It takes a while for Kate to come out of her trance, she is still thinking about the end of her life as Héloïse. After a few minutes she checks her phone — 11:43p.m — just over two hours since she went into the trance. Two texts await her. The first is from Julianne, asking if she and her fancy new boyfriend would like to meet up with her and her old stale one. This amuses Kate. The second message is from her ‘fancy new boyfriend’ asking if she’d like to go to dinner next Friday.
‘Sure,’ she types to both texts. ‘7 p.m. Friday at the Thai suit you?’
◊.◊.◊
Weary from her day, Kate leaves her bedtime book unopened and switches off the lamp. In her hypnagogic state and unexpectedly, Gaius comes through.
‘In higher planes of existence, there are teachers and guides, spiritual beings who were once ordinary individuals and who, over many incarnations, have reached these higher planes. The teachers and guides are with you at your point of death, to guide you over. You are never alone.
‘The dying, while in the period of transformation from human to spiritual form, will often see teachers as prominent biblical figures. The teachers are not trying to deceive them; they are appearing as visions of biblical figures merely to comfort and reassure the dying while their physical world ends, letting them know they are not alone. It is a system that has been practised since the beginning of time.’
Kate hears nothing more from Gaius. She blinks in the darkness, thinking about Héloïse believing she’d seen Jesus. She’d heard stories about people seeing Jesus right before they died.
It so makes sense, she muses, and falls asleep.
◊.◊.◊
‘Kate!’ Julianne’s voice carries across the bent heads of other diners.
‘They’re over there,’ Kate says to Jason, who follows her as they weave through the maze of tables.
‘Hi ya.’ Kate gives her friend a quick hug. ‘This is Jason. Jason, this is Julianne and Sam.’
The two men hit it off at once. Because of this, Julianne winks at Kate, who returns a “we’ll see” look. A smiling waitress dressed in a long black and white elephant-print split skirt with a matching top and exposed midriff leads the group to their reserved table. The couples sit. A waiter wearing hill tribe harem pants appears at once, swiftly placing menus in front of each of them. The lanky, long-necked waiter with pink-dyed hair on a small head resembles a matchstick. He stays long enough to recite the restaurant’s specials in an automated voice, gives a courteous smile and a bob of his head, then promptly leaves.
Julianne’s boyfriend leans into the group. ‘Are you sure we’re not in a cosplay restaurant?’
Jason laughs heartily while Julianne and Kate roll their eyes at each other. After poring over the selection of main courses, the group orders their unpronounceable dishes by the meals’ designated numbers.
‘So, have you met any other Kates?’ Julianne asks Kate and immediately realises her faux pas. The men stop chewing and stare at Kate in surprise. ‘Oh, I mean, Kate had a dream the other night about someone she thinks was her in a past life,’ she says, trying to make amends. ‘I’ve always wondered about vivid dreams.’
‘I’ve always wondered what happens when we become a landowner,’ she adds.
Sam, a tall man with shaggy sunbleached hair and sexy, deep-set eyes, who Kate thinks looks more like a surfer than a crown prosecutor, faces his girlfriend. ‘Become a landowner?’
‘Yeah, you know, put to bed with a shovel.’
Sam’s face is still blank. Julianne gives him an exasperated look. ‘When you cark it.’
‘Oh!’ Sam exclaims and everyone laughs.
With her fork, Kate plays with her Gaeng Keow Wan. She is not sure whether she wants to share her recently discovered information.
‘So, what do you do?’ Jason asks Sam, noticing Kate’s discomfit.
‘I’m a heavily-paid-by-the-government narcissist who has fun throwing hedonistic thugs into jail.’
‘Good for you,’ Jason says, leaning back in his chair. ‘That’ll be a stressful job, no doubt.’
‘You’re right on the mark in that regard. But I hit the beach and catch some waves if the weather’s good. That brings me back down to Earth.’
Kate smiles.
Julianne sips her wine and glances at her boyfriend. ‘Er, my job’s just as stressful.’
Sam tucks in his chin and raises his eyebrows at her. ‘You’re in conveyancing.’
Julianne shrugs her shoulders. ‘I have importunate clients.’
Sam’s eyes linger on his girlfriend, a slow grin forming across his face. Julianne returns his gaze with a brazen smile.
Kate exaggerates a sigh. ‘Are you guys flirting with each other? You should get a room.’
Jason laughs awkwardly and offers to order another bottle of wine.
‘I might just call it a night.’ Kate doesn’t know why she’s feeling so bitchy and apologises. ‘Why don’t you stay and have another drink with Sam,’ she says to Jason.
Kate ignores his desperate look and gives Julianne a hug. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?’
‘Okay hon,’ Julianne replies. She’s used to Kate’s mood swings and isn’t offended.
Kate gives Jason a closed-lipped smile and departs the restaurant, leaving a fifty dollar note on the table for her meal, aware that Jason is watching her leave.
◊.◊.◊
Back in the sanctuary of her flat, Kate goes into her music streaming account and clicks on her playlist. Instantly, the living room erupts into Franz Liszt’s Liebesträume. Kate knows she’s a geek when it comes to her taste in music. She regards classical music as good background music for anything that requires deep concentration, like meditating.
Without any prompting, the feeling she gets is difficult to describe; a heady sensation, as though the spiritual world is beckoning her to connect. Kate falls heavily into a hypnotic state, and discovers herself in the frigid depths of Scotland in the eighteenth century — as a boy.