Calliope: Ghost Boy (Short Seven) By Imani Wagner

I want to thank everyone who has been patient with me and with Calliope. Here is Short Seven, Ghost Boy!

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I knew immediately that I was dreaming. I remembered falling asleep, and though I knew I was still asleep, it felt as though someone had woken me up. Suddenly, I was in this dream space and completely aware of what was going on. It was strange, and I didn’t know that I had ever had an experience like this one before. I was standing in the middle of nothingness. Above me appeared to be the twinkling of little stars, which looked both near and far. They began to form all around me.

They swirled and folded within the surrounding space, and I wondered if they would eventually try to land on my skin. Instead, they swiftly gathered right in front of me. They started to come together, one speckle of a star bonding itself to another. Within moments the being I had seen only once before stood right in front of me. She didn’t speak. She simply lowered herself from her towering stance, and brought her face close to my own just as she had done the first time we met. She pressed her forehead to mine, and something about that gesture comforted me. The magic that was her lashes lightly brushed against my face like plume feathers when she blinked.

All of a sudden she began to gaze deeply into my eyes. Her expression was warm and inviting, and then I was somewhere else all together. I stood in a room where everything around me looked foreign. It was like the room had been organically created by the earth. The furniture emerged as though it grew straight from the ground, crafted of clay and moss. There were spoons and bowls made of wood on the table top. Plants and trees I didn’t recognize looked to have grown right in the middle of what I assumed to be the main living space. I had never seen some of the colors my eyes were trying to interpret.

Then, the tall feminine being came out of a doorway I hadn’t noticed before. I watched her long legs carry her across the room. The jewelry around her ankles sung like wind chimes. She sat cross legged on the dirt floor. There was something small in front of her, which I couldn’t see clearly for some reason unknown to me. She picked it up and maneuvered the strange tool in her hands when an entity of another nature appeared in front of her. It was like her in appearance, yet its luminescence was like that of a ghost. They joined hands and then the spirit vanished. I understood instantly that this being had allowed a soul to pass through her, just as I had done with Ellie.

The scene changed, but I could tell that I was in another room inside of what I then believed to be the being’s home. She looked much younger, as if time had turned back on itself. She was sitting on top of what I imagined to be where she slept. It looked like a nest blanketed with cream colored fur. She had laid out multiple things in front of her. Some looked like crystals, and others were objects I had never known of before. Lastly, there were bowls of what I assumed to be herbs. Some had been ground into dust.

She began to combine these things and move them in the wide surfaces of her palms. These movements were all happenings that were alien to me. She placed each of her hands on either side of her head. She held them there for a moment before moving them in the figure of a circle. I couldn’t help but notice how the blackness of her skin shimmered. One, two, three times she made these circular motions. Then, I saw it. Thin little white strings curled and spun like thread from her ears and dissolved into the air. This felt like a mirror to the moment that started this whole connection to the spirit world for me.

I came to an understanding about this blue-black entity. She had shown me that she too could connect with the dead. She had also shown me a ritual she constructed, which had allowed her this connection. My eyes opened straight away and there I was in my bed, in my apartment, in Chicago. The dream was over.

I drew many assumptions as I laid there on my back and stared at the ceiling above me. Thoughts passed through my mind like a teleprompter, but felt as though they were not thoughts from my own mind. This was a familiar experience for me to have post sight-of-dead-people. The thoughts that resonated with me was that this being, this woman, was me or some variation of who I was. She was somewhere else and she was in existence in a place that she had allowed me to see and know through her. My next thought stood in the forefront of my mind: I had access to my ability to see the deceased by involuntarily channeling her, while here on my plane of existence. I processed the peculiarities of my dream as fast as I could before it was time for me to make my way to work.

The coffee shop was always filled with remote workers on Tuesdays. What was it about Tuesdays that steered people away from their offices? Everyone had their faces pushed up against a laptop screen. Pens scrambled along journals and planners, and even though everyone talked quietly, it was still loud as the room filled with all of those little voices. There weren’t many ghosts. Actually, I was having a hard time distinguishing between who was alive and who wasn’t.

I had to come in early to cover Mya’s morning shift. I was told she had a family emergency and wouldn't make it. The day seemed to pass quickly. People and spirits milled in and out of the cafe’. One ghost in particular caught my attention. I realized it was the boy I had seen in Azrael’s car just the other day. He was sitting at one of the corner tables and had been looking directly at me. I grabbed a spray bottle and rag and made my way to his table.

“I need your help,” he said as soon as I approached. I sprayed down the table and pretended to clean.

“I figured,” I gave a reassuring smile while I scrubbed away a nonexistent sticky substance. I was proud of myself. The last ghostly interaction I had in this cafe almost left me in a puddle of my own piss. “What happened to you?”

“My family… they think i’m missing. As you can see, I’m not.” I noticed him out of the corner of my eye as he watched my face for a wavering expression. I continued my attention on the already clean table. “I need you to help me tell them the truth. My sister is panicking and mostly dealing with this all on her own.”

Azrael walked into the coffee shop, stealing my attention, and when I turned back around Ghost Boy was gone. Azrael came over to me, “I didn’t know you worked today. I was just going to grab something quick to eat,” he said.

“Yes, I have a closing shift, but I had to cover part of Mya’s morning too.”

“How long do you have until you’re done for the day?” He always stood so close when talking to me. The heat from his body made me feel like we were wrapped in a bubble together which only he could create.

“I have about four more hours left before I can close up.”

“Then I’ll stay,” he said as a matter of fact. I continued with the rest of my day pouring and mixing various cups of coffee. Images from my dream flipped through my mind like a kineograph. I was particularly stuck on the threads the woman had magically expelled from her ears.

The amount of people in the coffee shop became less and less as the sun set. Eventually, it was just me and Azrael. He swept the floors and I mopped behind him. We didn’t talk much. Actually, this was the least we had ever talked, and I began to wonder why he decided to stick around. He came and stood in front of me, taking the mop out of my hands.

“I’ll finish for you,” he said. I could tell something was happening because he hadn’t moved. Instead, he stayed standing there looking down at me. His eyes never left mine. He tucked his finger under my chin lifting my face so that it was square with his.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him. “Do I have something on my face? It might be crumbs from my lemon cake earlier.”

Before I could wipe off whatever it was he was looking at he said, “There’s nothing wrong with your face.” Slowly, as if requesting, he lowered his lips to mine. There we were, kissing in the middle of the empty coffee shop.