60. In Between

The lady in black begins walking. I watch her disappear down the long hall and through the doorway.

“Jocelyn.”

My voice echoes all around. I get up and run past the ticket counter and then enter the square tube that seems to go on for miles.

She’s there, standing, waiting for me in the middle of the empty Jetway.

“You’re still here.”

“Walk with me,” she says.

She’s not carrying any luggage or even a purse.

Because in dreams they don’t have to, get it?

“Don’t confuse this with a dream,” Jocelyn—the adult Jocelyn—tells me.

“Then what is this place?”

“I told you—it’s in between the two other places. That’s the easiest definition I can provide.”

“But I’m sleeping in my bed, right?”

“Technically, your body is. But what about your soul?”

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“In your dreams you experience things that are just off. Perhaps you’re doing something you’ve already done. Or you’re in a crowd of strangers naked. Something that you fear or you remember or you regret—those get mixed in with the subconscious and turn into dreams. But this isn’t a dream.”

She stops and looks at me. In her high heels, she’s the same height that I am.

She smiles and says, “Give me your hand.”

I do what she tells me, and she places the hand on her cheek. I can feel her face move gently as she talks.

“This—all of this—it’s real, Chris.”

“You’re older.”

“No. Not exactly.”

“Then—then what?”

“You can’t imagine how many surround you. But those whom you do see, you have to choose to trust or not.”

“Like Poe?”

“Like all of them.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. It’s not my place.”

“Because you’re like a figment of my imagination?”

She shakes her head.

“You’re in a tough place, and I cannot help you. This—this right here—this is not a help. This is just a passageway, a glimpse.”

I don’t get what she’s saying.

“There’s a reason you can see this, but of course I cannot say.”

We keep walking, and I can see the change of light and colors that show we’re close to the plane.

“You shouldn’t get on.”

“I don’t want to wake up,” I tell her. “Let me stay here. Let me get on that plane.”

God, is she beautiful.

So why did He have to take her? Why?

“This is just a shell,” she says. “One day you’ll understand. One day—I hope—you will see.”

Then she closes her eyes, and I see everything around me do the same.

And when I open mine again, I know exactly where I am.