I Can’t Get That Y’Sil Out of My Head! [Writing Warm-Up #5]

I Can’t Get That Y’Sil Out of My Head! [Writing Warm-Up #5]
By T.A. Saunders

My skin burns. It’s a pain that travels my entire torso, and I only have moments, between when this crazy bitch is making my skin look like a meat mosaic and when she’s wiping clean the knife she’s using, that I have relief. It’s a moment for me to reflect on how utterly fucked I am, for the person I am. If I were the bird I’d hoped I had been in a past life, I could fly away from all this, or if I was the beagle, I could just bite this bitch in the boob, and make a break for it.

But I’m none of those things. I’m an addict, a failure and I’m going to be the fuck sock for some primordial ass-wipe from Hell. At least, that’s the impression Doctor Michaels gave me, when she gave me the lowdown on my situation. I don’t know much about this voodoo witchcraft shit, but I know enough that once she finishes carving symbols in my skin, and chanting something that sounds like an unhappy Catholic mass done in Latin, I’m done.

For all the things that’s happened, for all the shit I’ve done to myself, I’m deciding right now, I’m not done. I’m not done with life, and whatever surviving braincells I have, I need to fire up now if I’m ever going to get out of this. To be honest, it’s taken me being put here, on the literal sacrificial alter of some demon, or whatever, to see that I want to live. I want to not be this jerk that mopes about his lot in life, wishes he was something else, and wallows in his misery.

The restraints are tight. I’m never going to break them. I had trouble, last week, tearing a t-shirt I was wearing, when I was doing a drunk impersonation of the Hulk; leather restraints are an insurmountable challenge. But if she sets that knife down on the tray, I might be able to get it. I might be able to cut a restraint, or cut her. For all this carving, permanent scarring I’m going to have, giving her a few stabs won’t even flicker on my conscious.

I should be dead though. All this blood is mine, she’s cut me all over and it stings to feel the air move across my body. I cry out more than I want to, but she’s making shallow cuts, inches at a time. She’s being precise, she’s being careful with every symbol. She’s making my flesh art to a dark god, that she hopes will take this body, filled with despair, frustration and a lack of beagles and use it for…well, I don’t really fucking know, do I? But she’s making art for him, is the point. Art I can vandalize, just by moving.

She lifts the knife just as I twist in my restraints. I snarl at her, and her expression is one of surprised shock. She eyes my restraints, and its here I know she fears me. She fears me getting free before she’s done. She uses her sweet voice to try and calm me, warn me she’ll use some chemical on me, but I don’t care. I want to be free. I wait for her to start cutting again, and this time she slips. This time I ruin her artwork. It’s a small victory, probably not important in the grand scheme of me being a meat tapestry, but it’s the fuck you of it that counts. Bitch.

Then I feel it. It. Each one of the carved symbols on my body burns like I’m on fire, but I can’t scream. Doctor Michaels is chanting in something that sounds like more of that angry-sounding Latin Catholic mass, and every phrase she finishes, brings It deeper within my body, through the symbols cut into my skin. I want to scream, for the discovery of a pain new and different to the one I’ve been experiencing for the last two hours, but it doesn’t come to my voice. It’s choked there, like a fat cat trying to push its way through a cat door that’s too small. Instead of the scream, I make this saliva-drenched gagging noise, thanks to the ball gag I’m wearing.

I can feel Y’Sil in my head now, coaxing me like I’m a prom date it wants to lay, in the back seat of his car, with images of power, conquest and women. He tells me he’ll let me kill the doctor first, if I want, or rape her, then kill her if that pleases me. Even as fucked up as I am, as mad as I am at this woman, the idea of raping her sits sour in my stomach, but killing her seems somehow better. It…he, whispers in my mind that together, he and I will have absolute power, to shape the world as we wish.

Somehow, the promise seems genuine. I give a little. I let him take a bit more of me, but not everything. I want something first. I want proof that he’s not going to jack me, and use my body as a wearable meatsuit. I have one condition, and I make it wicked simple.

I want a damned beagle!

Beagles Don’t Fly [Writing Warm-Up #2]

BEAGLES DON’T FLY

By T.A. Saunders

“He was found on top of a garbage truck. He’s lucky, really. That jump could’ve killed him.”

“Lucky? He’s an idiot. What’s that he’s muttering?”

“Something about beagles. Been going on about it, since being brought to the E.R.”

“Idiot.”

Doctor Chaise Michaels really didn’t know what to make of her patient. After pumping his stomach free of the mixed cocktail of prescription drugs, then having his broken arm and broken shin set, as well as the numerous abrasions, she couldn’t help but to feel he’d just be back here in a few more months, as the result of something very similar. Some people just couldn’t be fixed, unless they truly desired change. Or could they?

“With your permission, I’d like to have him ‘evaluated,’ perhaps find some means to help Aaron.” Chaise was being vague with her patient’s grandfather. Aaron really was the best subject for her research, but explaining it to the angry old coot was going to take longer than she really cared to entertain.

“Evaluated?” Aaron’s grandfather, Henry Thorpe repeated, with a raise in the timber of his sandpaper-rough voice. “What do you need to evaluate him for? He’s an idiot. You know, the other day, I caught him soaking tampons in vodka? Who does that? An idiot does that, that’s who. There’s your evaluation.”

“Mister Thorpe, “ Chaise replied, a bit flustered with the prospect of just how to explain the motivation of soaking tampons in vodka, tactfully attempted to switch the subject matter to a more clinical topic. “I believe Aaron needs a deep psychological evaluation, to determine what’s driving him to make these clearly poor decisions.”

“Eh.” Henry didn’t have much use for doctors, or evaluations. Surviving the Korean War and Vietnam had been quite enough of an education on doctors and their evaluations, for him to have no taste whatsoever for the process, or its details. Still, he eyed the woman, his hardened ice blue gaze critical of any signs of hidden meaning or, more importantly…”How much is this going to cost? If it’s between this putz and the new Ford truck I’m eyeing, it’ll be the Ford!”

The doctor couldn’t help to find a sardonic smile for the old fellow’s commentary. It was this sort of thinking she reasoned, that probably put Aaron where he is now; the sense of worthlessness that drives somebody to taking drugs, jumping off buildings, and worse. This is why her research into memory alteration was so important. Making people see themselves and past events differently could take a broken person, like Aaron, and perhaps allow him a chance to be a productive person. Somebody he could be proud of, somebody even his cantankerous grandfather could be proud of.

“The treatment will be free of cost,” Chaise replied while brushing back a stray lock of chocolate brown hair from her glasses. “This sort of thing is covered under my research grant. He will have to be transferred, of course, once he’s well enough to be moved. As his legal guardian, you would have to sign all the necessary paperwork.”

“Fine, fine.” Henry responded, with a dismissive flick of his thin hand. “Give me whatever paperwork you need me to sign. I’m missing ‘The Price is Right,’ on account of the idiot here.”

“Yes of course,” Chaise replied, while opening the door for Mister Thorpe to exit Aaron’s room. Once the old man had departed, the dark-haired doctor turned back to her patient, with a soft, nurturing smile forming on her petal pink lips, as she touched his brow, with her thumb.

“How you will see the world differently, once I’ve finished with you.” She whispered, before leaving the room herself. Doctor Michaels was pleased, indeed.

Flying [Writing Warm Up #1]

FLYING

By T.A. Saunders

I always dream of flying. It’s a world of grays, whites and overbrightness. It’s a world devoid of the joys of color, but one I’m pleased to suffer; I have a sense of elation, despite the minor sensory discomforts. I’m always squinting, always looking, but never quite finding. Flying around like a hawk maybe, but I imagine hawks usually catch things. Maybe more like one of those stupid finches that are always hitting windows, and mailboxes. I’m left unfulfilled by the end of the dream, which makes me think it’s more real than not. Makes me think I had been a bird once, in a past life. I really hope I wasn’t a finch though. Stupid finches.

The absurdity of those words is something that I both accept and further, feel no need to defend. Past lives are part of religions around the world, and there are people all over the world claiming to be Elvis, Jim Morrison or fucking Jesus. Jesus is the most popular reincarnated person I’ve never met. Considering these things, me thinking that I was once something so inconsequential as a bird in a past life, hardly seems insane, or even remotely far fetched.

Now, as then, I find myself unfulfilled. I’m trapped in this meat sack and I can’t get out. I can almost feel my brain wanting to claw its way out of this feeble body, with no care or consideration to bone, muscle or precious organs. Meat chains. I want to get out of this fucking body and fly like I once did, like I once could, but I can’t get out. I’m trapped in this reincarnation, I am trapped in this existence where I must heed the word of those who are my intellectual inferiors, I must smile, nod and seem pleasant to coworkers that, I’ve often postulated are really just well-trained chimps, that some asshole decided to shave and stick in a work force.

But there I remain. In here, trapped. Trapped with my thoughts, trapped with my dreams of a life that will not allow me to forget. The curse of a human mind is that it works so well. It remembers things you cannot make yourself forget. You cannot line item delete painful memories, sorrowful moments and the scars of abuse that the world, and people who say they love you carve into you. All I want to do is fly and escape that ‘love’ that does more to bleed than to nurture. Barbed wire round and round until its cutting from all directions and there’s no room to keep beating.

The dreams are so vivid, that I wake feeling more exhausted than I was when I went to sleep. I don’t believe in the Christian mythology, but I don’t believe in all the crazy New Age hoodoo either. This girl I know in Memphis claims to be a Wiccan and has had more abusive relatives, tragedies and heartaches than a season of “Supernatural,” and she tells me that I’m Astral Projecting. She also told me she can do it better than me. I think if she were any more full of shit, she would cause a fecal matter detonation of such monumental proportion, they would have to call the event, “The Really Incredible Shitstorm of 2015.” That, and I don’t believe in Astral Projection either, but something’s going on. Something I can’t explain, something that won’t stop, because my wonderful human mind won’t forget something my soul remembered. Should have been reincarnated as a fucking dog. I really like beagles.

So I’m standing here, doing the only thing I can do. The only thing that makes sense. The only way I can escape. Once I jump off the top of this building, I’ll know who I really am. I will know if I’m supposed to fly in this meat suit, or if I really am crazy. If I’m wrong, from this height, I won’t have to worry about medical expenses or a psychologist, that’s for sure. I’m not afraid though. Spent my whole life afraid of loved ones, not loved ones, afraid of everything. But I’m not afraid of this. I’m smiling. I’m smiling because either way, I’ll be free. Gonna fly now.

Oh shit, what if I was a beagle?

 

It’s All About Perspective

My lesson from NaNoWriMo is: I fucking hate the idea of writing a novel in a month. Before November, a close and important friend urged me to attempt this and I did manage to squeeze out five good chapters before I really felt like the whole grinder to write something good in that short of time pretty much train-wrecked my creative process. It train-wrecked to the point where I didn’t want to write at all, and I didn’t. it probably didn’t help that I had a cadre of personal issues to deal with, but I don’t look at those as reasons. Those are excuses, so I don’t linger on those, nor do I hold them up as a core issue to my fundamental problem; I simply cannot be rushed.

I do feel myself getting back on the rails, but it kind of surprised me just how damaging to the way I create stories the whole concept of NaNoWriMo was. I mean, it made me angry how badly it nuked my willingness to write. It also reminded me that I am simply a person that has to, must do things on his own terms, or he will simply not do them. The whole act of doing it felt like throwing feces on a wall and trying to call it a story. I’m not a fucking monkey; I don’t write on command and I don’t like flinging poo and calling it wordsmithing. I think for me, the creative process is slower, so I can work things out in my mind, walk the story through in my head.

The good news is I have five good chapters of this, what I feel is a fairly unique post-apocalyptic story that is, surprisingly not focused on zombies and does not involve a dystopian future. I am going to start working on this story again, starting tomorrow. Maybe I will post a few lines from it, but as it stands, this is really second draft stuff. I think I will also get back to the thing I was doing, where I’d write other stuff as a diversion from the main thing I was writing. I have a few short stories kicking around in my head that I’m going to write, then look to get published in magazines.

So yeah, I’m back at it.

Tim

Where I am and Where I’m Going

I’ve taken to a more relaxed blogging schedule. As this is a lightly-traveled blog I don’t feel particularly bad about cutting down the time I spend on it to address other projects I have waiting for me. I’ve decided to let this blog sit for a little while to get those other projects off the ground and running.

I’ve had The World of Imarel hanging on my back on and off for 25 years now.  For those familiar with the archaic free form/semi-free form role-playing that takes place on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), it has dwindled down into a small, fractured but resilient community. My own channel, #imarel (yes, it’s hash-tagged, because that’s how channels were designated before the advent of Twitter) is growing in popularity despite the overall decline in people who wish to RP via a textual interface, but the rules, lore and other information isn’t complete. For the first time however, I can honestly say I’m pretty close to being done with it. So, while this blog sits idle for awhile, that will be one of the things I work on. It’s honestly a labor of love and nothing more, a labor of love I need to finally get off my plate.

More importantly I also need to put more time and effort into writing. I feel I’m growing as a writer that I now need to give just putting the words down to the proverbial paper a lot more time than I have been. I’ve been spending a few months doing character studies, writing down story ideas and generally researching how to flesh out my characters better. “Traveler” was a step in that direction.  I will eventually write Story Two for “Traveler” but for now that will sit until I feel I’ve given my writing the focus it deserves. I have the story idea already shaped out for the second series but like I said, I need to start looking at the bigger picture.

Till next time!

TRAVELER — PART VII, An Unexpected Answer

TRAVELER — PART VII

An Unexpected Answer

Mars had declared its independence from the governments of the Earth something like thirty years ago. There had been a concern about history’s first interplanetary war, but it didn’t go down like that. The colonies of Mars were self sufficient and simply wanted their autonomy from their respective governments (in this case, the United States and China) to exist how they wished.

Donna had been working as a US Ambassador to Mars at the time and she had been back and forth between Earth and the Red Planet more times than I’d like to recall. We had just gotten married and it put a strain on things, but we managed. It helped knowing she was doing something important for not only Earth but for Mars as well. When it was finally done, I remember the marathon sex and her unending need to eat real food, instead of that stuff they make with the food replicators.

I think of this now as Earl and I touch down on Mars, because right now we’re looking at the very colony Donna had gone to in order to do her work. The Armstrong Colony was situated in the Valles Marineris and had been the site for many of the negotiations between the US, China and the United Colonies of Mars. They didn’t have much of a military back then, but what they did have was enough to make taking the colonies back by force more expensive than either nation was willing to pay. In the end, it always comes down to money. As we look at the massive anti-starship batteries and the milling of troops coming in and out of the large, domed complex I see a lot has changed in those thirty years.

“Shit,” Earl began, “Look at all that hardware. Those are M-76D hover-tanks!”

“Yeah, US military hardware, but how did they get those? Any of this stuff?”

“Dunno. But this doesn’t look like a colony anymore than my mother-in-law looks like a woman. Suppose we have a look around and see what’s goin’ on here?”

“Probably a good idea. Let’s go.”

My first inclination was that they were on high alert because the Earth was basically obliterated. Without the Earth, Mars’ own orbit would be effected, though it’s impossible to say how. Could it be the result of an alien invader? We’ve not exactly scored well diplomatically with the Alpha Centarians or the Skull Nebula Confederacy but neither has been war-like. Not like this. Even as advanced as the Skull Nebula Confederacy is, they were more interested in hustling us their old technology for mining rights on the Moon than blowing us up. The implications of what could have happened were staggering.

Earl and I floated past the myriad of soldiers and military equipment towards the colony proper. It was a huge, domed complex that was built around a giant terra-forming tower. Because the fusion reactor within it gave off so much heat, a thermal dome was built around it to help create a habitable environment for humans while the atmosphere composition was being changed. It would likely be another fifty or so years before people will be able to live outside these domes, but the change will be a leap for Mankind.

It was amusing to me that Earl and I could simply cross the threshold and move about the busy colony complex without being detected, detained or questioned. We drifted through bustling crowds and the botanical garden stations that made up the majority of the colony dome’s interior, until we came to the center pavilion. What I saw there struck me dumbfounded.

“T-That’s Donna.” I managed to stammer. “Why is she kneeling before that Alpha Centurian?”

 

 End of Story One

TRAVELER — PART VI, To Mars!

 TRAVELER — PART VI

To Mars!

I’ve traveled a few times through space via solar sail but to travel through space as a ghost, as living energy was an experience that I couldn’t possibly been prepared for. The solar sail takes a month to make the voyage and you have all the creature comforts of a cruise ship but it’s sterile. You really don’t have a concept of traveling because its so comfortable, so smooth. But as a ghost I’m naked to the space around me. Distant stars streak by and I can move as fast as I want to. I can see Earl next to me and we like a pair of translucent comets streaking across the great expanse of space with no limits to how fast we can go and where we can go.

I don’t know if I still exist because of the unresolved issues with Donna or if I’m simply going to always be this way, but since nobody throws a manual at your head and says, ‘This is how to be a spirit!’ I’m sort of learning it as I go. Earl, between fart jokes, stories of his sexual escapades and his lamenting that he’ll never see the Tennessee Titans play football again, has actually been some help with the week or so he has on me in ghost time. Also assuring (and terrifying) is that a spirit seems to be able to survive the destruction of a planet. It makes sense though, being incorporeal. I suppose I always assumed the destruction of a place a ghost haunts would mean the release of the ghost. Maybe there is still some truth to that, but not in Earl’s case.

I’m distracted from my random thoughts as Mars rushes up on us. As we crest over Deimos, the Red Planet rises to greet us. While not nearly as populated as the Earth was, the small Terra-forming colonies and scientific laboratories the United States and China have peppered the surface with have given it a sense of newness. Like life can go on despite the horror that I’ve witnessed not terribly long ago.

“Always thought Mars looked like a big, round sky turd. Like a Space Rabbit took a dump and hopped off to Jupiter.” I could always count on Earl to offer deep though-breaking commentary.

“That’s really…I really don’t know what to say to that Earl.” I muttered

He was giving me that satisfied smile, like he said something profound and stumped me. I begin to wonder if my new spectral powers include the ability to steal that stupid hat of his and hit him with it every time he gives me that look.

“Well, we’re here. Now what?” he asks.

“They must have had some sort of news on it.” I explained. We’re going to have to just start looking until we find out what people there know. It’s weak, but it’s a start, right?”

“Hey, maybe while you’re doin’ that I can go possess a woman and have me some alone time!”

“Earl will you shut up? I—wait a second. Yo know how to possess people?

“Sure. It’s not that hard. You just have to be real smooth about it.”

“You’re going to have to show me that trick later. Might come in handy.”

“Man you have no idea! Woo!”

“Let’s go back to, shut up Earl.”

I could almost feel him flipping me off as I flew ahead of him and allowed myself to plummet through the thin atmosphere. There was a certain rush knowing that I could free-fall like this and be in no danger of dying, since I’m already dead. It’s strange how we always think of death as something horrible and initially it is. But if it weren’t for the grievous circumstances of my death and that of eight billion others, I might actually enjoy being dead.

TRAVELER — PART V, Donna

TRAVELER — PART V

Donna

I closed my eyes and attempted to focus. Earl’s dialog about having the urge to scratch his privates as a ghost, despite having no reason to itch them was distracting to say the least. Rather than the less than savory image he presented, I filled my mind with visions of my wife, my Donna.

She was wearing a pale yellow sundress last night at our BBQ, it brought out the gentle tanning of her skin and brought out the straw color of her hair. I could almost smell the chicken and bratwurst I had been grilling while she laughed and carried on with our friends, Peggy and Kevin. The light from the stupid tiki lanterns she had insisted on filled the area around the pool in a pleasant glow. I remember looking up at the stars as I grilled, thinking that the night had been especially clear. Certainly not the sort of night that you’d expect the Earth to just end like it had.

I’m floating in those stars now, not unlike the debris that marks the remains of my home, my world. I reach out with my conscious and attempt to feel her presence somewhere in the vast, drifting wasteland of Once-Earth, but I find nothing. I’m greeted with a sense of great emptiness, speckled with pinpoints of passing energy, possibly other spirits that are doing what I’m doing. Maybe they’re looking for loved ones or just a stranger in the void. Somebody to assure them that they’re not alone in the world. Should I ever encounter one of those lost souls, I’ll give them Earl.

“You know what I really miss? Pork rinds! Mmm! Dip those bad boys in hot sauce and watch your eyes tear up and your pants burn off!” Earl is supposed to be not distracting me and his answer to that task is to distract himself by babbling.

I don’t bother dignifying his prattle with an answer. I reach out with my mind once more, further this time. Beyond the scope of the debris field, beyond the space I can see. I feel as though I’m attempting to fill a jug of water with just enough pinholes in the bottom that water never quite fills it but never quite runs out either. I’m at a mental stalemate with the Universe, as I allow my mind to extend out as far as it will go. Besides a momentary itch at the edge of my perception, there’s nothing. No sign of Donna and for that I’m pleased and sad. I can’t remember my last words to her because I was so drunk I’m sure I stammered them. I remember her laughter as light and amused. She was happy. I’ll have to be satisfied with that and the fact she won’t be caught in this Purgatory like I am.

“Think we’re done here.” I announce. “I can’t sense her.”

“Probably for the best. Means she probably died painlessly.”

I stared at Earl for a long and uncomfortable moment, long enough to make my burly ghost companion slightly self-conscious. But it’s not anger at him, it’s befuddlement at myself for not even considering why the Earth exploded or broke apart or whatever the hell it did. I had done the same thing with Donna; it was as if, as a spirit I’m designed to have a measure of apathy for living matters. Earl displays the same thing in his own crude way. What ghost tries to make fart noises with his armpit, while somebody’s looking for their loved ones? Perhaps its a coping mechanism for those who pass on, so they can finally leave this world. A depletion of one’s humanity to forget and to fade away. Except I wasn’t ready to fade yet. I was ready for some answers.

“So now what?” Earl looked like he was eager to explore the girl ghost possibility again.

“We’re going to Mars. I want to know how this happened.” Maybe then I could fade away. Maybe then I could be with Donna again, once the questions in my mind were answered.

TRAVELER — PART IV, Learning to Fly

TRAVELER — PART IV

Learning to Fly

“We all have someplace to go, Tommy,” Earl said while the valley of silence between us grew. “Just a matter of figurin’ where that is.”

“Donna.” I said at last. “I need to find out if she ended up like us or…”

“Or if she passed on.”

“Exactly.”

While Earl was annoying in every way a backwater hillbilly can be annoying without a truck with a lift kit, firearms and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon, he seemed right on board with looking for the spirit of my wife. If our situations were reversed I’m not so sure I would have been so willing to help, the thought of it shames me back to silence.

In keeping with my theory, I begin willing myself to move, rather than physically trying to propel myself forward. I begin to feel, in the most abstract sense, the energy of my form begin to coalesce. It feels a little bit like trying to push out that stubborn turd a lot more than I want to admit with the way I have to strain to focus, but it works and I begin drifting forward. I am sentient energy now; the electrical shadow of a man named Thomas Killian who died along with everybody else who was on Earth when it evidently exploded. That man had a wife, named Donna that should be found if she’s out there.

There was a good chance that this was going to be a futile search. With any luck, I would never find her. She will have died and moved on to the Afterlife, whatever that actually is. Maybe it is actually nothing. Perhaps she and six billion other people simply ceased to exist this morning. Either scenario seems preferential to my fate with Earl Fontane, his beat up baseball hat and his banjo bravado.

“I thought we was looking for your wife, Tommy? Stop floatin’ around like a fart in a tornado and let’s get to it!” Earl barked out.

“I…shut up Earl.” I probably looked ridiculous as I glided around in an attempt to acclimate myself to this new mode of movement. “I need to know how to move, before we go anywhere. I’m not even sure how we can find her?”

“Yeah, that’s a pickle innit?” He replied. “Maybe because we do everything else by thinking, maybe you can do it that way too?”

Earl had another in a chain of disturbingly logical ideas. At this rate I may have to throw out the idea that this is actually Hell and he’s a demon spirit here to punish me with stupid. I still wasn’t very good at ‘flying’ yet but it was enough to manage. I wasn’t going to get better if I didn’t move more. It also surprised me that Earl could move so effortlessly. Then, it occurred to me how that might be.

“You didn’t die with the explosion, did you?”

“Nope!”

“How did you die?”

“Fell into a combine about a week ago, while reaching for beer number 53. Woo! Wouldn’t recommend that experience twice!” Only Earl would find death by combine even remotely exciting.

“I generally steer clear of farm equipment.” I muttered before focusing on the task at hand.

I was almost afraid that I would find her.

TRAVELER — PART III, Adrift With the Space Cowboy

TRAVELER — PART III

Adrift With the Space Cowboy

“Sensi—no you idiot, I’m just grasping what’s before me and not thinking with my pecker in the Afterlife!” I couldn’t handle it anymore. If he wasn’t already dead, I might’ve strangled him.

“Whoa easy there, Tommy. It’s cool. We’ll worry about women later. What do you want to do?” He asked while turning his baseball hat backwards.

I had to stop and think about that because I rightly didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t even know what my existence was now, aside of the obvious fact that I was dead and everything I’ve ever known was obliterated. It was a lot to process for anybody…except Earl. We’re dead and the first thing he can think of is girls. That of course drew me to my next question.

“Wait a minute. How would you even know where to find other people? I mean, ghosts?” I asked while looking down at my feet and baffling at the fact that I could see thousands of stars beneath them. If it weren’t for the fact that the situation was so hopeless, I’d be awestruck right now.

“Well, I found you didn’t I?” He stated with a matter-of-fact tone. “I dunno rightly, I think I sensed you. You know, like one of those Jedi!”

The thought of Earl wearing that Tennessee Titans hat with Jedi robes and a lightsaber made out of a beer can and a flashlight suddenly snapped my gloom in a burst of laughter. “I…you know that feels right.” I said finally.

“Sure does!” Earl offered with his usual ability to state the obvious.

If we could sense other ghosts, we might be able to find others and perhaps find some answers. The most predominant issue I was grappling with was, since the Earth was destroyed and ghosts usually haunt a particular area, did that mean I was damned to haunt the remains of the planet like some sort of galactic graveyard or could we roam?

Wordlessly I tried pushing myself forward with a swimming motion and unsurprisingly, I managed to only make it look like I was imitating a swimmer and in doing so, only mount further confusion with Earl. Further attempts seemed to fall flat, which spurred my new companion to comment.

“No, you just have to think about the direction you want to go. You’re dead, dummy! You don’t move like a person no more!” Earl stated with some authority.

I looked at him skeptically before quieting my mind and trying it. I think it was with the immediacy by which I shot forward that I was surprised; it was entirely effortless. I remember reading some time ago about how ghosts were thought to be electromagnetic shadows of ourselves. Echoes of energy imprinted on the world. If I was essentially sentient electromagnetic energy, that meant with some limitations, there was literally nowhere I couldn’t go.

“We can go wherever we want, as fast as we want…” I stated to Earl for confirmation.

“Reckon so.”

“Except I have no idea where to go.” I stated in muted frustration. Perhaps that’s why ghosts haunt places, they can’t think of anywhere else to go. The very thought of it sickened me.