No Longer Alone

“Come on, stop with the questions,” I told her. “It’s time for me to sleep.”

“What am I supposed to do while you sleep?” she had asked me.

“I don’t care. Just as long as you do it quietly.”

That was the first day I met her. I could hardly believe she was real, but she was still with me eight hours after she spoke her first words to me. Her name was Lynn.

The next morning when I woke up I figured it must have been no more than a strange dream, but then I heard her voice fairly purr, “Good morning, tiger.”

“Good morning to you,” I said. “Do you want some coffee?” I don’t know why I asked her. She was going to get it whether she wanted it or not.

“Yum,” she said after I took my first sip. “You make coffee taste good.”

“Look,” I said, “I really feel terrible about the way we met. Do you remember the accident? Do you remember when you…”

“…were thrown free,” she interrupted. “It wasn’t your fault. My brother was drunk and blew through the stop sign. I’m the lucky one. He paid with his life. Your car got totaled and now you’re giving me a place to stay.”

“It must be awful for your parents right now. I’d go to the funeral, but I’m probably the last person on Earth they want to see. And they can’t see you, so what’s the point?”

“I’d still like to see them. Tell them I love them. I know this has just sucked the life right out of them. What parent wants to outlive their children?”

“We can visit your grave from time to time and leave them little mementos that they know is a message from you,” I said. I started crying. “Is that you taking control of my waterworks?” I asked.

“Yeah, I can’t control any of your physical body, except for the parts that are connected to your emotions.”

“I wonder how long you’re going to be in my head. Are you like a ghost? A co-pilot for this body? How am I going to have an intimate relationship with anyone ever again?”

“What could be more intimate than both of us sharing a mind and a body?”

“What do you look like?” I asked.

“A lot like you, I guess.”

That was four years ago. Today, I sit in the graveyard under a cedar tree with tears streaming down my face. An elderly couple kneels at Lynn’s gravestone and smiles at the Scrabble tiles that had been left there. They had played the game with their kids every Thursday night. The American dream.

And now I sleep a lot because the only time I can experience Lynn in her full physical beauty is when we’re dreaming. Plus we’ve been practicing and now she has mastered control of my left hand when we’re awake. Until death do us part, I am no longer alone.