Page 7 of Earthly Ties

Until finally, the pervasive darkness lifts slightly with the promise of dawn on the horizon. I can see the outline of Esther’s form under her duvet, the soft pink color slightly less muted in the low light.

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Esther is the sun.” I laugh at myself, the unpracticed sound raw and hoarse in my throat. Of all the poetry and prose I burned into my brain from sheer loneliness, Romeo and Juliet is my least favorite. They were far too hormonal to be realistic. And yet, I can’t stop myself. “Arise, fair sun, arise, arise, arise and kill the envious moon—” I pause, frowning. “No, I’m already dead. Put the envious moon out of her misery and wake the fuck up. For she is already sick and pale with death, and she just wants to hear your voice.”

Esther rolls over in her sleep. “Wake up. Please wake up.”

Reassuring warmth fills me as her soft, sleep-filled voice rasps quietly in the pre-dawn light. I float closer from where I’ve been keeping vigil above the bed, feeling more human, more myself, with every syllable her perfect lips form. Only another eternity until I can remember who I am again. “It is my lady. Oh, it is my love. Oh, that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says—”

Esther murmurs again in her sleep, and in my delusion, I’m convinced I hear, “Please come back to me.”

“If only I could, fair sun, fair Esther, fair East.” My choked laugh sounds more like a sob. “I am too bold. ‘Tis not to me she speaks. I was never hers to return to her.”

I float alongside her, cross legged over the covers, as her eyelids flicker in the faint glow from the window. She burrows into her pillow, wiping her face with the back of her hand. I think for a moment she’s about to wake.

But Esther simply snores, and I am inexplicably saddened. I wish I could cry to ease the ache in my heart, the loneliness gnawing at me. But ghost eyes do not burn, they do not water. The tears never come.

As Esther rolls onto her side, I reach for her, one fingertip burning as I brush her slackened jaw. The searing pain is a reminder that we’re both here, even if she doesn’t know I’m here; I can’t reach her no matter how hard I press into the burn. I’m alone, and she’s alone. We’re alone together.

“Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!” I trace my finger along her round face and over her pouty lower lip, wishing I could feel anything besides the searing pain in my fingertip. Wishing she could feel my pain, too—

A piercing ring makes both of us flinch.

Smacking the snooze button on her phone, the East awakens, and with it comes the peal of morning bells, the sunshine of that sweet, soft voice greeting me with a “Good morning!”

She says it to no one but herself, but the tintinnabulation is my saving grace, my raison d’être, my lifeline to what little sanity I still possess after eight hours of a few murmurs that escaped her dreams to keep me company.

“Oh, maybe she’ll be back today! It’s Friday!” Esther leaps out of bed with far more energy than I’d ever mustered for anything.

“It’s Friday? Fuck! I thought it was supposed to be Saturday!” I got my count wrong somewhere. Discouraging, and yet I can’t bring myself to care; I am so relieved to have Esther awake again, even if she is talking about some other unnamed she. I roll my eyes at the twinge of jealousy. “Ugh, really? You’re literally dead. You never had a chance, and now you’re really never gonna have a chance! You never wanted a chance!”

Esther busies herself making coffee, peeking out the window as daybreak spills into the alley outside. Only a few minutes into the day, and already time speeds up, as if Esther is a recording being played in double time.

I wait until she sits at the table, before risking a peek out the window myself. Looking away from Esther and focusing my gaze on something beyond her immediate vicinity takes so much willpower, but my interest is piqued.

She’s looked out that window several times this week, but she’s never commented on what she’s looking at, or rather what she’s looking for—this mysterious she, apparently. She was the first thing on Esther’s mind when she woke up, and she seems to be all Esther can think about today.

I pretend my ridiculous jealousy is mere curiosity, as an excuse to look out the window. It seems so silly; I’ve been here for a week—over a week—and yet, my only observation of the world outside Esther’s window is the brick wall of the building next door, and the changing light throughout the day until the sun disappears from the alley.

Taking a grounding breath to focus my attention on anything but Esther, I turn around, forcing myself to focus on that nondescript brick wall, to see what has captured her continued interest.

The view from Esther’s apartment makes my jaw drop.

In the windowsill across the alley sits a purple oxalis, with bobbing purple leaves and graceful pink flowers. Its terracotta pot is unremarkable, but I’d recognize that plant anywhere.

Because that’s my purple oxalis.

First Date

“Ican’t believe we’re on a date.” Esther plunked down onto the cloud, practically wiggling with excitement in her three-piece suit. The dusky pink tweed made her round cheeks impossibly rosy. It was unfair, really, how adorable Lucy’s new coworker was. Her brown hair spilled down in loose curls over her shoulder, as she fiddled with the ends.

Across from Esther, Lucy tucked her long legs under her, settling into the fluffy cloud-turned-picnic blanket. Wearing the dress she wore on the first day of her new job, she smoothed the black sleeveless number across her lap, the silk just grazing her knees. Even the kitten heels she wore that day were on her feet, more comfortable than usual. Then again, clouds were supposed to be mist-cold and damp. This cloud was as soft and dry as spun sugar and cotton. The wisps tickled as they curled across the brown skin of her bare calves.

Specks of starlight floated around them like fireflies, flickering tapers in the rosy dusk. The starlight candles that reflected in Lucy’s deep brown eyes were galaxies. Strange that she could see her own eyes; this was a dream, then. As if the cloud blanket, or her coworker excited to be on a date with her, weren’t big enough clues that Lucy was dreaming. No, it was seeing her own eyes that gave it away. Her glasses were missing, but Lucy didn’t need them. Like all of her semi-lucid dreams, she could see everything here. It should be unsettling, but Lucy felt only serenity, and a glow of warmth from how eager Dream Esther seemed to be.

Besides, Lucy had had weirder dreams than out-of-body experiences. When she was a little kid, she would go for car rides in her dreams, in a teal Cadillac, her dad in the backseat next to her, and no one in the front. With the top down, they just drove and drove and drove all night, and their only destination was the horizon that never got any closer.

But those dreams had stopped when her father stopped coming around, when she had finally believed her mother that he had passed. Once she’d started school, her dreams became utterly forgettable and uninteresting.

This dreamworld was much more whimsical than a road trip to nowhere.