to a change in my surroundings. There in the corner of my vision was a white dot, a tiny pin prick of light. I couldn't help but stare at it and watch as it grew, slowly but surely despite my efforts to suppress it, I willed it to vanish but it kept on expanding, blossoming like a match pressed into a piece of black card, burning away the darkness before me. Looking into the light I could see a multitude of flickering, changing colours, it was like watching oil poured onto water. Before I realised it the luminessence was washing over me. I tried to retreat into the remaining darkness. It felt like I was in a cave looking out onto a bright summers day, it seemed so warm and inviting out there I was tempted to just step out into the light and see what really was out there.

In the end I didn't need to go anywhere, the light came to me, sweeping over me. I basked in its warmth and watched as it intensified, glowing white, blinding my sight like a camera flash. It took a minute for my vision to return but when it did, what a sight I was presented with.

oooOOOooo

I can best describe it as a sea made of mist, its colour and shape everchanging. One second it rolls like waves, the next I can make out the outline of faces, torsos, bodies in motion and then still, all bobbing in this artificial sea. The closer I look the more it seems to be countless people blurring into an amalgam and the colours, oh the colours, every shade you can imagine sweeping out to the horizon like some kind of otherworldly watercolour. I've never seen anything like it, if I could inhale it would take my breath away.

Every now and again this sea erupts and a jet of colour sprays upwards forming a vague human shaped mass of sparkling matter which soars out of sight. When that happens the mist before me takes on the look of molten lava, the eruptions bursts of boiling liquid.

I look down at my body, or where my body should be, in its place is a swirl of blue and purple and pink. I'm struck by the urge to stick my fingers in and see if it ripples but I'd need to find my hands first. There must be some way to reform my body, people out there are managing it. I try to imagine what my hands held out in front of me should look like and gradually as I concentrate on that one image, fingers seem to form in front of me, hands, the vaguest impression of arms. Looking around again at the shapes coming out of the fog I remembered what I was told about it being like swimming, I should have asked if that meant you could drown, I only ever learned enough in the pool to prevent going under. I tried to move my hands in a doggy paddle like motion, it felt like moving against a strong current or what I imagined wading through melted toffee would be like, however I was moving, slowly and with great effort but movement none the less. I paused for a moment, unsure as to where I was actually trying to move to. It was then that I heard the sounds for the first time, a low hum at first, growing the more I listened for it. Given the surroundings it came across as the rush of water but there in the background were words, speech, the accumulation of countless conversations all blurring into one wall of sound. I found myself hearing snatches of sentences and realising the voices were all different.

"Don't worry, you'll soon learn how to just hear the voices you want to." Carlton said as his shape rose in front of me. He was just the barest impression of a figure, pale yellow fading to white at the edges, a stocky blur that at first glance seemed to be a large smudge.

A second figure rose next to him, taller, thinner, more defined with a slightly angular appearance to it. It was the most intense violet colour, at some points so dark it almost seemed black but which as I stared turned to a deep ruby shade.

"Welcome to our home." The second figure said, it was Stefan.

The two of them continued to describe my new surroundings and the rules that governed it. No need for sleep or to eat or drink. The form my body appeared as could be altered at will once I'd practised enough. This place was filled with spirits, literally made up of them but they would only make themselves known when they wished to. As they talked they would pause every now and then to ask if I had any questions but I couldn't think of anything to say, this was all too much for me to take in.

"You said I could go back home?" I enquired, glad to have finally found something to say and hopeful that the answer would result in my returning to some more familiar surroundings.

"Eventually." Stefan said, Carlton muttered something in agreement.

"I wouldn't recommend you get too hung up on that just yet. Give yourself some time here first."

They moved with me, slowly as I was still having trouble controlling my movement. As we travelled voices would occasionally greet us, sometimes coming from actual figures in the steaming mist, other times just detached sounds. The further we travelled the easier I found it and I could now fashion a more defined body for myself.

Carlton described travelling back, wanting to clarify that it wasn't so much a full on return to your life as a visit to places that had been important to you. Manifesting yourself in say your home or a friends place or as was often the case, the scene of your death. The visit would always be as an invisible presence and often would last only a moment.

Stefan lagged behind as he paused to speak to a figure that had appeared to our left, a small tan and grey creature who from it's place on the peripheral of my vision appeared to take on the shape of a rodent stood upright. It was only when I turned to look fully at the image that it morphed into a short androgenous human.

After travelling on a little further Carlton announced he would leave me alone again to give me a chance to absorb the new information I'd received and to give me space to practise controlling my form. Once more he pointed out that he would be within easy reach and then he vanished as if swallowed by the fog. I held out a half formed hand in front of me and pushed away, watching as my fingers stretched out to twice their usual length. I couldn't quite manage to pull them back to their normal size and they flopped down, dangling there as if they'd melted.

A figure appeared in front of me, female shaped and a pale blueish green in colour. She moved in close and grabbed me before I could work up the momentum to move away.

"Greetings." She said warmly before letting me go. The contact had left my body tingling, it was an amazing feeling and it was all I could do to not grab hold of her again. I looked down at myself and saw that I was now glowing a bright pink colour.

"I'm Magda." She announced.

"Jensen." I replied

"You must call by to see me when you're settled, all the new arrivals visit. You'll make so many new friends . Promise?"

"Promise." I replied.

She dived in to hug me again. My whole being was ablaze, it was like the moment you take the first plunge on a rollercoaster, that heady weightless feeling. Her cheek brushed mine and heat blossomed over my face. To use an often over used phrase, this was better than sex and shockingly it was with a woman.

"Well I must dash. Remember to visit, don't make me hunt you down." She said with a giggle before gliding away, her hands waving at a group of figures in the distance.

I took a moment to reflect on my situation. Everything I was experiencing was so new that I was forgetting why I was here and indeed where here was. I was dead, it was a sobering thought. The chills from Magdas hug a moment ago faded to leave only a cold feeling in my centre. What was I going to do here?

oooOOOooo

As it turned out I didn't get much of a chance to dwell on my situation. People kept coming up to me to introduce themselves and even when I was left alone there was always conversations I could listen to or join in on. I'd never had such a busy social life. It was only when people would excuse themselves as they had places to be that I would remember what Carlton and Stefan had told me. Nobody ever explicitly said where they were going but it was assumed by me at least that they meant the real world.

I took myself away on my own, explaining to anyone that asked that I too had places to go.

Somewhere out there is my life, sorry I should say out there 'was' my life. It's strange thinking about it now, it really does feel like another world, which of course it is but I'm still suprised. I thought there'd be much more of a connection for me but when I think about it now all I can focus on is how much energy I wasted. Things that seemed so important to me at the time, what were they worth really now that I look back.

My obsession with the physical, while no worse than anyone else I knew seemed so pointless now. Wearing the right things, having the current look, being with the correct people, what I owned, what I said, who I did, everything contributing to creating some image that I convinced myself mattered. It all seemed such a waste now.

What did any of it really count for in the end. To leave behind a corpse that had a wardrobe full of unworn must have items, a group of mourners who would actually worry about how they looked at the funeral service. A tragedy that only counted because I was young rather than because I actually mattered as a person. It's not that I regret my life, although I do wonder how things might have been different. I just look back and marvel at the attention I paid to such small things.

Carlton had warned me to be careful, he said that no matter what I feel like at the minute the fact is that our connection to the past is all that keeps us here. I might talk about how ordinary and unimportant things back there now seem but so many people remain stuck here unable to move on because they can't face up to the fact that they have lost something important. I had wanted to ask why he hasn't moved on, from the things he says it seems like he's been here a long time and I know he would tell me if I did ask but I'd rather he chose to talk about it. He says he has no idea what keeps Stefan here, despite countless attempts to find out, all he knows about his past life is that something happened involving his family. Someone once told him that when Stefan first arrived all he would ask was where was his brother, but he's never mentioned him to Carlton.

I look around at the mist of people here with so many reasons for not letting go. Some of them whisper the nams of the person they can't forget, others talk openly about the life 'out there' as if they were a real part of it. I wonder what keeps them here, observers in a life they play no real part in anymore. Maybe it starts out as not wanting to leave until they know their loved ones are okay, I can understand that, I could imagine it's the selfless reason they cling to, telling themselves they're forsaking paradise for a chance to watch out for the people who mattered to them. That excuse can only work for so long though, lives do move on, they have to and so at some point surely you've got to realise that you're watching people who bear no relation to the ones you once knew. Wouldn't you get angry if you watched people get over the fact that you were gone or is that just me? I could believe that's why Stefan's still here, cursing the fact that he wasn't as important a fixture in peoples lives as he thought he was.

Now that I thought about my past seriously my curiosity about what was happening back there without me was such that I couldn't wait to look. I tracked down Carlton and Stefan who gave me a tutorial on how to access the world, apparently all I have to do is let my mind drift and wait for a memory to come to the forefront then focus on it until it fills my thoughts, if I can hold onto that memory and concentrate it should become 'real' to me, like a picture I can step into. It's not guaranteed to work and theres no real control over where your mind will take you, although Stefan says that with practise you can go anywhere, something Carlton doesn't believe. To return here I have to click my heels and say "There's no place like home." I pretended I didn't get the joke and waited for them to explain that I just need concentrate on the fact that my place wasn't in whichever memory I found myself in, once I remembered it wasn't real it would fade away, bringing me back here. I was told it might take time for me to get it to work and even then I may not be able to control my thoughts enough to fully form the doorway I'd need to enter the other world. I should just take my time and not expect results too early on. With that they moved away from me to give me space alone, Stefan hung back slightly until Carlton was some distance away.

"It's not as hard as he makes it seem. If you believe it's going to work it will." Stefan whispered to me.

"Okay." I replied, unsure what else to say.

"You know some people say you can affect the world once you're there."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Where do you think the stories about poltergeists come from? Some of us have learned how to move things, to affect things while we're there." He sounded quite proud as he said this.

"What about Carlton?"

"Forget Carlton, he's limited by his own hang ups. Don't do this, don't do that, it's no wonder he had such a miserable life. All I'm saying is try it, you probably won't be able to do it but why not see?"

With that he drifted off leaving me alone. I set to work straight away, clearing my mind which was hard to do when it was so filled with ideas and expectations. Where would I go to, where did I want to go to? Would I be able to affect things the way Stefan claimed he could? Then as time wore on it became, why isn't this working, will it ever work? What am I doing wrong? I felt like giving up, I was frustrated with myself for failing. I should have asked Carlton or Stefan what happens if I can't do it, am I stuck here forever, will I ever be able to move on if I can't look out there and make peace with the past?

I settled down to try again, letting the sights and sounds around me fall away until I was alone in silence and there I stayed, waiting, just letting my mind drift and trying not to expect anything to happen. It felt like falling asleep, that's the best way I can describe it, I barely even noticed it happening. You start to remember a moment from your past and at first that's all it is, a memory, then it seems to solidify as if someone is drawing the scene around you. The colours sharpen, the textures deepen and before you realise what's happening you're stood there, you've gone from looking at the photograph to being inside it.

oooOOOooo

My old room at my parents house. It hasn't changed a bit since my school days, same bed, same desk, same wardrobe with the door that would never close properly. There's the marks from where I stuck my posters on the door and the huge ugly rug that covers the burn mark on the carpet left from a scented candle accident, yes I really was that gay.

It's amazing how no matter how far behind you think you've left your adolescence all it takes is a return to a scene from it and you're right back there, the same awkward kid who wondered when things would ever go their way. Would I have matched up to my teenage self's expectations? Probably not but then I had dreams way beyond my abilities.

I move around the room slowly, taking in all the details. Everything is so still that it feels like it's a frozen scene I'm standing in, a snapshot from my past. I would say it was creepy but as I'm the one floating in the air I don't think I have the right to call anything creepy. Just then the curtains billow out as a gust of wind blows through the room, I move to the window which is slightly ajar, probably left that way to air the place. I focus as intensely as I can manage and try to picture my hands in front of me pushing on the window, I'm trying to close it but nothing happens and I must admit I'm disappointed. I know Stefan told me there's only a few people who can affect the physical world but you still hope that you'll be one of that select group. I rest on the bed, an old mortal habit given that I neither need nor am able to rest anywhere, I doubt I'm even actually touching the quilt cover, I mean for all the difference it would make I could be hovering inches from the ceiling but it does seem appropriate that I at least try to act like I used to in this room.

So here I am at the scene of my misspent youth. The drink, the drugs, the sex, well there was a little drinking, the occasional smoke and zero sex. Not for a lack of interest on my part, it just so happened that the objects of my lust never seemed to return the sentiment, or acknowledge my existence if truth be known.

There was Mr. Henry, my chemistry teacher and subject of so many of my teenage fantasies that if just half of them had come true he would never have the strength to teach again, or walk for that matter. I was seventeen and old enough to know better but I still dreamed of a world where his wife and kids were forgotten and he declared his lust for me.

Ross, who dreamed of making movies and the last I heard was a drummer in a band. I adored him because he was nice to me, but he had a girlfriend, as did William and Lee, two other crushes. I don't know if you're noticing the pattern here but now that I think about it with the number of straight guys I fell for it's no wonder I stayed untouched for so long.

William was tall, blonde and incredibly sweet. I hated Molly, his girlfriend who seemed to thrill in treating him like crap and eventually cheated on him with his older brother, how I longed to comfort him and slap her, sadly neither came close to happening. Lee was dark haired, brown eyed and had the most amazing body I'd ever seen, getting changed for football became like a safari hunt for me, peeking between coats and bags that hung above the benches as I studied my prey, knowing that staring for a fraction too long would give away my position and lead to exposure. I used to hold my breath as I tried to time my glances to coincide with the removal of his shorts. I swear the one time I remember seeing him fully naked I gasped. With those eyes and those thighs and everything in between he was just made for sex, a thought obviously shared by Tina his girlfriend at the time, who fell pregnant and became the school's poster child for the perils of not using contraception.

I wondered if my parents missed me. I hadn't exactly left on the best of terms with them and I think the last time I spoke to either of them was in a phone call six weeks prior to my death, but the fact is I was their son, they'd have to mourn me wouldn't they? Maybe that's why I'm here, to find out how much I meant to them. I tried to shake away the doubts I was feeling, what did it matter what they thought, it wouldn't change anything, but the fact is it did matter to me. In my last months I'd missed them but I'd refused to admit it and while I'd not spoken to them for weeks that was as much down to me as them. It's that old cliche, so many things I'd never said because I always thought I'd have the chance to put things right later on. I would never have admitted it but they hadn't been bad parents, they let me do pretty much what I wanted, trusting me to not screw things up too much.

I moved towards the closed door leading out into the hallway and tried to grab the handle, as with the window nothing happened, I considered trying to just move through the door but thought it best to not try anything like that just yet. I was obviously limited to this room for now. I turned back towards the window and as I did I spotted a glint of light on top of the bookcase that stood by the bed. It was the chain they'd bought me for my eighteenth birthday, I'd worn it the night I died. It lay on top of some folded white material, a t-shirt which although it must have been washed countless times still held the shading of stains across it's front, blood is a devil of a stain to get out. Faced with this evidence of my demise I didn't want to be here any longer, I couldn't face thinking about what had happened.

Looking around the room again I began spotting other things that had been added since I'd last lived here. A photo on the desk of me taken on holiday last year, books I'd bought and never had a chance to read piled next to it, a snow globe I'd been given last Christmas by my grandmother, items that I'd last seen in my own home and which were now placed here. Mementos of my life since I'd left this place now brought back to hide my absence, it's like it's all there just waiting for me to return. This place didn't feel like a step into the past anymore, it's not the preserved scene of my teenage years where I can sit and remind myself of youthful crushes and sexual yearning, pretending I'm a teenager all over again. This is the room I left all my innocence in, never to return.

My surroundings began to fade as instinctively I pulled away from this world and its reminders. It was like coming out of a dream, the walls melting, colours washing out. Slowly I became aware of voices near me and I realised I was back in my reality. I could sense Carlton was nearby but he wasn't his usual strong prescense, I didn't say anything, I didn't really want to talk to him. I was mad at myself for being so easily affected by what I'd just experienced, all I could think about was trying again and doing better this time.

"They say the first time's the killer." A voice behind me spoke, it was Stefan, I hadn't noticed him there.

"It was, it was fine." I stammered. The thought crossed my mind, had I just missed him approach me or had he been there all along watching?

"I'm sure Carlton will be all ready to offer you some words of wisdom in a minute."

"But you thought you'd get in there first?" I said without thinking. If I hadn't still been unsettled by my recent experience I doubt I would have had the nerve. Stefan laughed.

"You didn't manage to make yourself noticed over there then?" He asked although it seemed more of a statement than a question.

"Maybe I didn't try." I said defensively.

"Everyone tries."

I didn't know what to say. I wanted to talk about what had happened but I couldn't trust Stefan to be helpful. I wanted someone to tell me I hadn't failed by being so easily spooked.

"Where is Carlton?" I asked.

"He's off in his own world. Probably wasn't expecting you back so soon. He'll be off watching his son most likely."

"He has a son?" I asked, suprised by the news.

"Had a son. Why does that shock you? Straight people die too you know."

"I just thought."

I was suprised by my own assumptions and prejudices. What had made me think that only someone who had been gay would have wanted to help me?

"Not that it matters much up here but he's as straight as I guess anyone can be. If it makes you feel any more comfortable, I was, in my past life a flaming homosexual." Stefan said sarcastically. "I'll leave you alone, you probably want to try going back."

"How was your first time?" I asked, forcing the question out before I lost my nerve.

"Depends which first time you're talking about. I take it you mean my first trip back?"

"Yeah." I answered.

"I survived it. That's about all you can do with your first time."

"Were you scared?" I asked.

"What's there to be scared of? What's the worst that could happen, death? Been there." Stefan sighed. "Look it gets easier, well slightly easier. Trust me, and don't worry about how much it affects you. When it doesn't affect you, that's when you want to worry. Now if you'll excuse me."

As soon as Stefan left I put myself back under, eager to return to my parents house and to do better this time. However when the process of travelling back ended and my surroundings solidified I found that I wasn't back at my parents. I was at a bus station, I knew straight away where it was, Market Street station, where for 6 months I'd caught the early morning bus home after finishing work in the bar.

I looked around the station, it was almost deserted. A few people stood at the far end of the concourse but other than that it was empty. I thought back to when I'd used to stand here, back then I couldn't have told you anything about how busy it was because I only had eyes for one thing, one person, one man.

I didn't know his name or a single thing about him but I knew that I loved him. I realise how ridiculous that sounds but you never saw him, he had something about him that drove me crazy. He was older than me, with dark curly hair and blue eyes and a permanent shadow of stubble across his face that hinted at a hairy chest, yes I really had put that much thought into what the parts of him I couldn't see would look like. Every morning when I arrived to catch the bus he would be stood there dressed in a suit and holding a briefcase. I'd stand at the back of the station leaning against the wall just watching him, adoring him, silently wishing he would look my way. Of course if his glance did fall in my direction I looked away instantly.

In my defence I hadn't yet had a proper relationship so I guess you could call this an extreme version of safe sex where everything was carried out in my head. I did dream of actually getting to know him although a part of me suspected that reality could never live up to the fantasy. I had all kinds of ideas for how we'd be introduced to each other, all very contrived and calculated. I'd ask him the time and we'd get talking and realise how much we had in common, that was dismissed as involving me speaking to him and being worth getting to know. An alternative plan involved my getting off the bus just ahead of him, taking the route he walked along and dropping a piece of paper with my phone number on it so that it landed right in front of him. Yes, I did know where he went to when he got off the bus but it's not quite as psycho stalker as it sounds, most of his journey was the same as the one I took home and it's not like I followed him all the way to the office block he worked in.

On the mornings when I finished work early I would walk around the town stalling for time so I could be there ready to catch the same bus and see him again. I knew it was all a bit sad and pathetic especially on a freezing cold winter's morning when I could have been at home an hour ago and instead I was staring in the window of a closed shop desperate for the time to tick by but I was constantly struck by the very real fear that every day might be the chance I'd get to see him. I knew nothing about him he could disappear from my life in an instant and I'd never know why or how.

That moment came in the spring when a day or two without him being there when I arrived at the station became three and four and five days, then two weeks, three. I stopped counting after a month. A part of me cursed my lack of nerve in letting chances fall through my fingers, another part said that the imaginary time I'd had with him was more than I'd have ever have had in reality.

Of course he's not here now, I look around again just to make sure but nothing. A bus pulls up and a couple of passengers climb down the steps. It's not the bus I used to catch and I have no idea where it is headed but I move towards it and climb inside. Back then I'd always make sure he got on before me so I could pick a prime spot just behind him on the other side of the bus where I could have a full side view of him for the whole journey. Watching as he touched his hair, checked the time on his watch, when he did that I could see the hairs on his arms and I would swoon like a Victorian lady.

I'm now stood in the aisle of the bus. There are a couple of people sat near the front and a few at the back but nobody else gets on after me and so the driver starts up the engine again and begins to reverse the vehicle. It is at this point that I realise I haven't quite thought this through for although the bus is moving I am not. The windscreen rushes towards me and I slap into and through it as a roar of noise overcomes my senses. I land on the road and watch as the driver, oblivious to my sudden exit continues to reverse. Both the bus and myself seem to be intact although the shock of having my whole body pass through a solid object has me shaking and before I have a chance to control it I'm slipping out of this world again.

oooOOOooo

It takes me a moment to regain my composure. This time I manage to laugh at my sudden exit from reality. I'll know to avoid moving vehicles in future. As I calm down I notice the sound of voices raised in excitement around me. I join in the commotion by asking what's going on.

It looks like I missed all the fun while I was away. Apparently while they were on the other side, one of the more shall we say tempermental characters around here ran into the middle of a seance their wife was participating in. I don't think I mentioned that anyone claiming even remote psychic abilities are pretty much despised here. Thieving con artists is one of the nicer descriptions afforded them. I'm not sure why everyone gets so worked up about it, maybe I just haven't been here long enough. Carlton says it's pretty hard to not be biased once you've seen someone you care about fed words that are supposed to be from your lips, he seemed hurt when I laughed and told him I didn't know anyone who'd waste their money trying to contact me, I couldn't think of what to say to make things okay between us. Stefan told me later that the reason Carlton and the others get so upset about the subject is that every time they come across a clairvoyant they hope that this will be the one that can hear them and will pass on their messages, but everytime they're disappointed. He was really keen to hear about what happened with this guy, Kurt I think his name is, Stefan loves the gossip I guess.

Apparently this Kurt fellow was visiting his old home and he dropped in on his wife and a bunch of people he didn't recognise sat around the kitchen table. He had no idea what was going on at first and was shocked when he heard them mention his name. Then his wife took the hand of the man sat next to her and asked a middle aged guy sat at the opposite end of the table if Kurt approved of her marriage plans. This so called psychic said that Kurt wanted his wife to be happy and that he thought Jerry was just the man to take care of her. Well Kurt most certainly didn't want his wife to be happy, especially not with another man. He wanted her to stay true to him and hurry her way towards an after life reunion, so when he heard that he was supposedly blessing this union he went beserk. According to Stefan he'd never shown any aptitude for altering the real world but this situation had made him so mad he tapped into his rage and went all out. A vase, a wedding gift from her parents, was pushed from the sideboard, family photographs flung across the room, he struck this Jerry person across the head twice, knocking him to the ground and then he set to work on the psychic, actually trying to strangle him. I was shocked but Stefan seemed impressed. It was only the fact that he got so worked up over his wife's supposed betrayal that he lost focus and ended up slipping back here that stopped him doing even more damage. Stefan tried to talk to him but he was so furious that once he'd finished ranting about what had happened he flew straight up and left this world for the next in a shower of sparks.

I've been warned before about the dangers of hanging around here too long. Some people are tempted to wait for a big reunion with the people they left behind, so they wait and they watch and slowly but surely the people they're waiting for move on with their lives, meet new people, form new relationships and you end up either realising that when they arrive here they're going to be wanting to see not you but the people they left behind or even worse, you grow bitter and angry as you watch your influence fade until you're just a memory in the lives of people who are still the focal point in yours. For the lucky few there is a tearful reunion, but even then there are hazards. What happens when the person you're supposed to love finds out you knew they were going to die and did nothing about it. The rational mind says there was nothing you could have done to save them but for a lot of people trying to deal with the facts of their death rational doesn't come into it.

Knowing when to get out, it's the skill everyone says you need here but when I ask how you know nobody seems able to tell me. I see some of them move on to the next level, soaring upwards like flares, the rainbow coloured trail they leave dissipating as they disappear into the distance, but so few of them actually say they're going or explain what told them it was time. I've asked Carlton and Stefan but they just say the same as everyone else. "You'll know." They have no answer when I reply. "What if I don't?"

oooOOOooo

I've been spending more and more time out there, trying to get my memories to take me places I want to go to, with limited success. I find myself heading back to my parents house a lot, mainly to my old room although a couple of times I've briefly found myself in my fathers study where I used to go to read on hot summer nights, curled up on the old sofa in there with the ceiling fan running. I saw my mother in there the other day but only for a few seconds, the shock of the door opening and seeing her enter the room sent me straight back here and when I calmed down enough to return she'd gone. She looked tired, her usually immaculate hair just tied up and her face makeup free. I would try and make my way out of the rooms I awoke in but the change in surroundings seemed to affect my concentration too much and I'd find myself dropping out of reality if I strayed too far.

I spoke to Stefan today to try and find out what I'm doing wrong. Why am I limited to just one or two scenes from my past when there's so many places and people I want to visit that I just can't seem to find a way to. He said that I'm so scared of failing that I'm not really trying. If I put all of myself into returning to a specific place and it doesn't work then that's final, there's no way around it, so he says that I hold back, telling myself I'll do better next time. He tested me by asking where I really wanted to travel back to and I paused, I didn't want to tell him. He said that proved his point, until I was happy to own up to where I wanted to go to I'd never have the nerve to actually go there.

I thought about what Stefan had said, questioning myself over where I did want to go and why it was so hard for me to admit to. I don't think he's right about my being scared of failing, I think what I'm scared of is that there is one thing I want to do, one person I want to see, before I'll be ready to move on and it's the moving on that I'm really scared of, but I have to do it, right? I can't stay here forever. I vow to really try this time, no holding back and so I relax and let my thoughts flow back to the last time on earth that I was truly happy. As I try to focus in on thoughts of that place I make myself speak out loud.

"I want to see him again. The only man that counted. The only man I really loved."

Michael James Monroe, Mike, my Mikey, the man I died for.

oooOOOooo

My surroundings blurred and then came sharply back into focus. I wasn't back in my old room or anywhere in my parents house, this was someplace new, as I started to look around the images faded, I could feel myself slipping away. I forced myself to concentrate, making the room solidify around me again.

I looked around slowly, I was too scared to dream I'd made it back to where I wanted to go but as I took in my new surroundings my hopes rose. I didn't immediately recognise the room I was in but it did have a familiar feel, it was when I saw the jacket hanging over the back of a chair that I knew I'd made it, it was his. It was then that the room made sense to me, the old memories flooded back and I saw that while the decoration and the furniture might have changed the structure of the room was as it had always been, this was his guest bedroom, which had been our study back in the day.

The walls shimmered, it felt like I was about to slip away again but I didn't, I clung on and when things finally settled I began to slowly move around the room. The walls were white whereas they had once been blue, most of the furniture had been removed and in it's place were boxes piled up against the far wall. Tins of paint and old dust sheets lay on the floor. The one window in the room was covered by a large blanket, the bottom of which brushed against the tops of several large black plastic sacks which were stuffed to overflowing with what looked like clothes.

The door to the room was open so I headed towards it, trying to stay calm. I was conscious of every movement I made, so determined was I to not let this moment disappear on me. Every step I took was followed by a pause as I checked that everything around me remained steady. I couldn't believe I was here again and I couldn't risk losing it.

I stood in the doorway, my hands close to the frame but not quite daring to touch it. I wanted to step out of the room and explore, maybe find some sign of him but I couldn't risk it. Just then a shadow passed along the hallway and into my line of sight he stepped. He looked just like he'd done the last night I'd seen him.

"Michael." I whispered

oooOOOooo

I first met Mikey at work. He'd been dragged along to the bar by some of his work colleagues who I recognised as regulars. They were all laughing, having a great time and he looked so out of place it was painful to watch.

Alex, another of our regulars, had been sat chatting to me all night. He nodded in Mikey's direction and tried to make a bet with me that he was straight. I thought he was probably right but to be sporting I took the bet. While we tried to work out how to settle the wager Mikey came over to order a drink. Alex considered this to be our chance and decided to go for the subtle approach, turning to Mikey and asking if he fancied a screw. To his credit Mikey didn't miss a beat in replying that he'd rather have a beer. I gave him the drink on the house and reluctantly conceded defeat to Alex. It might not have been conclusive proof of his being straight but I didn't want to see what Alex had planned next in the quest for discovery.

I saw him a few more times over the following weeks, usually with the same bunch of guys but once or twice on his own. The bar was widely known for its gay clientele but it wasn't unheard of for a straight guy to wander in, maybe he liked the atmosphere. Still, I started to wonder if I hadn't settled on the bet a little early. I would share a few words with him when he came over to order a drink but that was the extent of our contact, then one night we had a rowdier crowd than usual in. A bunch of out of towners had rolled up, already pretty drunk and getting progressively more so. I thought they looked like trouble, they were already hassling some of the other drinkers who they'd decided were in their way. I headed over to try and calm the situation but before I knew what was happening one of the group had me in a headlock as the others laughed and jeered. I could see a couple approaching to help me but I held out my hands to warn them off, I didn't want this turning into a brawl.

"I've caught myself a cub." The guy who had me trapped said to a chorus of cheers. "Who wants a piece?" He asked as his free hand slapped my ass.

"Pass him over here." One of his friends shouted.

"I'll give you two hundred for him." A voice said calmly.

I strained to look up. It was Mikey. He stood in front of the group fanning the air with a bunch of notes. Just as suddenly as I'd been grabbed I was released, I remained doubled over, rubbing my throat.

"We have a buyer." The guy who had grabbed me said as he stepped towards Mikey. He reached his hand out to take the money and as he did Mikey grabbed his wrist and twisted it around behind his back. The crowd closed in to rescue their friend.

"Any of you takes one more step I break his arm. Understood? You so much as breath in my direction I break his arm. You say another word I break his arm. Hell if I don't like the way you look at me I'll snap it in two. You got that? Good, now get out." Mikey said, twisting the guys arm higher to emphasize his point.

"Just do it." The guy being held shouted.

The group made it's way to the exit followed by Mikey still holding his prisoner. Alistair the bar manager hurried over.

"Police are on their way." Alistair said as he checked I was alright. I was stood up now, still rubbing my neck. We both watched as Mikey released his hold on the guy and shoved him outside after his gang.

"Looks like someone's found their knight in shining armor." Alistair said to me as we watched Mikey walk towards us. He didn't realise how true that was.

oooOOOooo

He stood in the hallway staring into the bedroom. I got chills as I thought he was looking at me but of course he was looking through me. His hair was the same shade of dirty blonde, a little longer than he usually wore it. His eyes such a pale shade of blue they seemed almost grey at times. He'd lost weight, his usual definition gone but he was still the same Mikey who could always be guaranteed to make my heart miss a beat. I can't believe I'm seeing him again.

He stepped into the bedroom, I just managed to avoid him walking straight through me. I watched as he headed over to the plastic bags under the window, rummaged through them and pulled out a sweater which he put on. Then just as quickly as he had entered he left. I stood staring at the empty doorway.

Seeing him again brought all the memories flooding back, everything I'd been denying to myself. How much I loved him. How much I missed him. How guilty I felt for leaving him.

The room melted away. I was travelling back and I didn't care, all I could think about was his face.

oooOOOooo

We sat at the bar after the commotion died down. I'd bought him a couple of drinks and we'd introduced ourselves properly. I tried not to stare at him but I couldn't help it, I'd never been rescued before. Alistair gave me the rest of the night off and Mikey offered to walk me to the station. I told him I would be fine but I didn't argue when he insisted.

Maybe it was the alcohol mixed with the sudden shock of the cold night air but I felt quite giddy as we walked through the city streets. I'd never noticed how good looking he was, back at the bar he was just one of many semi familiar faces but here stood beside me he was taking on other dimesions. We chatted about work, our lives, our interests, he was a computer engineer training in his own time for some qualifications he failed first time round so he didn't have much time for anything outside work and studying. I told him I was doing bar work while I saved to go to college. I didn't tell him I'd decided he was gorgeous and that I wanted to kiss him.

We arrived at the station in time to see my bus pull away. The next one wasn't for an hour so we went to an all night coffee shop Mikey knew to warm up. I told him I'd be fine if he wanted to head off but he said he could use a coffee himself to help sober up before he did anything embarrassing. I didn't dare ask what embarrassing thing he might do.

I missed a further three buses as we sat and chatted and drank awful coffee. I apologised so many times for keeping him there that he eventually had to tell me off. He brought his index finger to my face and pressed it against my lips.

"Shhh." He said and then realising what he'd done he quickly removed his finger and blushed so deeply he went scarlet. I felt my face flush.

"Sorry. I've embarrassed you." He apologised, staring down at the table.

"No, it's a sympathy blush. I'm only embarrassed because you're embarrassed and you don't need to be." I replied, feeling my face redden even more.

"Well seeing as I've already shamed myself I may as well go all out." He said quickly. "Have you got a boyfriend?"

So that was how we got together.

oooOOOooo

I lay back, letting the stream of colour flow over me, covering my face with my hands as I pictured his face, the moment when I thought he'd looked at me replaying in my mind. One part of me wanted to try going back but another and at the moment bigger part couldn't face seeing him again.

Carlton called my name. I looked over to where he stood and he moved closer.

"Everything alright?" He asked sounding concerned.

"Not too bad." I replied.

"I hope you trust me enough by now to know you can tell me anything, even the truth."

"Can I ask you something?" I said. I wasn't sure if I would have the nerve to ask the question I wanted to but I thought I could try.

"Of course." Carlton answered.

"Where do you go when you visit your old life?" I asked.

"Oh, all over the place. It varies." He said warily.

"But which of them is the place you want the most?"

"My parents house." He said after a long pause. I was suprised by his answer.

"Not your wife and kids place?" I asked. "Stefan told me." I added as an explanation.

"They moved." He said sighing. "I sometimes think that's the cruellest thing about this place, that we're tied to places not people. They sometimes visit my parents so I go there hoping to see them."

"But how can you face it? Seeing someone you used to spend every day with, knowing you can't be with them again, not properly. Reopening those wounds over and over. Every time you leave them is like dying again." I said, my voice cracking with emotion.

"But every time I'm with them is like living again." He said wistfully.

oooOOOooo

It took some time but eventually the temptation to travel back again overcame my fears and so I found myself in my father's study. I hadn't thought it possible that I'd end up anywhere other than Mikey's place now so I was a little shocked and if I'm honest disappointed. The next two tries both saw me back at my parents and even the fact that I saw both my mother and father couldn't cheer me. Maybe seeing Mike was too much and I wouldn't be able to return, some kind of subconscious defense mechanism having kicked in. I now realised that for all my previous bluster, not seeing him was infinitely worse than seeing him even if it was from afar.

My next try went better, I found myself back in the spare bedroom, it had been filled with even more boxes now, I looked at one of the ones which hadn't been sealed properly. It was filled with textbooks and files, stuff from Mikes studies. I wondered what it was all doing stuffed in here, how long had I been gone, he couldn't be finished with it yet. Maybe he was storing it here while he decorated, this room had already been repainted, I decided that must be it.

I decided to try leaving the room. I'd managed it a couple of times at my parents and I figured that as my memories of this house were more recent I might find it easier. Standing in front of the open doorway I focused on the hall outside, picturing myself there instead of the room I was in. I stepped forward and felt a shiver as I realised I'd made it.

Moving along the darkened passageway I headed to the end room, our bedroom. The door was almost closed but there was enough of a gap for me to peer inside. He was there on the bed. Lying on his side, legs bent, knees raised upwards, a half foetal position. He was fully clothed, his hands clasped in front of his chest as if in silent prayer. I stared at his face, his closed eyes, his nostrils flaring slightly as he breathed. He hadn't shaven recently, the yellowish brown stubble darkening his cheeks. I used to love him with stubble, even when it reached the length where it would itch and irritate him I would try and convince him to let it grow. The feel of his scratchy, rough hair against my face as we kissed would give me shivers even as I remembered how sore my skin would be afterwards, rubbed red raw and aching. My friends used to say I only did it so I had proof I'd been kissed. My friends said a lot of things, most of which I shouldn't have listened to.

I wanted to enter the bedroom and be closer to him. I wanted to lie next to him and hold him like I'd used to, when I would come home early in the morning and he'd need to get up and get ready for work himself but he would delay the moment as long as possible so he could be in bed when I got in, ready to hold me until I was warm. So many times I would fake falling asleep so he wouldn't feel guilty about leaving me.

The bedroom door wasn't open wide enough for me to try and get inside so I was stuck standing there, just watching and wishing. I felt guilty as I thought of the times I'd left him there under the pretense of going to work.

"I'd change it all if I could." I whispered. "I'm sorry."

oooOOOooo

After that visit I made my way back to Mikey's infrequently. I blamed a lack of focus on my part, I struggled to make my way anywhere. But in all honesty the problem was the guilt I felt when I saw him. I should have still been there with him, not here having to get by with just watching him.

Carlton and even Stefan tried to make me understand that if I felt that way maybe it was best for me to stay away from him for a while and I tried to listen to their advice but the pull was always too great. I'd visit him and be miserable, vow to not return and then forget the pain and just remember the heartache caused by not seeing him.

I managed to get through what felt like a few days before the urge to see him again grew too great and I found myself preparing to try and go to see him.

I arrived in what I eventually recognised as the living room in Mikey's place. The place looked like a disaster zone. I was almost glad that I wasn't there in body, in that mess, the filth that had built up. Dirty dishes and glasses stacked on every available surface. Empty pizza and takeout boxes scattered across the floor in front of the television which was switched on and playing away to itself. A can of beer lay on it's side, a dark patch surrounding it where the liquid had flowed out and not been cleaned up. Mike had never been the tidiest of people but this was beyond anything I had ever seen.

A noise behind me startled me. I turned to see Mike walk into the room carrying another can of beer. He took a swig from the can and sat down on the floor in front of the television. He looked terrible, his stubble was almost a full beard now and he had dark circles around his eyes, he looked like he hadn't slept or bathed in days. I knelt down in front of him, staring at him as he looked straight through me at the screen behind. He took another drink from the can.

"Michael. I'm sorry." I said.

I sat down on the floor next to him and turned to watch the television, hoping for some distraction from the surroundings. When I eventually turned to look at him again I noticed a strange glow surrounding him, a red and orange aura. I decided it must be something to do with my mind and tried to ignore it but it blazed ever brighter as I stared. I moved my hand close to the glow to see if I could feel any difference to the air around me but I didn't notice anything unusual.

I sat with him for a while just watching television, trying to pretend that I was really there and we were just having a quiet night in together. I was startled by the sudden ringing of the telephone, Mikey just ignored it and the answering machine picked it up.

"Michael it's your father. Are you there? I called work, they haven't seen you or heard from you in weeks, they'll only wait for so long you know. Why don't you come back and stay with your mother and me until you sort yourself out. You know you're not to blame for any of it, you couldn't have saved him."

oooOOOooo

I was back in the rainbow coloured mist before I knew what was happening. Trying my damnest to block out the sounds of that answering machine message and the memories it brought to the surface.

The last night of my life I had wanted to go out. After weeks of doing nothing but work constantly I had finally managed to get ten days off. That time was almost over and I felt like I'd done nothing during it. So I'd asked Mikey to take me to a new club that had just opened. He didn't want to, he said he had work to do at home but I argued with him saying he just didn't want to go anywhere with me. The fight blew up out of all proportions, each of us too stubborn to compromise. So I stormed off to get ready, saying I was going without him, which I did. That was what Mikey believed anyway, the truth was slightly different.

My sudden desire to go to a club was made up, an excuse to start an inevitable fight as I knew Mike would never want to go. I chose my argument and fought it with one wish, to get out of the house and feel justified in doing so. He had the chance to take me out and wouldn't, so I couldn't be blamed for going out and finding someone who would.

My friends complained about how boring I was, how I was too young to be all domesticated and needed to live a little before I was too old. I started to listen to them, heading out as a group every couple of weeks leaving Mikey behind. I could pretend I was just doing it to appease them but if I'm honest I enjoyed it, pretending I was single, leading a double life. I never did anything more than flirt with guys, maybe taking their number if they insisted but never planning to call, still I knew even that would kill Mikey. The thrill of it all made me wonder if they weren't right and I wasn't missing out on some fabulous life by being tied to one guy, so when Alex told me he knew a guy that I just had to meet, I agreed.

I headed out into the cold night air, wishing I'd worn a jacket but unwilling to go back and grab one for fear of losing my already faltering nerve. I hurried through the streets, trying to remember the way to the bar where I was supposed to meet this Tony guy that Alex had found for me. Perfect for you, Alex had said as he described him. But who's idea of perfect Alex's or mine? Anyway hadn't I already found someone who was perfect for me? What did I care if he didn't match my friends expectations of what was ideal, maybe it was them that needed to change.

I realised that I couldn't go through with this. I'd call Alex later to explain, if he was annoyed about it, tough. I spun around ready to head home, maybe I'd grab some food on the way, watch a movie with Mikey, enjoy what I had instead of imagining I was missing out on something. As I turned I bumped into a guy who had been right behind me. I opened my mouth to apologise but could only gasp. A pain was shooting across my chest. I looked down at the knife he was holding before it disappeared into my chest again. It looked so surreal I almost felt like smiling. I stumbled as he pushed me into an alley, I fell to my knees mesmerised by the slick darkness of the palms of my hands after they'd clutched at my chest.

"You look a million miles away." Carlton said. I hadn't even noticed him approach.

"Just remembering something." I replied.

"Anything good?" He asked

"No."

"I just wondered if you'd seen Stefan anywhere?"

"Not recently." I answered, trying to think of when I had last seen him.

"Well if he pops up here can you tell him I'm looking for him?" Carlton asked as he began to move away.

"Of course. Carlton, before you go. What does it mean if someone in the real world has like a glow around them?"

"Where have you seen that?" Carlton sounded agitated as he asked the question.

"Nowhere, I just heard someone talking about it. Why, what does it mean?"

"Nothing, it's just a trick of the light." Carlton stuttered.

"Tell me the truth or I'll just ask Stefan." I said, although I was starting to fear the truth. "Please tell me." I added.

Carlton paused as if considering his options. "Well I guess someone will tell you so maybe its better if it comes from me. It means they're almost ready to cross over to here. It's how we knew you were on your way. It starts off as a glow and grows until it's so bright we can even spot it from here."

I didn't know what to say. It couldn't be true and yet I knew that it was. Carlton wouldn't lie so the only other option was that I had been mistaken. Maybe it had been a trick of the light. I had to go back and make sure Mikey was okay.

oooOOOooo

I urged myself onwards, I had to move faster. There was no time to relax and wait for my surroundings to change, I willed them to change, forcing the walls and floor of Mikey's bedroom to appear around me. I wouldn't, I couldn't accept defeat this time, too much was at stake. I would make it to his place, nothing would stop me.

I looked around, I was here. Damn it, I was in the kitchen, not where I'd hoped to be. I moved forward quickly, no time for doubts, trust yourself Jensen, you can do this. I reached the doorway leading to the dining room and froze involuntarily, I'd intended to dash through into the next room, not giving myself time to realise what I was doing but I couldn't, I was scared. I held my hands out, my fingers reaching towards the invisible barrier I imagined in front of me. The scene on the other side of the door was a blur, it was like the picture was still loading in my mind. I could make out the vague impression of the table and the chairs but they were out of focus.

I had to move forward, I didn't have time to be scared. It was just another room, I knew what every inch of this place looked like, I could picture every last detail. I focused on the living room, making the blurred image transform into what I remembered. As I did that the kitchen began to lose its detail, I couldn't manage to hold both of them in my mind. I held on until the last moment, when the kitchen seemed to wash away and I felt myself losing my grip here then I dived forward into the next room. I looked around, I'd made it. Behind me the kitchen was just a square of darkness but that didn't matter, I'd done it. Now I just had to face that a few more times until I found him.

A crash sounded from upstairs. I dashed to the entrance to the hallway and stopping only for a second to let my mind catch up to my body, I pictured the hallway in front of me and moved into it. The actual process of shifting locations was getting easier but I noticed that the detail of my surroundings was faded. I was going too fast, panicking and if I wasn't careful I'd lose everything.

I reached the stairs and slowed as I climbed them, counting each step. I couldn't bring myself to think about what could have caused the crash. I wanted to race up the stairs, taking them two, three at a time, but I knew I would disappear from here if I tried. I had to pace myself, think of the photos hanging on the walls, remember each one as you near it, make this place your reality, forget about going anywhere else, this is the only place you can be.

I arrived at the top of the stairs and looked each way down the passage, I didn't know where the crash had come from but I noticed a line of light that shone from under the bathroom door. I moved along and stood in front of it, hoping I wouldn't hear anything, not when the door was closed. Let it be one of the other rooms, a room I could enter.

Silence. I was about to move along the hall and check the main bedroom when I froze, I thought I'd heard something. I listened at the door, there it was again, a quiet sob. He was in there, so close and yet he may as well have been on the other side of the world. I had to get in there but how?

"Open the door Mikey, please." I willed him to hear me but of course he didn't.

I recalled my experience on the bus. I could move through solid objects, that had been proven, sadly I hadn't managed to avoid falling back to the spirit world. What other option did I have though? I had to try. I attempted to picture the room on the other side of the door but I was too on edge so I just rushed forward hitting the door and passing through, an electric rush charging my body. I was now in a blank space that was being filled in, like someone was drawing the background around me, the basic geometry first then details and colours and there in the corner between the bath and the wash basin sat Mikey, tears streaming down his face as his shaking hands opened a bottle of pills and all around him a fierce blaze of bright orange as if he was on fire. I staggered forward towards him as the room around me froze and then rewound, the colours bleaching, details vanishing and then blankness as I was kicked out of the world.

oooOOOooo

"Stefan." I shouted.

I waded through the mist around me, still shouting his name as voices around me told me to hush.

"What is it?" Carlton asked as he appeared in front of me.

"Where's Stefan?"

"Right here." Stefan said, materialising beside Carlton.

"I need your help." I pleaded, grabbing his arm.

"With what?" Stefan asked.

"Mikey's locked in the bathroom. He's got pills, you have to stop him. Please." I begged.

He didn't say anything. He just turned to look at Carlton.

"It's not that easy." Stefan finally said.

"You can go anywhere, you can move things over there. Just stop him please. You've got to." I pleaded.

Carlton put his arm around my shoulder. "Jensen." He said.

"No, don't try and tell me it's meant to be. Stefan can stop it, he has to. I can't hurt Mikey again. Please." I was desperate now.

"It really isn't that easy." Carlton continued. "Tell him Stefan or I will."

Carlton stared at Stefan who looked away, avoiding his gaze.

"I can't do it." Stefan muttered. "I mean it can be done but I've not worked out how yet. I've just been researching it"

I sank down into the stream of vapour, devastated. Stefan had been my one chance.

"Look you can be here when he crosses over. You'll be together again. Maybe he's doing it to be with you." Carlton reasoned.

"Or maybe he's doing it because he thinks he's the reason I'm here and he's not. It's not his fault, it's mine. He's been punished enough." I cried.

Neither Carlton or Stefan seemed to know what to say next, they shifted uncomfortably on the spot. Stefan cleared his throat to speak.

"When I first arrived here I would wish that my brother would join me." Stefan said solemnly. "He was the one person in my god forsaken family that mattered to me. So I was thrilled when he got in the bath and took a knife to his own wrists. I wouldn't be alone anymore. His girlfriend found him, the doctors worked for hours to save him and they managed it, if you can call it saving. He'd fallen under the water when he lost consciousness, his brain was so starved of oxygen it was permanently damaged and I wished all that on him."

Carlton placed his arm on Stefan's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"I can't go up there and help you but I can tell you what I know. Everyone I've ever met who says they've moved things and who I've believed has been angry or upset. You have to be so filled with emotion you're not thinking, forget you're not solid, forget everything that's happened to you. You have to believe in that moment that you never died." Stefan said as he stared in my eyes. "That is your reality, this is the dream."

oooOOOooo

I lay back and pictured the bathroom. Now was not the time to end up in my parents house or any random scene from my past. There was one place I had to get to and I couldn't accept anything less. The area around me washed away to be replaced by the outline of a room, so far so good. The walls began to solidify and the room take shape, it was my bedroom at my parents. I cursed and forced myself to try harder, altering the walls of the room, bringing them closer together, making the interior smaller, picturing the pattern and colour of the tiles that lined the place, adding the fittings and the lights once the structure of the room had settled. It was working, I was here.

I looked at Mikey, sat in the same place and still holding the bottle of pills. I told myself my hand was solid and I slapped at his hand, it travelled straight though. I tried again with the same effect, meanwhile Mikey tipped a pile of pills into his open palm and tilted his head back ready to take them. I tried to grab his hand but it was like clutching at air. I cried as I slapped wildly at him as his hand rose slowly to his mouth. A couple of the pills fell onto the floor tiles and he reached for them with his free hand. I made a grab for his hand and almost yelled out when I felt myself connect with him, the pills scattered across the floor. I was shaking, literally quaking on the spot from the joy and anger and excitement and sheer emotion of it all.

Mikey scrambled about on the floor trying to pick up the pills. I knelt down and grabbed his wrist, the contact sending vibrations running up my arm. I held tight and watched as the coloured aura that had surrounded him dimmed in intensity before fading completely. I struggled with him as he tried to break free, the look of confusion on his face giving way to fear. He tried to use his free hand to brush off whatever it was that was on his wrist until I took hold of that hand as well. His body shook as sobs wracked his body. I pushed his hands down to his side and held him, hugging him tight as I cried as well and before I knew what was happening he was hugging me back. Both of us sat on the cold, hard floor in a tight embrace, each knowing that this was the only place in the universe either one of us wanted to be.

"Why did you have to leave?" He asked through his sobs.

"Cause I didn't realise what I was leaving." I replied and held him tighter.

 

© 2008 Sabat

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