Ghosts 7

September 12, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is basically a good girl, or she would be if she would just let go of her Jezebel spirit.” Nathan talked as they walked.

“Her what?” Mya asked as she chose to let go of Nathan’s hand and walk at his side. She felt like she was getting too big to be hand holding like that, and anyway, he said she was growing up so she decided she had better start acting more grown up.

“It means she always has to be in charge and control everything,” he said. “She has driven out three of the last four preachers at the church.”

“I thought priests got appointed,” Mya said. She did not understand.

“Not in the Baptist Church,”

“Oh, we’re Episcopalian.”

“I’m sort of a mix myself.” Nathan let out a little smile. “I guess that is why I fit well with the Baptists.”

“I’ve always been Episcopalian,” Mya said in all honestly.

“Anyway, I have a daughter, Lisa, and she is all right I suppose, but a hard woman. She does not put up with any nonsense and does not have much of a sense of humor.”

“So, you are married?” Mya said, seriously, but it was like a question.

“Was married.” Nathan answered and came to a stop. He stooped to pick up a stone from the curb and tossed it into someone’s yard. He missed the tree he was only half aiming at. “Mildred ran out on Lisa and me when Lisa was about your age, seven I mean. Actually, she was eight.”

“I’m not eight anymore.” Mya said with a grin. Once again, Mya had accepted all that was happening to them. It was Nathan who had a hard time thinking of her as anything other than a crippled seven-year-old.

“So, she abandoned us.” Nathan went to pick up the story but he felt Mya’s hand on his cheek and in his hair.

“Poor baby,” Mya said, softly and with all gentleness. Nathan turned, and there must have been something in his eyes because the girl quickly withdrew her hand and looked almost like she got scolded, even without a word. “It is what my grandma always says.” She cringed a little in defending herself.

Nathan softened. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He did not want to upset her because after all, she was only a child. “I got over it. What?” He asked what because she started staring at him. Her hand reached very hesitantly for his hair again, and he did nothing to stop her, so she combed it behind his ear.

“You have brown hair. It’s nice. You know it isn’t so gray anymore.” He did not know, but to be sure, he found the whole idea of getting younger a bit disturbing. He felt glad for her, that she was growing up, but he was not sure he wanted to get much younger. He lived a good long life and he felt sort of afraid he might start to forget who he was. He decided that he needed to get them back on the subject so he started to walk again and she walked at his side.

“Anyway.” He exaggerated the word. “I have two grandchildren. My granddaughter, Susan, is twenty-eight and lives in California with her husband and two perfect children.” He rolled his eyes for her and that made Mya giggle. “My son, Stephen is local, and still married, sort of, and they have a daughter, my great-grand Emily. She is eight.”

“What do you mean, sort of still married?”

“Separated.” Nathan shrugged. “But they are in counseling so who knows? Maybe they will reconcile. Personally, I am not holding my breath.”

“You don’t sound very happy with any of your family.” Mya thought hard about it.

Nathan shrugged again. “I suppose I blame myself.” He held up his hand to keep her quiet until he explained. “I am the one who raised Lisa to be the way she is. I don’t know, but I think she needed her mother, a mother, any mother. I worked way too much and I put too much on her shoulders at too young an age. I made her grow up too fast, you see? That is my only real concern for you.”

“I will be fine,” Mya said quickly and took his hand once again to reassure him. “I don’t need to be in charge of anything.”

He glanced at her. “You say that now, but wait until you’re a little older.”

“You mean ten minutes from now?” she asked, and they both laughed a little.

“Anyway.” Nathan stressed the word again. “I’m the one who made Lisa into a hard woman, and she raised Susan and Stephen to be warped in their own ways.”

“I think your wife might be blamed for some of it,” Mya suggested.

Nathan shook his head. “I can’t blame her. She wasn’t there.”

“Exactly,” Mya said. “My mother and I are alone, too. I know that is not the way it is supposed to be. My father should be there. I am sure I missed out on lots of things because he was not there.” She paused and wondered ever so briefly if she might be clinging to this man because he could maybe be the father she never had. “I am sure my mother has had me take responsibilities that I should not have to take, or have taken, back, you know, when I was seven.”

Nathan let out his breath in what sounded almost like a little growl. “Parents talk all of the time about raising their children, but I think most of the time all we do is ruin them. We fill them with our disappointments, our anger and frustrations with life, and twist their little minds until they become something they were never meant to be. I suppose that is the nature of sin. I never realized it before, the way the sins of the fathers keep getting passed on from one generation to the next and twisted in the process until it becomes something downright wicked.”

“Stop it.” Mya interrupted his tirade. “I am sure you did just what you told me to do. I am sure you did the best you could and my grandmother used to say you can’t expect to do any better than your best.”

“I suppose,” Nathan said, but he became quiet for a time.

“How come you never remarried?” Mya asked at last. Nathan looked at her for a minute before he answered. He wondered what might be going on in that little mind of hers.

“Because it never seemed the right time or the right woman, I don’t know. It had to be right for Lisa, you know. Not just for me.” He shook his head and looked away from the girl. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “I guess I did not want to go through all of that again. I was thirty-four when Mildred left, but I still feel the sting of her rejection. She ran off with a minister, though how you reconcile infidelity with ministry, I – I.” He shrugged again, and did not have the words. When he looked again at Mya, she looked deep in thought. He nudged her rather than ask what was on her mind.

“Uh?” She looked up. “I was just thinking that I hope my mother remarries, especially now that I am, you know, gone and all. I think she needs a chance to start over, and I was thinking that maybe I was kind of standing in the way of that, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Nathan said. “I can’t imagine you standing in the way of anyone’s happiness.” He smiled and she did too, drew a little closer and tried to match his stride as they walked. Nathan noticed that Mya now stood as tall as the half-way point between his elbow and shoulder. She was certainly growing. Her bumps were getting bigger, too, and she showed more curves in that figure. She appeared to be turning into a beautiful young woman and he felt happy for her. He put his arm around her in his happiness and in true affection. “You’re as tall as my heart now.” He said and sounded very much like the grandfather that he thought of himself, or the father Mya presently imagined him to be. She stopped and gave him a big hug.

Ghosts 6

September 11, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Nathan woke when Mya wiggled a little to get into a more comfortable position. He felt her breasts against his ribs and he imagined she was also making little curves in the beanpole body she had been. The breasts were still small, but he imagined she did not grow that much while they slept. All the same, he hoped they were nice ones for her sake, in whatever way she imagined breasts should be nice. He looked down and he knew he had judged about right. Mya appeared to be about thirteen, fourteen at most, and she was looking up at him. Her hand came up to touch his face—not such a little hand now, but he spoke before she could say anything.

“You have bumps.” He said.

“I have bumps?” Mya’s mouth opened in a tremendous smile and her eyes and hands shot instantly to her own chest. “I have bumps!” She declared and she rushed into the bathroom and shut the door.

Nathan sat up more slowly, not because he felt stiff like he used to feel when he woke at home, but because he was savoring the morning and feeling truly rested for the first time in ages. He thought of Mya as he heard a little squeal of delight come right through the door. If she turned fourteen, he recognized that she was now twice as old as she had been only a day ago. He felt happy for her when he thought about it. He had no idea what kind of relationships they might form in the next million years, or more. He could not encompass that though; but even so, he felt that she should not have to go into eternity always being referred to as a kid. He had heard the word used twice already, and both times he heard it spoken unkindly.

He looked down at his own clothes. They were not as wrinkled as they had been, and what is more, his handkerchief looked pressed and clean again, as if it had never been used. He imagined Mya’s clothes were adjusting as well as she got older and taller, though he could not imagine how that might work. He did not worry about it. He did not know how a lot of things worked, like microwave ovens, but it never stopped him before.

After waiting for a very long time, Nathan stepped to the door and knocked. “Are you all right in there?” He raised his voice just a bit against the wood.

“Yes. I’m fine.” The answer came sharply through the door. Something seemed to be happening but he could not guess what.

“I’ll be right here when you are ready,” he told her.

“Fine! I’ll just be a minute!” She responded, and Nathan shook his head and wondered what it was about women and bathrooms. He imagined he would never understand that either, so he did not let it bother him. He stepped into the hall and watched the shift change at the nurse’s desk. He followed one of the morning nurses with his eyes as she went from room to room with her tray of morning medicine. Out of curiosity, he looked in on room 312, but there was a new man in the bed and the business man had gone; then he hustled back to 307. He did not want to be found wandering when he was supposed to be waiting patiently for Mya.

Nathan paused outside the door to their room. He saw a woman on her knees in the hall, cleaning. He thought little of it until he saw her give a furtive glance in his direction and immediately she started scrubbing a little harder for a few strokes of her brush. They were in a hospital, he remembered. People often went to hospitals to die. Nathan imagined that most of the staff had to be immune to having ghosts wander the halls, but there would always be some that were sensitive to it.

The woman glanced his way again and squinted as if she could not quite grasp what she saw, or thought she saw, or maybe she did not quite see at all. Again, she scrubbed harder for a few strokes, and Nathan wondered if the woman thought that she could clean and sterilize the ghosts away. Nathan felt sure that was one thing she could not do, and he felt a momentary twinge of sorrow for the woman. He could almost taste the woman’s fear, a kind of palpable sense of foreboding. He felt it as surely as he had felt the cruelty of the woman with the puppy and concluded that ghosts must be hyper-sensitive to the emotional state of the living. He imagined this woman might have a break down, or anyway, this would likely be a very short-lived job. He felt sorry for her again, as he walked slowly back into his room.

Mya did not come out of the bathroom until seven, nearly an hour after she went in.

“All better?” He asked.

Mya sat on the bed, not ready to walk yet. It seemed like she wanted to talk and so Nathan took a seat on the bed opposite to her and prepared himself to listen.

“I know in my head that I am really only seven years old.” Mya started right in. “But I also know I am a teenager. I know this isn’t going to make any sense, but I don’t think I am just growing up on the outside.”

“No.” Nathan interrupted. “I have watched you and listened to you so I believe you, even if it doesn’t make any sense.” He smiled.

“I want pizza, and I don’t even like pizza.” She joked and tested herself, and Nathan gave her a little laugh. It seemed the least he could do.

“But what is wrong with that?” he asked. “You told me you did not want to stay little forever.”

Mya nodded. “I don’t. But it is all happening so fast. Shouldn’t growing up take time, I mean to learn things and explore things and all that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Nathan turned thoughtful. “There really isn’t a whole lot to learn about being an adult, at least not much more than you knew by the time you were seven. Be good, do your best, love your neighbor and that sort of thing. When you grow up you have to take more responsibility for yourself and your own actions, decisions and choices. You know, like when the bird leaves the nest it must fly on its own, but you seemed like a very sensible and responsible girl since the first time I saw you. I can’t imagine trying to hitch a ride on a city bus at age seven. That must have taken great courage.”

Mya smiled and turned a little red. She fanned her face for a moment as she spoke. “You have no idea. I was scared out of my mind. To be honest, I just did not know what else to do.”

Nathan nodded and smiled his most reassuring smile. “Being an adult is a lot like that. Most grown-ups do things just because they don’t know what else to do. You have to be over eighty, I think, before you realize it doesn’t matter mostly what we do, as long as what we do is done in love and kindness.”

Mya smiled again and looked down into her lap where she worried her own hands.

Nathan asked because he picked up on the clue. “So, what took you so long in the bathroom?”

“I think I had a period,” Mya said and did not look up at first. “Mother explained it all to me and I did not really understand what she was talking about, but now it kind of makes sense. I felt all crampy and then all fattish, though I had already taken off my clothes and I did not notice getting any fatter in the mirror. Then I felt like I had to go, you know? I sat down on the toilet and tried, but nothing happened until I noticed I was bleeding a little.” She looked up. “I didn’t know ghosts could bleed.”

“I didn’t know there were really ghosts until yesterday.” Nathan countered with a motion that suggested she should go on and finish the story.

“Well, that’s it. Then I got better and got dressed and came out.”

“But I thought such things lasted for three or four days.” Nathan sounded unsure.

“Oh, a week.” Mya responded with her eyes as big as they could be. “But that’s what I mean about everything happening so fast.”

“Still, you experienced something,” he pointed out.

Mya made a very teen age, exasperated expression come to her face and she threw her hands out to slap the bed, palm up, on either side of her. “But that is what I mean about not experiencing things. How can I really grow up without experiencing things?”

“Hmm.” Nathan tried to get serious again. “Have you experienced frustration and anger as well as accomplishment and satisfaction? Have you ever been worried and afraid sometimes and felt safe and secure at other times? Have you known sadness as well as joy, hate and love, cruelty and kindness? Have you ever felt the excitement of trying to go to sleep on Christmas eve?” Mya nodded to all of it. “Then I would say you have already experienced everything there is to experience. Grown-ups just experience these same things, though the world is full of fools these days who seem determined to cut back on the joy, love and kindness part.”

“I’ve never experienced falling in love with a boy,” Mya said a bit shyly.

“And never had your heart broken either.” Nathan raised a wise, old finger to emphasize his point.

Mya puffed a teenage puff. “I would still like to fall in love with a boy,” she insisted.

“Bah.” Nathan shrugged it off. “Boys are not so special.”

Mya rolled her eyes. She had practiced that in the mirror, but she did not need to tell him that. “Now you sound like my real grandfather,” she said.

“He must be a very wise man,” Nathan responded, stood and puffed out his chest just a little. “Now, shall we go?”

“Go where?” Mya suddenly got serious.

“To see your real grandfather?” Nathan suggested. Mya shook her head. “Well how about just your regular father?” Mya’s head shake became more pronounced.

“Dad left me and mother when I was just a baby.”

“Well, how about your mother then?” Mya’s head shook hardest of all.

“I’m not ready for that yet,” she said, and then she added something that did not surprise Nathan at all since he was feeling the same tug on his soul. “I think we need to go back to the place where the bus, you know.”

“The scene of the accident?”

“The scene of the crime.”

“Yes,” Nathan said. “I was feeling that myself but I wanted to hear it from you. I was willing to fight the feeling if you said you needed to go somewhere else.”

“No,” she said and held out her hand for him to take. It was a bigger hand by then and they were more truly holding hands now rather than Nathan enfolding her little hand in his palm. “I go where you go.” She finished her thought and Nathan simply nodded as they started to walk. They chose the stairs this time, and without Nathan thinking twice about the choice.

“But what about you?” Mya asked. She drew the thought from somewhere in her growing-up mind. “Don’t you have family?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, and they went through the sliding doors and out on to the street past the man attempting to fix the doors. Apparently, they were opening and closing at all sorts of times, and all on their own.

Ghosts 5

September 6, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Come on.” Mya took the lead. She grabbed Nathan’s hand and only stopped briefly at the hospital map on the wall. She seemed to know where she was headed. This time they took the stairs down one flight and she pulled him through the authorized personnel only hallway to enter a different wing of the hospital. Nathan guessed where they were going, but he said nothing. They spent a long time looking through the glass at all of the babies, but she did not want to go inside. At last, Nathan thought they needed to change venues, so he asked as kindly as he could.

“Are you hungry?” Mya looked up at him with a forlorn expression that proposed never to leave her face. It broke Nathan’s heart to see it. He realized that he missed the little girl smile that had meant so much to him and kept him steady, especially at the first. Mya had accepted the truth before he did, and she kept him going with her smile. She kept him from thinking too hard about it all and maybe becoming morose. Little Mya had no morose in her until the subject of bumps and babies came up. Now, she looked in danger of becoming hopelessly mired in her own sense of loss, and what would never be, and Nathan desperately wanted to save her from that. She certainly deserved better than to be depressed forever. “I could go for some Italian right now. Do you like Italian food?”

Mya looked up at him with her tear streaked face and those big brown eyes with their sadness etched into the black depths. She said nothing, but she did not resist him when he took her hand and headed them toward the stairs. Nathan hoped there might be food left in the hospital cafeteria since the time was getting on, but he would not have been surprised if it had all been cleaned up and put away for the night. Hospitals, like grade schools, tended to run on a very strict schedule.

The cafeteria was located on level B-1, ground level at the back of the building. They still had some service, though only one worker behind the line who wiped a spill around the macaroni and cheese. A couple of men and a few women in white coats sat around, talked quietly, and nursed their coffee and tea, having pretty much finished eating. Nathan supposed they were doctors, nurses, or more likely attendants of some sort hanging out to get the full extent of their breaks. They saw a few tables with dirty dishes, but the man behind the counter did not seem in any hurry to get out and clean them up. Instead, the man looked at the clock on the wall as if waiting for the right moment to close.

Nathan also looked. It was nearly eight-thirty, perhaps five or five and a-half hours since the accident. He brought Mya up to the line, but they quickly realized that they could not pick up the trays, plates or silverware. Their hands simply passed through the items, and while it came as a bit of a shock at first, Mya spent the next few minutes passing her hands through all sorts of things; and she smiled at the sensation.

Nathan looked at the food. They had some spaghetti in a kind of dark brown crust that might have been an attempt at meat sauce. It was real thick spaghetti and it did not look too appetizing. Still, he would not have minded a taste, though to be honest, he did not feel hungry in the least.

“I don’t think we can eat anymore.” Mya put her hands right into the hot macaroni and cheese and swirled them around with no effect on the dish or her hands whatsoever. “But that’s okay. I wasn’t really hungry.”

“Me neither,” Nathan said, and he looked up to see a big man staring at the deserts. To his surprise, the big man turned and looked right at them and with a quick comparison to the attendant behind the counter, Nathan recognized this man as another ghost.

“I’m hungry,” the man said.

“You’re fat,” Mya said as she stepped up beside Nathan. She clicked her finger nails on the metal cafeteria rail a couple of times and Nathan thought she needed some chewing gum to complete the pre-teen picture. “You should go on a diet.”

“Screw you, kid,” the fat man said.

“That was very rude.” Nathan turned and scolded Mya. She looked up at him with some concern to be sure he still liked her. She knew she was being rude, only now, after being scolded, she felt she paid her penalty and so she did not feel like saying she was sorry.

The fat man looked down for a minute before he turned his eyes again to the deserts. “The doctor said it was the fat that killed me. What does he know? The quack.” He looked at them again before his eyes were drawn back to that last piece of chocolate cake. “I didn’t think it would be like this.” He seemed to need to confess. Nathan stayed to listen, so Mya stayed, too. “I used to eat everything and anything I wanted. Mom was a great cook, and there was always plenty of junk around the house, you know, cookies, chips, treats and frozen waffles. God, I can’t think about it.” He paused to take in a deep breath. “I didn’t think it would be like this.” He began again.

“I pretty much lived my life whatever the hell way I wanted. I didn’t let anyone tell me no. I lost a couple of jobs, but screw them. I screwed everyone I wanted and when I wasn’t screwing, I was eating. God there was this one restaurant that made… but forget it. I thought when I died, like it would not happen so quick. I thought I still had years left to live and I thought I would straighten things out some when I got older.” He looked at them again. “I didn’t have the time. It all went by so quick.” He looked again at the cake and reached for it only to have his hand pass right through. “I thought when I died all of these old habits would be taken away, you know?” He looked up one last time and asked. “Why are we still here?”

“Maybe so you can have one last chance to straighten things out,” Nathan suggested what he and Mya were both thinking.

“Maybe you need to let go of some things,” Mya said and reached for Nathan’s hand which he readily gave her.

The man merely nodded and then ignored them. His hunger had him once again.

Mya and Nathan went out from there wondering what to do next. Then Nathan saw Mya yawn a big yawn and he thought they might find a deserted room in which to rest. He led the girl back to the elevator. He felt better than he had in years, feeling no pain at all, but he was still not sure about climbing a bunch of steps. Fortunately, the elevator arrived empty at eight-forty-five in the evening. They went again to the third floor, but Mya resisted seeing her grandmother. Thus they wandered in the other direction, past 315, 314 and 313. They found someone in room 312, and would have moved on if he had not shouted out to them. When they entered the room, Nathan noticed the bed had been stripped clean and the man sat on the edge of it, fully clothed as if waiting for a ride home. They saw another patient in the room, but he was sleeping.

“What is going on?” The man asked right away. “I can’t get anyone to listen to me, not the doctors or nurses or anyone.”

“What do you think is going on?” Mya spoke right up before Nathan could get a word in. Her words were not exactly meant to be rude as if to suggest the man was being stupid or something, but they came out that way and might have been taken that way. Nathan pulled her hand up to his chest and patted her hand to keep her quiet, even as her grandmother had patted that same hand.

“I don’t know.” The man spoke honestly to them, but something else could be seen behind those blue eyes. Nathan and Mya just stared into those eyes until the blue turned a little gray and the man turned his eyes to the floor. “I think I am dead.”

Mya almost said something, but Nathan hushed her and spoke instead. “I think you may be right,” he said calmly.

The man slid off the bed and threw his fists up to cover his eyes. He turned his back on them and began to spout. “I have a wife and three kids who need me. I can’t be dead. You don’t understand. I was just working on a big deal at work that was going to make my career. We were going to be set for life after that, and… and I was going to be able to spend some quality time with Sharon and the kids. I can’t be dead. I never got the quality time. It isn’t fair!” He blustered himself out and despite the closed eyes and the fists over the eyes and also the fact that his back was turned, both Mya and Nathan knew he was crying, just a little.

Nathan thought that you have to smell the roses every day as you go along or otherwise you will never catch them in bloom. His mother taught him that, but of course he did not say it out loud. He looked down. Mya stayed good. She felt the man’s pain, but she looked up to get Nathan’s unspoken assent before she said anything at all.

“It will be all right,” she said. “That is what I keep getting told, and…” She looked up to catch Nathan’s eyes again. “And I believe him.” Nathan smiled, dropped Mya’s hand and threw his arm around her for a big squeeze. He needed to hear that as much as she needed to say it.

“What do you know?” The man turned on them with a little anger. They felt it, but not nearly as much as they felt the cruelty of the puppy owner, perhaps because this man was not among the living. “You know nothing. You don’t understand. How could you? A girl and a doddering old man. I have to get back to work. I have to finish the project. I have to succeed. I spent my whole life striving to be successful. I got the right wife, the right kids, and the right job; and now, just when I am on the verge of reaching my dream, my only dream, I have it yanked out from beneath my feet. It isn’t fair, I tell you. It isn’t fair!”

“I’m sorry,” Nathan said. It seemed the least he could say and probably also the most he could say.

“Forget it,” the man said, having vented for the moment. He threw his hands out as if dismissing them. “It isn’t your fault. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. There is nothing you can do about it. Just leave me alone for a while. Please. I need to think about this. I need to think.” He sat again on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes, dropped his head, put his thumb to his temple and began to slowly rub his fingers across his forehead like a man in deep concentration.

Nathan turned Mya by the shoulders until they faced the door, and before she could say anything else. Then he withdrew his arm and took her hand once again. Room 307 had two empty beds, and as Mya seemed to be yawning up a storm, he thought that this would be as good as they were going to find.

“Now we are definitely past my bedtime,” Mya said.

“Mine too,” Nathan agreed, not entirely joking. Any time after nine o’clock was late for him. “Do you want the bed by the door?” Normally, the gentlemanly thing would have been for him to take the bed by the door to protect her against any intruders. At least that felt like the right instinct, but in this case, since she already died, he imagined there was not much that could hurt her, and he also imagined if they brought someone to the room in the middle of the night they would more than likely put the person in the bed by the window, interrupting him, not her. Mya just looked at him.

“Okay,” she said and sat on the bed, but she did not sound too sure.

Nathan nodded and opened the bathroom door, just to check things out, not that he had to go or anything. He turned on the light and paused at the sight in the mirror that greeted him. He saw his own reflection, and he was first of all surprised that he even had a reflection. “Of course, I’m not a vampire,” he mumbled to himself and grinned at his own humor. Then he touched his teeth. They looked good, better than he had seen them in some time. He had let them go a little and raised his eyebrows at himself for that thought. Then he wiggled his eyebrows and looked quickly at his hand. It still looked fairly wrinkled, but not so bad, and most of the age spotting was gone. He looked again at his face. The hair was still gray, but there seemed more of it, and in fact he thought that maybe he looked more like he had when he retired at about seventy-two, or maybe when he first retired at sixty-eight. He definitely did not look eighty-four, and for first time he admitted that while Mya was growing up, he was getting younger. It was also the first time he wondered if they might meet somewhere in the middle.

“Let me see.” Mya pushed her way into the room and Nathan backed up. She smiled at her reflection, pouted her lips, checked out the curve in her eyebrows and puffed her chest out, but there were no bumps yet. “I am growing up,” Mya said with some excitement. “I am.”

“Yes you are,” Nathan confirmed as he turned away. “But right now I am tired, even if you are not.” He laid down on the bed. “Funny our not being able to eat but our being able to sleep.” He reached down and pulled up the hospital blanket that lay folded at the foot of the bed, and let his head rest on the pillow.

“We’re not asleep yet,” Mya said, as she turned out the bathroom light and crawled under Nathan’s blanket. She curled up with him like any young girl might curl up beside her grandfather on a cold winter’s night, and Nathan willingly slipped a protective arm around the girl. Neither felt uncomfortable with the arrangement and soon enough they were both fast asleep.

************************

MONDAY, through the night and morning surprises. Until Monday, Happy Reading

Ghosts 4

September 5, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Do you know your Grandmother’s name?” Nathan asked when he finally broke the silence. They had walked right into the hospital lobby through the sliding doors which opened readily for them. One young man in the waiting area gave the doors a strange and uncomfortable look when they opened and no one came in, but otherwise neither Nathan nor Mya caused any disturbance. Now that they reached the front desk, though, Nathan had to ask. He decided it would be far easier to look her up than wander the halls for half the night. The sun looked ready to set.

“Marylin Thorn.” Mya spoke without hesitation. Nathan nodded and started to reach for the front register when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Marylin Thorn is in room 317.” The woman behind the desk never once looked up.

“Thank you,” Mya responded.

“Yes, thanks,” and Nathan hustled Mya away from that area. He did not want to scare anyone. Without thinking things through, both went to the elevators and Mya pushed the button.

“Mother always lets me push the buttons,” she said. Nathan wondered how this was going to work out.

When the elevator came, they found one man in the car. He did not get off as they scooted by, but he did stick his head out the door to see if there might be anyone there. The man shrugged and stood back while the elevator doors closed and Nathan stopped Mya’s hand from pushing the button for floor three. He noticed they were going down one more flight.

“But we have to go to three,” Mya protested at full volume.

“Shh! I know. Just wait, please.” Nathan answered as quietly as he could and he saw the man lift his head as if he heard something but not quite sure what he heard. Fortunately, the doors opened fairly quickly and the man got out and stiffened his collar tight against his neck as if suddenly chilled. “Now,” Nathan said, and Mya pushed the three just before a big woman got on and pushed four. The woman frowned once at the man who just left. Nathan matched the woman’s frown, because he thought if the woman stood by the doors, there was no way they would be able to scoot around her to get out on the third floor. Fortunately, the woman pushed to the back and Nathan and Mya were just able to squeeze past her without touching her. They got off quickly when the doors opened on three before someone else got on.

“Three seventeen, now let’s see.” Nathan looked at the numbers and arrows on the wall.

“Down here.” Mya took Nathan’s hand and lead the way. Now that she arrived on the floor, she remembered better. In fact, Mya found her memory and her mind overall started becoming very sharp and focused. She started thinking and seeing life through pre-teen eyes by then because she was indeed growing up even as Nathan was getting younger, not that they knew it, exactly. His mind, by contrast, started mercifully forgetting all sorts of embarrassing and difficult moments as the years dropped away, even while his mind also sharpened overall with the clarity of youth. With Nathan, though, he thought of it as only how he felt. That long walk down so many city blocks, and without the least hint of pain or difficulty, had done him wonders. But with Mya it started becoming obvious if they cared to notice. Still, they really did not realize any of this until Grandma noticed, and said as much when they saw her.

“She has Alzheimer’s,” Mya warned before they entered the room.

What they found seemed a bit of a surprise. The woman had physically curled up in a ball, her knees drawn up to her chest and her hands in tight little fists pulled right to her chin; but that was just her body. The woman herself, or at least the image and outline of the woman, like her spirit or her ghost, sat up, legs outstretched and hands resting comfortably at her side. The woman appeared to be asleep at the moment, so they came in quietly and Mya pulled up a chair. As she sat, she reached out. “Grandma?” She found that she could touch the woman, or at least she could touch her grandmother’s spirit hand.

Grandma opened her eyes slowly. “Mya.” She recognized the girl right away; her spirit-self did all the talking and seemed very animated. The body in the bed, by contrast, barely fluttered her eyes.

“Grandma. I wanted to see you. I – I. Are you better?”

“No dear.” Grandma took a firm hold of Mya’s hand and reached over with her other hand to pat-pat that hand. “I’ll be gone soon I think. Sometimes the body doesn’t have the good sense to quit, but I am very sick, Pneumonia, you know. Still, I am content to wait. It would be wrong to rush these things, though I hope they have the good sense to let me go when the time comes.” She stole a glance at Nathan before she returned her eyes to her granddaughter. “But now stand up so I can get a good last look at you.” While Mya stood, Nathan thought that this woman’s body might be wracked with Alzheimer’s and pneumonia, but her spirit seemed strong and healthy and very aware. It was something that people—living people should know. Too bad he had no way to tell them.

Mya turned once slowly all of the way around. Nathan had his hands at his side at the moment and he noticed that presently the little girl looked nearly as tall as his elbow where she had started out barely as tall as his wrist.

“My, how grown up you are getting.” Grandma made the expected comment before she added a thought. “What are you now, nine or ten? Pretty soon you will be getting bumps of your own.”

“Grandma.” Mya sounded like a true pre-teen. She sat, turned a little red and glanced briefly at Nathan.

Grandma explained for the stranger in the room. “When Mya was just a baby with a limited vocabulary she called them bumps every time she wanted to nurse.” Grandma smiled and Nathan smiled, too, as he looked at Mya and watched her turn a bit redder.

“Grandma. This is my friend.” Mya attempted to change the subject.

“Nathan.” He introduced himself. “You have a fine granddaughter. She missed her school bus, so I took it upon myself to bring her to see you. I have a great-grand just about her age.”

“Very gentlemanly of you,” Grandma said. “But I should say, you hardly look old enough to have a ten-year-old granddaughter, much less a great-grand.”

“Grandma, I’m only seven,” Mya said, though that did not sound right at the moment even to her own ears.

Grandma lifted her brows and her body shifted ever so slightly in the bed. “You know I cannot speak to your mother like I can to you. That is very frustrating. I tend to sleep a lot when she is here.” Grandma sat up a little straighter and her body moved a little again. “I think you had better tell me what happened.”

Mya started slowly, but she finished the story in a rush. She left out nothing, including the part about the angel. Nathan found some tears as she talked, and Mya had some tears as well. Grandma’s eyes filled up with tears, but it was her body that let a few of those tears fall while she went back to patting Mya’s hand and said, “My baby. My poor baby.”

“It will be all right, Grandma.” Mya kept trying hard to be positive about it all.

“I won’t leave her alone.” Nathan promised.

“I am so glad that you are not alone.” Grandma finally took her hands back. “He seems a fine man. Don’t be afraid.”

“That is what the angel said,” Mya responded, and as she thought about the angel, she found her tears were finished and she felt much better.

“I am so sorry, my baby, but right now I am tired. I am so very, very tired.” They watched as the old woman closed her eyes. A few more tears fell from the woman’s physical body.

Mya did not want to leave right away, so they stayed for a little while and watched the old woman sleep. Soon enough Nathan stepped up and put his hands gently on Mya’s shoulders. He helped her rise from the chair. He wanted to get her moving before the tears returned, but he did not move quick enough. Mya threw her arms around him and cried into his belly, while he smoothed her long black hair with his hand, patted her back and made reassuring sounds. He led her back into the hall just before the nurse came into the room.

“It will be all right. Everything is going to be all right.” He helped her down the hall only to stop in front of the water fountain. “Are you thirsty?” She was. They found a tall water fountain there, and a second fountain, lower to the ground for the children. Mya had to stand on her toes, but she seemed delighted that she could reach the big fountain.

“I don’t want to stay little forever,” she said when she pulled back from the water. Some of the water dripped off her chin and down the front of her dress. She looked and wiped the water with her hand, but she really looked at her chest. “When I get breasts, I hope they are nice ones.”

Nathan felt a little embarrassed on hearing that. He could hardly say I hope they are, too; but he felt he had to say something. “I would not think that was so important,” he said. When she looked up at him with deep questions in her eyes, he put his foot in it. “Breasts are for babies, right?” He regretted saying that as soon as it came out of his mouth. Mya wailed and began to cry again in earnest. The nurse came out of the room and looked up at the ceiling before she shivered and walked hurriedly back to the nurse’s station. Poor Mya became wracked with tears, and all Nathan could do was hold her and let her weep. He dared not say anything more. He dared not open his mouth. But when she collapsed to the floor, Nathan got right down with her. “There, there. It will be all right.” He felt he could say that much, even as he found a few tears of his own.

After a time, when Mya’s and Nathan’s eyes were both red, and Mya’s breathing only got interrupted now and then with moments of sniffles, Nathan got out his handkerchief and found it clean. He took a corner to wipe her face and have her blow her nose.

Ghosts 3

September 4, 2023August 26, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

“Oh, look.” Mya spoke first. They saw a puppy on a leash. It looked right at them, wagged its tail and panted with its tongue. It looked like a little Labrador, and obviously very young. Mya let go of Nathan’s hand to get down and pet the puppy. She did not think about it, she just did it, and the puppy responded with a lick. “Oh, cutie,” she called it. The woman on the other end of the leash was gabbing with another woman. Mya did not care about that. “Yes, cutie,” she said, and she looked up at Nathan who smiled. “Come and say hello. He won’t bite.”

Nathan felt reluctant to squat down. He felt very afraid for his knees, but as he did, he found that his knees were well up to the task and did not hurt at all. That became as much pleasure for him as a chance to pet the puppy. The puppy responded by lifting its paws to his shoulders and it gave him a lick. Everyone smiled and felt happy until the woman jerked the leash.

“Egbert, behave!” The woman spoke sternly and tugged a couple of unkind tugs on the leash until the puppy came to obedience at her feet. The woman had a cruel streak in her and Nathan was surprised at how strongly he felt the woman’s cruelty. He looked down at Mya and saw that her eyes were wide. She felt it too. Nathan and Mya did not interfere, even when the puppy looked at them, sadly. “Yes, Egbert is an old family name,” the woman said. “I promised my mother I would use it for one of my children.” The woman laughed; or at least Nathan and Mya guessed that the sound was supposed to be a laugh. The two women returned then to their inspection of the disaster, and since neither Mya nor Nathan were interested in going there, they said good-bye to the puppy and walked, hand in hand in the opposite direction

“Poor Egbert,” Mya said. “He is going to have to live his whole life with that name.”

“Poor Egbert,” Nathan agreed. “And with that woman,” he added, but his mind stayed on other things, and at once he saw what he was looking for. He found a distraught looking young man sitting on the curb, ignoring everything that was going on around him as if lost in deep thought. Nathan stopped their forward progress for a good, long look. The young man’s black hair appeared unmoved by the wind, though of itself that meant nothing. He decided a comparison was in order so he looked back at the woman and her dog. He felt astounded. The woman behind looked as real as any he saw in life, but the young man on the curb looked more real. It did not make sense, but that seemed the only way he could understand it.

Mya, who stood still and patient, got it at about the same time. “He’s a ghost,” she said. Nathan nodded, and he felt fairly sure that this was the ghost of the suicide bomber.

“Hello, friend.” Nathan interrupted the man’s thoughts. Nathan had decided that he had no ill will toward the man. After all, he had lived a long and rich enough life in his own small way. He did feel strongly for Mya, however, that this man’s actions were decidedly unfair to her, young as she was. That was why he refused to abandon her, he told himself, though the truth was he felt he needed the little girl as much as she might need him. “Friend?” Nathan reached out to touch the man’s shoulder, but the man turned suddenly to stare at them with dark eyes filled with fear and hatred.

“Go away!” The young man shouted. “Why can’t you demons leave me alone? Go away!”

Nathan squatted, now that he knew he could do that, and he looked toward the man, eye to eye, though he kept his distance and made no further move to touch him. “Can I help?” He asked and felt Mya squat down next to him.

“Maybe we could help.” Mya agreed with Nathan, and they saw a slight softening in the man’s eyes as he turned his eyes to take in the girl.

“There is nothing you can do. It is done,” the young man said through gritted teeth.

“But what is the matter?” Mya apeared very sensitive to the young man’s pain, though that was just a blessing of human sensitivity sometimes found in the very young and rarely found in adults, it was not a hyper sensitivity such as they both had felt in the cruelty of the puppy owner. Nathan had to catch Mya’s hand to keep her from reaching out to touch the young man softly, as she had petted the puppy.

“It is done,” the young man said again, and then he shifted his gaze to the heavens. “Why am I not in paradise? They all said I would be in paradise!”

Mya took the question seriously and responded with the only answer she could come up with. “Maybe they did not tell you the truth.” She spoke in her most encouraging voice, but Nathan had to move fast. He grabbed Mya around the middle and pulled her out of reach just as the man’s face turned wicked, and his arms, with hands formed like claws, reached out to scratch her, to grab her, to hurt her in whatever way he could.

“Leave me alone, demons! They warned me about your wicked tongues.” The young man shouted, but very quickly a voice of reason interrupted. It came from the side of the confrontation.

“Surely you did not believe the slaughter of the innocents was your ticket to heaven,” the voice said.

“Liar! You are all liars! I will listen no more! Leave me alone, you demons! Leave me alone!” He slapped his hands over his ears so there would be no talking to him, and he turned his face back to the curb.

“There is no reaching him at present,” the voice said, and Nathan and Mya turned to see something they both expected to see and dared not hope to see. Mya shivered and went straight to her knees. She drew a hesitant Nathan down with her. It was not that Nathan did not believe in what he saw, but rather his rational, worldly mind had been more developed, and after all, he had never seen an angel before. He felt it, though, in his deepest marrow; that sense of awesome wonder, and not a little fear that showed in the trembling in his bones and in the pit of his stomach. He felt in a sense like he was naked in a way he had never been before, and that feeling came with the realization that not every corner of his naked life was exactly clean. It made him lower his eyes, not that he could have looked into the golden glare of those orbs regardless of how much they smiled. He imagined Mya, being seven, had far less filth on her plate, but then he did not know for sure. It does not take some people very long at all to build up all sorts of wickedness in their lives. Maybe she felt it more strongly and that might be why she humbled herself first of all.

“Some people prefer to live in a box.” The angel spoke, and both Mya and Nathan could do nothing but listen. “They imagine they have put God in a box and believe that they understand his eternal, almighty nature, but in reality, all they have done is box up their own minds and hearts. You must pray for him before the box becomes as hard as concrete.” The angel paused and both Nathan and Mya ventured to look up. Perhaps they were drawn to do so.

The Angel looked at someone beside him. It was the old woman from the bus. Nathan felt sure of that, even if she no longer looked like the old woman. She had become, well, it seemed hard to tell what age exactly. She looked like she was ageless, young one moment, but very old as well. What is more, she looked all sparkly, like Christmas lights on a grand old tree, and the lights were blindingly bright even if they looked dim beside the glowing presence of the angel. Anyway, her eyes were on the angel and she smiled, even when the angel turned again to look at Mya and Nathan.

“Do not be afraid,” the angel said. “For you there are two times, a time between and a half time.” And then it vanished—the angel was just not there anymore. The young suicide bomber had gone as well, probably run off somewhere. The sparkling woman turned toward Mya and Nathan. Nathan could not quite be sure where the woman’s eyes were focused, so he could not be sure if she saw them or not, or if her smile was for them or not, though he liked to think it was. All he could say for sure was her sparkling presence got very bright for a moment before she vanished as surely as the angel.

Nathan had tears in his eyes from the strain of all that bright light, or so he told himself. Mya also had tears in her eyes, but neither of them felt sad in the least. Indeed, when Nathan helped the girl up from the sidewalk, she seemed elated. Her hands had been held palm to palm in the classic image of a child at prayer, and though she readily gave up her pose to take Nathan’s hand once again, she still seemed to be praying, so Nathan kept quiet. Thus, neither said a thing as they walked the many blocks to the hospital.

Ghosts 2

August 30, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Nathan opened his eyes. He found himself sitting on a park bench up on a grassy knoll, looking through an iron picket fence at a very confusing street scene. People were running around, screaming, while cars and trucks were screeching to a halt in both directions and things, big pieces of things, were falling from the sky. Nathan felt the little hand in his hand and he looked down to see Mya stare up at him. Her legs dangled from the edge of the bench where they did not quite reach the ground.

“I think we are dead,” Mya said. She had no sorrow, no fear, and no surprise in her voice. She just simply said it outright like the most obvious fact.

“No.” Nathan quickly shook his head. “We were blown free of the explosion, weren’t we?” They were blown free to land perfectly side by side on a park bench? He wondered. Perhaps they crawled up on the bench before they became fully aware of what they were doing?

“I think we are dead.” Mya repeated herself and she turned her eyes from his old face to the strange goings on in the street. She held his hand, too, or rather her little hand was engulfed in his wrinkled old paw, but she seemed perfectly content with that and in no hurry to break free.

“No.” Nathan said it again, but there was no conviction in his word. He also looked to the street and realized that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Pieces of the bus were still falling and bouncing very slowly off the pavement. People were still screaming in long, drawn out sounds while tires were still screeching; and after a moment they both felt something low and loud in the pit of their stomachs which tickled as the pitch rose up the scale. Mya giggled at the feeling while Nathan identified it. “The police. Maybe an ambulance.”

“Too late,” Mya said, a deep sadness echoed finally in the midst of her giggle. She looked again at the face of the old man beside her.

“We can’t be dead,” Nathan protested. “That would make us ghosts.” He turned his eyes again to that innocent little face, but she looked away. She straightened her legs and stared at her shoes.

“I’m afraid of ghosts,” she said.

Nathan did what he wanted to do, the world be damned. He dropped the girl’s hand and put his arm tenderly and lovingly around the little girl’s shoulder, hugging her as he spoke. “I won’t let any bad ghosts get you. Hush. Everything will be all right.” And they watched for a long time while police cars, ambulances, fire trucks and tow trucks all showed up; while men and women did the work for which they were trained and the innocent pedestrians backed away but stared long and hard at all of the broken pieces scattered in the street and along the side of the road. They watched the traffic start again, slowly, and it seemed forever that only one lane moved at a time. The cars and trucks went very slowly besides, not to be careful of the workers in the street, but because the people wanted to gawk at the scene. Last of all, there were cameras and reporters who came to make a record of it all for the evening news. That was when Nathan let out the sigh he thought he had used up, and he looked down again at the little girl beside him. She looked up at him, her face a little closer to his than he imagined it would be, and she lifted her hand to touch his face once more, even as she touched him in the bus. Nathan stayed silent and did not move. He let the girl examine his ancient eyes.

“You’re not as old as you were before,” Mya concluded. “You don’t look as old as my grandmother anymore.”

Nathan took his arm back and Mya sat up while he looked down at his hands. He still saw the wrinkles and the age spots, though perhaps not so bad. The power of suggestion? Surely his suit was as wrinkled as ever. He looked at the girl and noticed her legs were not dangling so much. She could touch the ground with her toes, but then he told himself that this was the way it was before, only he had not seen properly. He rubbed his eyes and spoke. “Your grandmother is in the hospital?” This time it was a question.

“Yes.” Mya slipped her hands beneath her tight covered thighs in order to let her legs swing free.

Nathan looked to the sky to judge the time. The hospital would be a long walk, but curiously, he felt up to it. Certainly, he did not feel up to trying another bus. “I know how to get there. Would you like to go there and see her?” He thought they could reasonably arrive before dark. “I could go with you,” he added, in case she did not catch the implication.

Mya looked up at him once again and nodded. “Mother says Grandma is dying. Maybe Grandma could help us.” The girl made no explanation about what she might be thinking, but she also made no move to get off the park bench, so Nathan stood. He got up like a well-practiced old man, expecting his knees to scream, his lower back to protest and his stiff neck to make itself known, but none of those things happened. To be sure, Nathan felt a little frightened when he realized that he felt nothing at all. The forever pain, arthritis, agonizing stiffness and constant struggle against gravity were all gone. Maybe they really were ghosts. He tried not to think about it too hard and reached instead for Mya’s hand. He needed her reassuring touch.

Mya looked up and readily put her hand in his, and Nathan understood she needed his touch as well. “You are a very nice man,” she said. She decided that he was a kind, older gentleman. She trusted him, and even more importantly, she liked him. Mya never knew her grandfather. She was only three when he died, but she thought that this man might be like him. She felt safe when she held his hand, and so she took it readily and they began to walk, side by side, to find a place where they could get beyond the fence and back to the sidewalk.

Nathan’s concern grew with each step about what exactly was going on. He walked easily and without pain of any kind. It was not that he felt he could run or dance or anything like that, but his lack of pain appeared to be the last nail in the coffin, so to speak. He said as much at last. “I think we’re dead.”

“I know that we are.” Mya spoke without so much as lifting her eyes. She had to be thinking about something, and probably thinking about many things, and she showed a little tear in the corner of her eye. They came to a gate in the fence and stopped, so Nathan turned to the girl who now stood taller than his wrist but not yet as tall as his elbow, and he put one hand on each of her shoulders and bent down a little to garner her full attention.

“Now, how do you know we are dead?” he asked, and he tried to smile his most reassuring smile.

Mya said nothing. She simply pointed at her feet and Nathan looked down at two perfectly normal shoes. He started to shake his head before he gasped. He had forgotten that she was lame, a cripple with a misshapen foot. He had forgotten all about the funny shoe which had evidently been designed to help her walk. He looked at the girl’s feet and honestly could not remember which foot it was. Both shoes looked identical and normal, and Nathan had no doubt the feet inside were normal, too. He let go and took a step back. Mya looked up at him and showed some fear. Her eyes said, please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone.

Nathan caught the look and returned one hand to pat the girl gently on the shoulder. “Let’s go see your grandmother,” he said, and then he turned toward the gate and tried hard not to hesitate. He was not sure if he could open the simple latch, being a little afraid that his ghost hand might pass right through the solid metal. That would have frightened him perhaps beyond repair, so it took a great deal of courage to get his fingers to reach out. When he took hold of the latch, he let out his breath and heard Mya do the same. The gate easily swung open, and then Nathan stepped aside “After you,” he said, graciously and raised his hand in an inviting gesture. Mya smiled for him.

“Thank you,” she said and tried very hard to sound and act like a real lady as they stepped out of the gate and back into the real, everyday world. Nathan made sure to close the gate tight behind them.

************************

MONDAY, The trip to the hospital. until then, Happy Reading

Ghosts 1

August 29, 2023August 13, 2023M G Kizzia Leave a comment

Nathan managed a foot on the platform, but he had to hold on to the rail to drag the rest of his decrepit body up the steps. It always took too long, and though the bus driver never said a word, the other passengers always gave him hard and cruel looks. He couldn’t help it. He was eighty-four and no longer allowed to drive, so it was the bus or nothing. He feared soon enough it would be nothing. God knew how his knees hurt. He sat heavily on the bench just behind the driver where there were plenty of metal bars to hang on to in the turns. Once he was settled, his lower back shivered as the muscles let go of their great effort to keep him upright against the hard pull of gravity. Of course, Lisa, his nag of a daughter wanted him to take the metro, but there were steps there, too. Besides that, even if the walls were white and the lights were bright, there always seemed to be something of a going-down-into-the-pits-of-Hell about the place. Nathan preferred the sun, even if the bus windows were terminally dirty and it looked like rain.

Nathan looked down at his suit jacket. It appeared terribly wrinkled. He supposed he could have it dry cleaned and pressed, but he had long since given up getting to such places on his own. He knew he could ask Lisa. She would do it, but she would also pay for it and more important, he would pay for it because she would use that as an excuse to start going through all of his things and weeding out what she did not like or what she did not think was important. His hand came up to smooth out some of the worst of the wrinkles, but all he saw was age spots and more wrinkles where his hand used to be. Getting old felt as hard as gravity. He let the winkles lay, like sleeping dogs, and decided that no one would notice an old man in a disheveled suit, and if they did, they would not care. He might have sighed, but he used up all of his sighs ten years earlier.

Nathan looked at the other passengers to pass the time. He saw a young man about mid-way to the back. Ha! Young? He had to be forty even if he still clung to the outrageous clothes of youth and still projected the attitude of the disaffected and disenfranchised. Nathan could read it in the man’s eyes. He felt sorry for the man who had probably been convinced from a very young age that he was incapable of doing anything. Ha! He should not feel incapable of doing anything until he turned at least eighty!

With that thought planted firmly in his mind, Nathan turned to look at an elderly woman who was probably older than he was. She was smiling, for Christ’s sake! Nathan remembered the ninety-three-year-old he found in the supermarket the other day. When he remarked on the two gallons of cherry vanilla ice cream while they waited in line, her response sounded interesting.

“Two scoops doused in two jiggers of brandy is really good. How do you think I got to be ninety-three?”

Nathan had not thought. He just smiled and she checked out first.

Now this elderly woman was smiling like that one. Nathan decided it must be the brandy. He could not imagine any alternative that would cause such an old woman to smile. He concluded the little-old-ladies club must pass around recipes. Nathan rubbed the back of his hand as if the age spot might be a bit of dirt. Then he rubbed the back of his stiff neck and held on while the bus came to the next stop.

“Stupid car!” The man virtually swore, and Nathan heard. Everyone heard, before they saw the man. Nathan noticed the collar right away, and supposed the man was a priest or a minister. He shouted the words “Stupid car!” as he dug for the cost of the bus ride and made everyone wait and dig out their hard and cruel looks in response. Evidently the man wanted everyone to hear and see. Nathan understood. It was the man’s way of saying that he did not normally ride a bus and he would not be caught dead on one now if his car had not behaved stupidly. Nathan was not sure it was just the car behaving stupidly. He watched as the man looked down the aisle, noticed the young man and the old lady, looked at Nathan, and took the seat in the front, opposite. Before Nathan could speak, just in case he had something on his mind to say, the minister pulled the Washington Post from under his arm and ignored everyone. The bus started again.

Nathan coughed and produced a large bit of phlegm. He even disgusted himself, but he had a handkerchief in his suit pocket so he kept the disgust to a minimum, and while he was at it he rubbed his nose before putting the handkerchief away. He imagined it a remarkable thing he did not embarrass himself more often. He had lived alone for too many years and was of an age where he should not care, yet he did care about others—not what they thought of him, but to not disgust them if he could help it. Too many men, once alone, went to pieces. At least most of Nathan’s dishes were currently clean and put away.

Nathan straightened his shirt collar and sat up straighter for a minute. He had not worn a tie, of course, since he retired all those ages ago. He leaned out to look down the aisle once again and noticed the minister with the newspaper slid a little closer to the window, beyond touching distance, just in case Nathan wanted to touch. The man turned the newspaper page as if to say, “I’m busy, leave me alone.” Unfortunately, there was little more to see beyond the young man and the old lady. There were other passengers, but they were hunkered down to where Nathan, with his not so good eyes, could hardly catch their hair color.

A man stood. He was a big, burly kind of a man; the kind of man Nathan never was. He staggered a little in the sway of the bus and jerked forward a bit as the bus came to a stop. He sat behind Nathan and Nathan guessed he would be getting off at the next stop.

The air whooshed and the bus door opened. Nathan turned to see a little girl come slowly up the steps. Nathan waited for the mother or father to follow, but none came. The bus driver asked for his money.

“Please, sir.” The little girl spoke softly, shy or embarrassed. Nathan would have had to turn up his hearing aid if he had not been sitting so close. “I missed the school bus, but I have to get home. My grandmother is very sick. My mother will pay you when we get to my stop.” That took real courage. Nathan admired the little girl

“Sorry kid. You’ll have to walk.” The bus driver looked sympathetic, but it was his job, and Nathan wondered how many rotten things were committed in the name of doing one’s job. He hated that expression. “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.” Here is the little secret, business or not, everything in life is always personal.

The little girl looked ready to cry. “I can’t,” she said and both Nathan and the bus driver were drawn to her feet where one shoe looked stiff and metallic. Nathan did not know if it was a club foot or the result of some disease or accident, but come to think of it, the girl did limp up the steps.

“Listen, kid. I’ll lose my job. I’m sorry.” The bus driver spoke kindly but shook his head before he looked back into the bus as if to suggest that someone from the city might be there spying on him. Nathan knew no paper pusher would leave the warm security of an office to ride a bus, but he allowed that the bus driver might have thought this was a set-up to see who they could fire, given the current state of the economy. “I need my job.” The driver said honestly enough.

The little girl began to cry, softly.

“Look, I’ve got family too. I have to get home.” The burly man spoke over Nathan’s shoulder.

“Yes, can we get on with this?” The minister spoke up from behind his newspaper.

Nathan glanced back. The young man turned toward the window to ignore the whole scene. The old lady began to dig through her purse, but Nathan preempted her. He pulled a bill from his pocket. “Here, child. You sit right up front with me and sit by the window so we don’t miss your stop.” Nathan pulled himself slowly to his feet while the bus driver made change. The little girl hesitated. She looked once into Nathan’s sad, old eyes while he looked into her sad, young eyes and they understood each other in that moment. The girl scooted past him to sit next to the window. Nathan barely got his change pocketed and sat down again before the bus driver shut the door and took off.

After that, Nathan put the rest of the bus out of his mind. He looked at the back of the little girl who dutifully stared out of the dirty window. He judged her to be about seven or eight and he wondered what kind of world we had become to have school busses leave without their passengers accounted for. Surely the school had some resources for those inadvertently left behind; and especially for a little girl like this, lame as she was. Nathan understood being lame even if both of his feet were normal for his age.

“Do you know which stop is yours?” Nathan asked, not certain if he would get an answer out of the child. She had to be scared, all alone with strangers as she was. He was pleased to see her able to respond.

“Yes, thank you. I have ridden this bus before, with my mother.” The girl gave up on the dirty window and turned to face front and the hard-plastic translucent board that separated her from the bus driver’s back. “And thank you for paying.” She added as if remembering her manners. She looked up into Nathan’s old face, seeking his adult approval of her polite words and Nathan, who caught that look in her eyes, smiled in response.

“So, what are you, eight?” Nathan asked.

“Seven,” she said. “I’m in the second grade.”

“Second grade.” Nathan repeated as he thought a long, long way back. Fortunately, the ancient days were easier to remember than that morning’s breakfast. “So, you know all about reading and writing.”

“Oh, yes,” the girl said. “I love to read, but my writing needs some practice.”

Nathan nodded. “Do you stick out your tongue when you write?” he asked.

“No.” The girl shook her head. Clearly, she did not know what he meant.

“Like this.” He let his tongue a little way’s out of the corner of his mouth and pretended to have a pencil in his hand. “You see?” He pretended to write on the translucent plastic in front of them. “A-B-C.” He spoke as he wrote.

The girl put her hand quickly in front of her grinning mouth. “That’s silly.”

“But it helps,” Nathan insisted. He did it again. “D” he said, and he pretended to have trouble with the letter and let his tongue move as his hand moved. The little girl giggled and Nathan smiled again. He had a grand-daughter—no—a great-grand daughter that was seven.

“My name is Nathan.” He introduced himself.

The girl paused to examine his face before she spoke. “Mine is Mya.” And she lifted her little hand up to touch his wrinkled, craggy face. “You are very old, like my grandmother.”

Nathan lost his smile, but slowly. “You grandmother is not well.” It was a question though he said it like a statement.

Mya nodded. “She is in the hospital. My mother is going to take me to see her tonight. I think Grandma is dying.” Mya took her hand back and straightened up. Her eyes looked once again near tears. Nathan thought we are all dying; only some of us are closer to it than others. He forced a smile.

“Now, enough about dying,” he said brightly. “You just give her a big hug when you see her and tell her that you love her. That is all that really matters.” He wanted to hug the little girl himself and pat her hand to comfort her in her distress, but he did not dare. Surely someone would accuse him of terrible things, and he wondered again what sort of world they had become. All he could do was lift his heart in a kind of prayer for this little soul while the bus brakes brought them to the next stop. The big man started to get up as the doors opened, but before he could move far, someone jumped in and ran right past the driver babbling something about paradise and Satan and you demons. The minister hid behind his paper. The Bus driver grabbed and missed. The big burly man also made a grab, but it was too late. Nathan instinctively threw himself over the little girl like a shield of flesh and blood. He heard the deafening sound, felt a moment of pain, saw a brilliant, blinding light, and then nothing.