<<previously, on the episodes… when the silver-painted street performer nods to you as you pass him in the grocery store aisle, not because he knows you but because he’s seen you around town doing your thing, living your life – that’s when you know you’re home.>>
written for the theme: bridges
New Orleans, in the midst of the 1920s.
As long as this city has existed, it’s had a substantial ratio of ghosts to people. 
And in the future (which is my past, but let’s not get into that now), New Orleans is often considered the most haunted city in the states. Sure, there are the ghosts out there who go “Woooo” when people walk past dilapidated houses – but it’s ghosts like that who give the rest of the ghosts here a bad rap.
Many living people theorize that so many ghosts are here because of all the fatal catastrophes in the city’s past. The whole city’s burned down a couple of times, and then yellow fever kept on hanging out and plaguing the city, not to mention all the storms and floods. So yeah, the city’s had its share of disaster and untimely death, but if you actually get to know the ghosts you’ll see the real reason they’ve stayed here… there’s no reason to leave. As rich and wondrous as life is for the living in this city – well, let’s face it, the dead have just had more time to perfect the art of living. They live the life we all dream we could have. They are, more or less, happy.
With all the living and dead stuffed into the same space, the dead have come up with an “upper story” of sorts in the French Quarter. Arching between balconies and rooftops are bridges of gleaming light. The bridges criss-cross the sky like a web made by a spider who kept changing its mind on what it wanted to do. Some two- or three-story buildings have an extra story on top of them that can be reached by way of these bridges – the whole extra story created by walls and posts of gleaming light. Normally you have to really squint to see these structures, but not if you consume a bit of ghostly food or beverage. And if you consume enough, the bridges will even support you. On this particular day, I’d been drinking a bit of ghostly whiskey.
Feeling the strange, inside-out buzz brought about by the ghost-whiskey, I made my way high up above the streets of the Quarter, taking the ghost-bridges from balcony to balcony until I reached the added floor above one of the buildings on Royal Street. It was an open air market, with ghosts (mostly ghosts, anyway) hocking wares of all kinds. I passed by people selling cracked mirrors and bottles of ghostly hot sauce, spare memories of all kinds and clothes that could be seen by the living in the light of the moon. Then, from across the busy rooftop, I saw her there in a summer’s dress, selling flowers from a flower cart. She wasn’t a ghost and the flowers she was selling were real. Only, it couldn’t be her.
I walked up to the cart and she smiled. There was a strange sort of innocence in her eyes that I wasn’t used to seeing in them.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“How did you get to the 1920s?” I asked.
She laughed, and something in her eyes made me want to kiss her right there, but that would have undoubtedly complicated things. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You seem to have me confused for somebody else.”
I shook my head. “No. You’re The Aspect. I know you. But you’re not supposed to be born for another fifty years.”
“I’m not The Aspect,” she said, still with that same smile. “I’ve never even heard that name before.”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m called The Forestay.”
“Forestay… I know that word from sailing ships.”
“You’re a sailor then?”
“No.” I looked out beyond the buildings, at the river. “I’m not really anything. I’ve only pretended to be things.”
“What are you pretending to be now?”
“I don’t know.” I sat down on a wooden barrel, still looking out towards the water. This hunt through time was getting to me, taking a toll on my mind.
“Hey – it’s too pretty of a day to look so glum.” She pulled at my jacket with her fingers and slipped a dark purple flower through the button hole of the lapel. I looked up, into her eyes. The innocence there looked back at me without fear, without anger or confusion. That innocence was completely itself, and needed nothing else.
I closed my eyes. “Thanks.”
“You should stay a while,” she said. “It’s such a nice day out.”
I opened my eyes and was blinded by waves of light. The light was coming from the flower in my lapel, and it was so bright that it reached up through my eyes and gripped onto my mind. It quickly sifted through my memories, traveling backward through my life (which is forward and then backward through time, as it happens). It traveled so fast that I lurched forward when it slammed hard into a solid wooden door, the impact reverberating through every bone in my body. It pressed an open hand against the door, feeling every grain of wood against its palm as it slid its hand down to the doorknob, which had a large keyhole underneath it. Then the light turned back, looking out through my eyes at The Forestay. Her eyes still held that innocence like a shield, like they knew that nothing could break through it, and she was completely calm.
“What is she?” I asked the light.
Then I saw it there, the glow of the object so bright that I could see it resting against her chest beneath her dress. It was a key.
I started to chuckle, and then my chuckle rolled into a full laugh. She tilted her head, confused. “Are you alright?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Thanks for the flower,” I said. “I’ll be seeing you.”
And then I was gone.
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story and 3rd & 4th photo Copyright 2010 by Andy Reynolds
for more stories and a menu of the episodes, visit my website: AndyReynolds.net
Good one, Andy!
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[...] “Yeah. I think it was.” I looked down at the lapel of my jacket, where the dark purple flower was sticking out of the button hole. The Forestay had put it there, and it had stuck with me. (sub-entry 18) [...]