#622. Write...Edit...Publish: Haunting

Denise Covey's Write...Edit...Publish is rolling around again, which means it's story time!  This month's is celebrating Halloween, which is tomorrow (just in case you are a ghost). Without further adieu, here's my story, which clocks in at 1,194 words:

The Other Side

For convenience sake, we will identify our subject today as Le Novo.  He once had a different name, but that was when he was still among the living, as the living.  Then he died and came into the rest of it. 

We're not concerned with Le Novo's life before his death, because as far as this story is concerned Le Novo was only concerned about his life after death.  It would be so much simpler if this weren't the case. 

My name is Pilot, which is to say that it is my name now, much as Le Novo's name is Le Novo now rather than before. 

 It's the name I have come to adopt.  Names don't mean as much here as they did on the other side.  You'll get used to it.

It was my task, as you might imagine, to shepherd the young Le Novo, as it were, into our way of things.  I'm afraid I made a mess of things, but in my defense my subject made it extremely difficult.  It happens, more than you'd think. 

The problem Le Novo had was that it was not as easy for him as it is for others to let go of his life before death.  Life on that side is spent entirely consumed with the fear of life on this side.  Sometimes this leads to extreme trauma in the transition.  It's not a matter of letting go, because death will do that to you, but of the few times when the transition of memory doesn't work as well as it should. 

Le Novo was still very much attached to his life before death.  He was attached to his family most of all, and all the things he'd known so well in life, the mundane things like where he used to enjoy sitting, or the bed he found so comfortable. 

Sometimes when this happens, this flaw in the transition of memory, it's because of the way death occurred, an imprint violently committed to the mind regardless of which side the individual is on. 

As far as I was ever able to tell, Le Novo died peacefully in every sense. 

And yet he could not tear himself away from his desire for the other side.  Some people, even the ones who fear this one so fiercely, live their lives on the other side with as intense a desire for this one as Le Novo had for that one. 

I'm telling you all this because of course Le Novo found the loophole back there.  He went back to the other side.

This is always a bad idea.  It's the basic truth of our existence.  It's our one rule, you might say.  You break it at your peril, not because of any punishment that will be inflicted upon you, but because of what it will do to you, without fail.  It's the dire inevitability, like death is on the other side. 

But try as I might to convince Le Novo of this, he would not listen.  What else could I do, then, but grant him his wish? 

It will never be the same, going back.  Only once every third millennium does someone experience an authentic resurrection.  Anything else is exactly what I'm about to tell you about Le Novo now. 

He went straight for his family.  Because he was intangible, this was as fruitless as you might expect.  You can see the other side from this one just fine.  Most of the time this is good enough.  You watch life the way they watch television.  It's the same thing.  For the desperate, for those like Le Novo, they believe they can have something more.  And yet it's impossible. 

Le Novo spents months trying to convince himself otherwise.  He learned to manipulate material objects again.  Never organic.  That's the loss from the event of death.  Once sundered from the body you lose all contact with it, all its most treasured sensations.  When a cup or a set of keys or some homework turned out to be somewhere unexpected, that was le Novo's doing. 

His despair grew.  How couldn't it?  He became frutrated.  The family moved away.  He couldn't follow.  He remained anchored to the house.  It's familiarity that makes the whole thing possible.  You can't form new attachments, from this side to that, even if you go back.  That's no longer the point of your existence.  There are greater wonders. 

Years, decades passed.  Le Novo stayed in the house.  He could no longer bring himself to move on.  He had to believe his family would return.  It only felt right.  They wouldn't abandon him like that, his memory.  How could they?  Didn't they know what he'd done for them? 

They would be back.  He wouldn't leave.  He couldn't. 

Except they never did.  He wife died.  His children died.  His grandchildren died.  None ever came back.  And yet Le Novo never left the house.  How could he? 

There were new occupants, new families.  None of them familiar.  They all caused Le Novo considerable agitation, and he was not shy to show it. 

He couldn't communicate with any of them.  He couldn't communicate with his own family.  Why should he bother now? 

One day, however, a medium was brought to him, someone who could bridge the gap between sides, at least for a little while.  Callard Bowser was the last hope of the current occupants.  They had consulted plenty of charlatans.  Bowser was real.  She told them Le Novo's real name, when he'd lived there, how long he'd been since he returned. 

She helped them talk together.  or rather, she talked to Le Novo and then relayed what she heard. 

Le Novo explained his heartbreak.  He told Bowser how he appreciated the brief moments where he found something familiar.  He explained how he understood that it wasn't the new occupants' fault.  But he couldn't help himself.  That was no longer under his control. 

And it wasn't under Callard Bowser's, either. 

This was about the point where I thought it was stepping in again.  There are too many like Le Novo, too many who fall into this trap.  Some of them are more unreasonable about it than he was.  I talked him out of this loop.  I had to occupy a living soul in order to do it.  Thankfully, because I have experience with these things, and am not nasty about it, it's a mutually beneficial relationship, one I can employ when necessary.  Sometimes the living soul is aware of it, and sometimes it isn't. 

As gently as I could, I discussed with Le Novo the possibility of coming back.  It was always an option, I said, as long as Le Novo himself embraced it, the way he'd stepped back to the other side in the first place. 

Of course, there's an entirely different version of this story that would send chills down your very bones, but then, you no longer have any. 

And that's exactly why I tell you about Le Novo now.  As a cautionary tale, a reminder of things you already know.  And a warning not to do it yourself. 

It's better for all involved.

#606. Write...Edit...Publish: Moving On

The Armchair Squid seems determined to involve me in the blogging community.  He's already got the Cephalopod Coffeehouse I've been enjoying for months now, and now he's alerted me to this writing bloghop, Write...Edit...Publish (WEP).  This month's theme is moving on.  In a roundabout way, the following story follows it.  See if you can tell me how in the comments.  (814 words.)

Bessie

The cow who was not a cow, more like an extrapolation on the concept, sat there mooing.  

The cow's name was Bessie.  She was looking at a statue that reminded her a great deal of herself. 

This was appropriate because the statue was after all fashioned as a tribute to her.  The thing was, Bessie had a lousy memory.  Her contemporaries forgave her because they adored her.  It should be noted that the statue was not a religious totem, and that Bessie herself was never intended to see it.  There was an idea at one point that it would be unveiled at a surprise party with Bessie as the guest of honor, but then the goat who would one day become the Golden Goat, who was sometimes called Dillon, was recognized as an idiot, and those plans fell apart. 

Bessie had recently returned home after a long exile.  The fact of the exile was not peculiar to her, but rather a dictate of the...Dictator of the Galaxy, who was an extrapolation of a dog.  When the Dictator realized that many of the subjects of his great realm closely resembled creatures on an insignificant planet known as Earth, he'd ordered a large sampling of them to visit.  Such are the whimsies of fate that the Dictator himself ended up becoming an exile there, too.  Some blame Bessie, others the common mischief of Boo.  It is not wise to question matters of that regard. 

Standing not far away from Bessie was a human, an old farmer by the name of Kentucky Joe.  "Kentucky Joe" was not his real name, and is not even close to it.  He never even lived in Kentucky, but rather somewhere deep in Camden County, Missouri.  And speaking of the whimsies of fate, Kentucky Joe had never had a cow on his farm until he acquired Bessie. 

(As to how that occurred, this was the result of a bet the cow lost to Boo.) 

The old farmer was still having a difficult time adjusting to his new surroundings.  So far he had been forced to ride an absurd progression of animals, the last of which and most alarming was a horny toad, or so he called it.  The horny toad was in fact a tree frog, who had in turn lost a bet to a turtle.  The Dictator does not concern himself with gambling, because he himself has a weakness for roulette and the number 23. 

When she noticed Kentucky Joe looking at the statue, Bessie let a sigh loose.  Sooner or later she'd have to tell him something.  There were so few humans here.  Even the ones who visited usually left on some ridiculous quest dreamed up by the Dictator, who had the attention span of a gnat.  She wasn't at all concerned that Kentucky Joe would be drawn up in something like that, though.  As far as she could tell, the only thing he was capable of doing was initiating riding all kinds of weird creatures (as everyone knows, only horses and seahorses are supposed to be treated like that) and working on increasingly feverish projects.  Taken off his farm, the old farmer was just out of place, which is not what Bessie would ever say about herself.   

She was at home anywhere.  Except here.  Staring at her statue.  It was unnerving.  And Kentucky Joe only made it worse.  He kept looking back and forth between them, even though it was plainly evident that they were exactly alike.  The Dictator had a thing for statues.  She suspected that he was trying to send her a message, manipulating everyone into this exact moment.  Since she couldn't remember anything else about it, that seemed to be the logical assumption.  Maybe she was just being paranoid. 

The old farmer somehow came up with an idea to fashion a small scale replica of the statue.  He found some goat milk that had come from Dillon, and set about the task.  Except he soon had the idea to make it bigger, and began to bargain with the goat for more milk, which the goat did not appreciate.  Goats most appreciate leafy greens, and least appreciate when you stop giving leafy greens to them.  If you want your kids to eat leafy greens, have them visit a petting zoo, or a farm.  Kentucky Joe's farm is free for the taking, by the way, and it has goats, one of which is Dillon's kid (no kidding). 

Bessie was not beset with the appallingly lunatic spectacle of watching the old farmer carve a statue of a statue that was in her likeness, and she was no closer to learning why the original had been made in the first place.  Typically, the Dictator was on yet another of his mindless excursions. 

This was why, even though cows don't moo anywhere but on Earth, she did exactly that.  Again.