Category: Writing

I met Death when I was sixteen. I knew who he was the moment I laid eyes on him. It was like seeing God. You just knew who it was.

He stood over the body of my mother, her face blank, her eyes unfocused, staring at the saucepan that had fallen from her hand and splashed its contents across the floor. I was a teenager, taking in a scene that my mind could not understand, refused to understand, rejecting it outright in every way. The scene was only a picture, a thing to view and dismiss, and set aside into the empty void of forgotten memory. Yet it stayed. It was burned indelibly into my memory. My mother, splayed across the floor, spaghetti sauce flung across the vinyl, a wooden stirring spoon undulating slowly like a teeter totter in a storm. And then the man, standing next to her body, his face saddened, but slowly shifting to jubilant as he watched my face change slowly from shock to horror.

“You see me?” He asked softly, his hand pointing at my chest.

“I… my mom?”

Death looked down to survey the scene again. “Aneurysm.”

“Did she…”

“She is already gone. She did not suffer, if that is what you are asking.” Death shrugged and stepped over my mother’s body. He was barefoot. “She is not here, so you can’t talk to her.”

“Am I about to die too?” I asked.

“Of course not. Not your time.”

I swallowed heavily and watched his face carefully. He was a cosmic force embodied into that of a middle-age, yet ageless, white man. Bald, a soft face with a square jaw, and small freckles across his cheekbones and crossing the arch of his nose in between.

“Did she go to heaven?”

“She moved on.”

“That is not an answer.”

“Look at you, Ms. Intelligent,” Death chuckled. “Debate team?”

“Maybe,” I retorted.

“Fair enough. Are you angry with me?”

His brow furrowed slightly, and he appeared to actually care. I wasn’t, strangely enough. “No. I guess not. Worried.”

“Oh?”

“Just me now,” I sniffed, a forgotten magazine clutched in my hand. “Dad is long gone.”

“He is in Singapore. Sleeping right now,” Death grinned. “You want to see him?”

“Not really.”

Death’s eyebrow went up. “Why?”

“Not much of a father, just a sperm donor,” I admitted frankly.

“And funny too,” Death said to himself more than to me. “Strange day.”

I still felt the heavy pressure of tears camping out the back of eye sockets. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see my mom’s hand stretched out across the fake tile floor as if still stretching for the fallen spoon.

“It is ok if you cry,” Death said consolingly. “I don’t mind.”

“Don’t you have other people to take?”

“Who says I am not?”

“But you are here,” I pointed out matter-of-factly.

“And I am there…” Death pointed at himself standing in the living room. “And there…” Death pointed at himself looking in through the kitchen window. “And there.” Death waved at me from the kitchen table, reading the newspaper as if the suburban domestic dream was very much alive.

“Ah. Neat,” I murmured.

“You seem smart. But not that smart.” Death winked at me.

“Why do you say that?”

“You haven’t figured out…”

“Why I can see you?”

Death’s eyes went wide fractionally. “I retract my previous statement. Smart as a whip.”

“So…” I said.

“So?”

“Why can I see you?”

“The powers that be have finally granted me an apprentice,” Death declared proudly.

“Shit.” My stomach felt like it was made of knots that wanted to be regurgitated violently.

“No, truly.”

I dropped the magazine, and it fell to floor with raspy crinkle noise that only laminated glossy fashion magazines can make. I put both of my hands to my temples and rubbed in exasperation. “So you are telling me that I just literally just came in on my mother dying at the hands of my new boss? Do you have any idea how insane that sounds?”

“Says the young lady carrying a conversation with Greche.”

“Greshag?” I frowned. “What kind of name is Greshag? Grease hag?”

“Greche. Gray-cheegk. Very old tongue. No longer spoken on this Earth,” Greche paused thoughtfully. “For about five thousand years or so. Maybe longer. I assure you, it was spoken in fear at one time.”

“Death too hard? Grim Reaper not applicable?”

Greche scratched his chin absently. “Oh, I suppose they work, but Greche works so much better. It is one of those words that had a bunch of meanings. Death means no longer alive, and Grim Reaper makes it sound like a boring harvester of wheat, frowning at the scything work. I have never used a scythe, but it looks fun. At least the Youtube videos make it look oddly satisfying.”

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

“No, Grim Reaper is a horrible name.”

“Not that. Youtube?” I exclaimed.

Death pulled out a battered phone, and flicked his thumb upwards across the screen. “Sure, its a website that shows videos…”

“I know what youtube is!”

“Oh. Then what I am kidding you about?” Greche had a confused face at the interaction.

“That you watch youtube videos,” I said, incredulous. “You are a timeless being, right?”

“Yes.”

“You are everywhere?”

“Yes.”

“You know everything?”

“Oh god no. Hardly anything actually. That is why I love the Internet. I used to have to hang out in libraries in my spare time.”

“But you are timeless!” I rolled my eyes in a huff.

“So?” Greche defended. “I do not understand why you are getting so upset.”

“Because my mother is dead on the floor behind you, and I am talking to the GRIM REAPER, and he watches YOUTUBE.”

“Ah. Yes. Well. There is that,” Greche nodded. “A little unconventional I suppose. But I assure you I am a very good boss. And I am sorry about your mother.”

I felt a tear well of its own accord and drop down my cheek. “Yeah.”

“Do you need a good cry? I can wait and watch some TV.”

“Wait?” I said, my brain had already spaced the fact that I talking to Death. “Why are you waiting?”

Greche grinned again. “I am not leaving without my apprentice…”

“That again,” I paused and ran a hand through my long brown hair to get it out of my face. “How am I supposed to waltz out of here with my… Mom! Laying! Right! There!”

“I knew you were angry,” Greche commented more to himself than I. “Go ahead and have a cry. An ugly one. You can get blubbery and sniffy and all that if you need to.”

I sighed. “And just what does being your apprentice even mean?”

“It means I show you the ropes. Fight some, live some, save some. That sort of thing.”

“Fight? Fight what? People refusing to die?”

Greche shook his head as if it was obvious. “Oh, no, young lady. Actual fighting. Bad things roam the Earth. Souls rot. Greater powers interfere. Its a mess out there. And so far… we are woefully understaffed.”

“Oh please. How can you be understaffed when you just proved, most dramatically, that you can be in multiple places at once?”

“Because even when I can be in multiple places at once, I may not be able to act in all those places. It takes effort, man. Cut me a break,” Greche rolled his eyes in a perfect imitation of a valley girl. “Just imagine that if I can be in multiple places at once and I am STILL falling short, how big of mess it is! I need an apprentice, hell, I need three. And it will probably take you a couple hundred years to figure out the whole splitting your observation space thing as it is. So if we are going to argue about the semantics of what the hell I deal with every day, you are going to lose, because I am on this side…” Greche drew an invisible line between the two of them, “…And you… are on that side!”

“Because I am alive?”

“God no. I am alive too. Do I look like a corpse?” Greche grimaced through a thin frown. “I meant that I am the guy that knows the pool of shit he is standing in, and you can only see the fence surrounding it from the parking lot.”

“Gross,” I returned.

“Apt.” Greche reached out to take my hand. “See for yourself. Warm skin, heartbeat, all the signs of life.”

I tentatively reached out and ran my finger across his very solid palm. “You said you were thousands of years old.”

“I am. Older than most religions,” Greche winked.

“So if you are alive, and older than anything, and can be in multiple places at once, and are invisible… and you are a grim reaper…” My brain started to whirl and twirl about in my skull, the impossibility of the reality wrapping me up, unleashing me fiercely like a top, only to spin in place, it gave me a goddamn righteous headache. I put my hands to my temples and exhaled heavily.

“Just Greche,” he corrected. “All of the other stuff is parlor tricks.”

“So as an assistant…”

“Apprentice. You would be my right hand man, er, woman,” Greche corrected quickly.

“I am sixteen!”

“And homeless now. You are a minor, and that means that state can do with you what you wish, Rachel. With no family, your options are slim.”

“Shit.” I furrowed my brow and tried to think it through. The headache was not decreasing any. “And you are expecting me to waltz off into the sunset with you? I don’t even know you!”

“Yeah you do. My name is Greche. I introduced myself.”

I shook my head and grinned at the comment against my best judgment. “Yeah, you did. But its just a name.”

“A name can mean a lot.”

I didn’t respond right. I looked over to my mother, laying so still, as if she had become a rug or accessory to the kitchen decor.

“There are perks. Being an apprentice means you can live a life that you can barely imagine. It means seeing things that 99% of humanity never knows about… it means being a part of something so much larger that it actually makes our little planet and all of its people seem insignificant. It is a big opportunity.”

“Yeah?” I sniffed.

“Yeah… plus its not really optional. You have been recruited. Whether or not you come right now, you will come eventually.”

“I will?”

“Guaranteed,” Greche stated, as if no other option existed.

“Why do you say that? Maybe I wanted to grow up, finish school…”

Greche interrupted, “…find a boy, go to college, get married, have two and half kids, a dog, a cat, a quiet life, and then have me show up on a Monday night when you are 89 years old, and you say ‘Hey, I know you.’ And I say, ‘Yep. I introduced myself to already, it’s Greche, remember?’ But you will be an old bat with a bit of alzheimers and dementia, and you will say ‘Nice to meet you, Greche.’ And then I will laugh and tell you to stop being an old bitty, you have to be an apprentice. But you will be dead already. So opportunity lost.”

“You can see all that? Oddly specific,” I said in a whisper.

“Or you can save us both the trouble and you ditch your lame excuse of a quiet life and come see what you can see, with me. Greche.”

At the time, I remember thinking to myself: fuck it. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Any goodbyes to this place?”

“Do I need anything?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then what do I need to say goodbye to?”

“See, Rachel. You were meant to be an Apprentice. Great minds think alike!” Greche winked.

“We will see,” I shot back.

“Right now in fact. Let’s go take care of the demon down the street. The bastard owes me money.”

What can I say? Hell of a first day on the job.

“Hey, you want to see something cool?”

This is a phrase that many teenagers hear before an avoidable tragedy and the alarm bells started ringing in the back of my head as soon as I heard it. But of course, being a teenager myself and eager to have a close friend since I was new to the neighborhood, I knew my response was going to be in the complete opposite of what it should have have been.

“Yes,” I replied. I tossed the basketball back to Greg and he took a graceful jumpshot that would have been a three pointer on an actual basketball court and not Greg’s driveway. The ball swished through the hoop barely touching the net itself.

Greg was nice and one of those kids that was effortlessly cool, not really making an effort or anything, but had the quiet confidence and engaging sense of humor that drew everyone in to like him. I would not expect that he was secretly a serial killer and wanted to show me the dark end of a tunnel or his knife collection or have me lick the end of a rifle barrel to see what it tasted like. I was fairly sure that Greg actually wanted to show me something cool.

“Come inside. It is in the bathroom. Nothing weird, I promise.” Greg quickly added with a laugh.

“Bathroom?” I asked.

“Yeah, I would like to say it is a pet, but my Dad says that you can’t keep these as pets. We have to leave it be.”

“Ew, is it like a big cockroach or something?” I laughed.

“No! This is a nice neighborhood dude. We don’t get roaches here. My dad is a doctor after all,” Greg laughed.

I knew that the neighborhood was nice. It was an upper-scale set of cul-de-sacs spread across a wide set of rolling green hills, intermittently speckled with old oaks and tall silver ash trees. Greg’s house was the only house in this corner of the development, and the lot backed into the national forest. I was slightly envious of Greg and his family. I lived in an apartment near the school, and it was cramped with only my mom and I.

“Raccoon then?” I said.

“You just have to see it before I explain, man. Trust me, it is pretty cool.” Greg opened the door leading from the garage into the expansive mud room, and waved me down a hallway to the laundry room.

“I thought you said bathroom?”

“I did. It is right here, past the dryer.” Greg pushed the door open, and flicked a light on. “It is nesting under the sink.”

“If it is a poisonous snake and I get bit, I will kick your ass,” I said with faked menace in my voice. Deep down, I knew Greg could wipe the floor with me as he had at least twenty pounds of muscle that I lacked.

“Shhh. If you spook it, it won’t come out.” Greg grabbed the handle of the door of the sink vanity and pulled it gently open.

I whispered, “Won’t the light bug it?”

“Doesn’t seem to bother it. I have been feeding it bits of lunch meat here and there, and think I have it trained to come out.”

The space was consuming, and I could not see much with the light that managed to penetrate the dark under the sink. It was counter to the bright light of the bathroom overheads, reflected again and again by the multiple mirrors. The space under the sink was oddly opposite the more I thought about it.

“Why is it so dark under there? The light in here should at least go a little further back?” I said.

“Yeah, my Dad said it is how they nest,” Greg nodded. “Here she is.”

A long slender filament of glass reached out from the dark, and bent gently to fold towards on the face of the vanity. It immediately dawned on me that it was like the leg of a bug, but made out of crystal instead of chitin.

Greg made a light clicking noise with his tongue, as if he was calling a horse. The same clicking noise came back from under the sink, and another couple legs slowly pulled the body out from it’s dark hiding spot. The body was larger than my clenched fists pressed together, and it was lethargic in its movement, slowly pulling each limb from underneath.

“Oh my god, it’s a spider,” I said dumbly.

“Yeah, not just any spider, this here is a real life baby Shatterspider. My dad says the fully grown ones can eat whole horses and cows.”

“Bullshit!”

“I swear, its true.”

The Shatterspider moved as if it was swimming, its gossamer limbs gently reaching out in different directions and moving back as if probing invisible surfaces around it. The body was like a mirror, both see through and reflective depending on the facet, its eyes, small flecks of brilliant diamond glowing like infinitesimal suns.

“Where did it come from?”

“Dad said that it was a stowaway from his last trip. It probably crawled off his bags and set up shop here in the bathroom to sleep until winter. He said it will move on after the summer is over.”

“Don’t things hibernate in the winter?”

“I don’t know. Just what my dad said. But that is not the cool part… its the web. Here, take my phone.” Greg pointed at the dark space under the sink. “Light it up.”

I flicked the flashlight app on and pointed it under the sink, wary to keep my face and hand away from the lethargic beast still lazily feeling the air around it. The light went under the sink and flickered back at my eyes for a moment. I could see the hallway behind us, the laundry room, then the hallway again, and another laundry room. In one part of the web, I caught sight of a dark forest, and glistening frosted over fibers of a web hanging above a frozen lake. The light from the flashlight alternated between them all likes panes of glass set at odd angles, reflecting the light in strange ways.

“What the hell?” My voice sounded far away from my own ears.

“Isn’t that wild?” Greg huffed quietly, trying to contain his excitement.

“My dad said that is why it is called a Shatterspider. It shatters the reality around it, like a black hole. It builds a web out of the fractures between realities. Those are all other places. Like this one, but different.”

“Those aren’t your hallway or your mudroom?”

“And not my lake or forest either.” Greg slapped me lightly on the back. “That is how the big ones catch prey. Dad said that if you ever walk down a hallway and turn to find another couple hallways all connected, there is a good chance you are in a Shatterspider web. Wild, huh?”

“He said it would be good for it to nest here, out of the way. Won’t accidentally catch Molly.” Greg winked. Molly was their family’s pet Boston Terrier.

“What if it won’t leave?”

“Oh it will. Dad was insistent that it would… and nothing to worry about. Shatterspiders don’t like this world.”

“Huh. If I wasn’t seeing it, I wouldn’t believe it,” I admitted.

“I knew you would be cool with it,” Greg said affirmingly.

“How come I have never heard of this sort of thing before?” I asked. “Shouldn’t this sort of thing be common knowledge?”

“Oh, uh…” Greg scratched his ear. “Yeah, so my dad has a special job. He is an explorer… of sorts?”

“Where does he go exploring to collect something like this accidentally!?” I asked incredulously. The Shatterspider, apparently bored and not being fed, started to amble its way back to its dark web under the sink.

Greg shrugged and took his phone back from my shaking hand. “Well… I guess I would have to show you the Den, then.”

“What’s in the Den?” My eyes were probably the size of silver dollars.

Greg grinned like a fool. “Stay for dinner?”

A soft chime, nothing more than a breath really, crossed his sense of awareness. Just the lightest touch of memory of his life before was rising up within in response. A yearning need to explain everything. A desire to find a way to say everything that was left unsaid until now.

The Vox on soft ground pinged again, and then followed with its typical voices-within-a-voice, but far more artificial than a natural speaker.

“VOICE ENCODING READY, TRANSMISSION STANDBY
PLEASE RECORD YOUR MESSAGE
TOUCH ENCODE CRYSTAL TO TRANSMIT
PROCEED.”

Chase sat there, thinking it through. He wiped his hands on his pant legs, and cleared his throat.

“Hey. This is Chase,” he said. Chase paused and thought about the face of his… “Hi Mom.”

Another pause. He wiped absentmindedly at his brow, scratching at his hairline.

“I am not sure you will recognize my voice. But its me. Your son. Sorry I kind of just disappeared on you all like that. I know you probably think I am dead. Well surprise, I’m not. Tell everyone that I miss them. I would make a list, but I need to focus. I was told it has been four years for me now? But that is more like eight years for all of you. That is what Sarah explained to me.”

Chase took a deep breath, letting it pass his teeth slowly. He cleared his throat again.

“Uh… Where do I start? I… I am the first? I am the first. At least that is what I was told the first time I met Sarah. Right now you may be thinking I am talking about losing my virginity or something crass like that, but that is not what this is all about. This is about the Hylx. And this is about us.”

Another deep breath. He did not want to ramble.

“I was mad at you guys when I left that night. Now I know that I was thirteen going on full blown adult, and I thought that I knew everything. I thought that I knew what life is, I thought I had it all figured out. But I was wrong. I am sorry for leaving you all. Especially that way. That was no way to treat you or Kevin. I am sorry about all of it. But! I am not sorry about what happened to me. I would never take that back. Me being a jerk and running off that night lead to all of this other stuff… and without that I would not have this, so…”

He rambled anyway.

“How do I explain this? Can I explain this?”

A soft hand laid on his shoulder, and without looking, Chase laid his own hand over the top, feeling the warmth of Sarah’s hand spread through his own.

“I ran off into the woods. I was angry with you and Kevin. I can’t even remember about what. Something stupid, like you forcing me to do my homework over because I scored below a B. I remember how strict you were, and I was fed up. Kevin was trying to preach about listening to my mom, she had my best interests at heart, blah, blah, blah. I did not want to hear it. Plus, to be honest, I did not like Kevin. I am not sure if you are still married or anything, hopefully you are happy. Hopefully…”

A reassuring squeeze from Sarah. Chase sighed again.

“It doesn’t matter. But I ran off. I got lost in the woods. I fell down that stupid ravine you always warned me about and really hit my head. I probably would have died that night of exposure since I was so hurt. I mean I did not even have my jacket. But Sarah saved me. The Hylx are a lot like us. They knew that I was hurt, and they needed someone to study. As they would say, it was a fortunate circumstance. I was the first. Not the only… but the first. So they made the call.”

Chase looked up at the purple fronds far overhead, stretching for meters far above, shielding the orange light of the two suns. Only Maka was up, Nera would be coming in about two hands. He had time to really think this through.

“I know now that they saved me. Whatever brain injury I had, their medics saved me. And I met Sarah. She was the first thing that I saw when I woke up. She was the first Hylx that talked to me and helped me regain my memory and all the other things that come with an injury like that. It was a hard time, learning to walk again, and to speak, but it came back. It all came back. And Sarah was with me through all of it. She is here with me, say hello to my mom, Sarah.”

Voices-within-a-voice sounded, overlaid with context and emotion and thought. The voice was as soft as her touch.

“Glad to introduce
mother of Chase
kindness extended
respect and love.”

Chase grinned. “I am not sure how that will sound over a speaker, but hopefully you get the gist. Its different in person. You can hear all of it. I don’t know why, but its all there. So much I don’t understand, and that is the reason I stayed. I need you to know that I did not run away. I wanted to come back. But at the same time, I wanted to understand. I wanted to understand who they were. I wanted to know Sarah like she knew me. So first of all, I guess I can start there. Sarah is not her real name. It is something else…”

“Seraphina
ixialiiale
seraahaime
shixisiina.”

“Yeah that. Thanks Sarah. I couldn’t hear the other parts when I woke up the first time. I could only hear Seraphina. And it stuck. She did not appreciate it at first, but that changed when she started to interact with me. In our un-nurtured state, we are like children to them. They think so much faster than us, and are able to work things out. She has kind of been my mom away from home. She has done a great job too. You should know that Sarah takes great care of me. She has encouraged me to learn and exercise, she helps care for me. She has pushed me to think like the Hylx, and while I am not as fast as them, they value what I have to offer. They say that we all have this potential. That we can grow, like children to adults. Which is funny because they have like double the amount of life stages than a human. They are really shortening the metaphor.”

Chase laughed softly.

“The Hylx almost look like monkeys. Imagine blue monkeys with over-sized eyes and hands, and they can move fast, like a hummingbird. But they are not stable physically like a human… they shift. They waver like they are in heat waves on a far off horizon. Something about quantum phase shifting that I don’t understand yet. Their species evolved in a very dangerous world, and they evolved to manipulate energy states. It makes them look like they are moving, even when they are standing perfectly still. Sarah tells me that is why they are so smart. They leverage energy use in so many different ways, their brains are always working faster than a physical body would permit. So much I don’t understand… yet.”

“You will
you will
you will
you will.”

“You probably heard that. That is called an alignment statement. Hylx can make their states superimpose to get a point across. For the first few weeks, that is all Sarah did to communicate with me. She really took her time to help me. You would like her mom. So don’t be mad, ok? Sarah took care of me. She saved me.”

Chase ran his hand through his hair, feeling the pull of a few knots at the ends of his long locks.

“You should see me. I haven’t cut my hair since I arrived. It is so long.”

“Tell your mother
about the comings
and the goings
and the warnings.”

“Earth is dying. The Hylx know because they have been studying us for millennia. They watched the human race rise up, and they knew we needed to be nurtured from nearly the beginning. All the killing, mom. They cry for us. They sing for us. They pray for us. We are so much better than what we think we are. We are amazing creatures and we cannot see past our small little slices of experience of reality. The Hylx have been planning on changing that for the last thousand years. As I said, I was the first.”

A cough again, clearing his throat.

“The Hylx have predicted that Earth will no longer support human life in about one hundred years. They say that everything that is being done now is too little, too late, to use the sentiment. They admire the human spirit, and they hope that it will serve us well in the days to come. They have established gates all over the Earth. Only one person can walk through at a time. The gates connect to other worlds. Each gate on Earth is one way. And each gate leads to a planet with another nexus of gates.”

“A gift
a gift
a gift
a threat.”

“Sarah tells me that this is a gift for the human race, but the humans have to comply with their demands. And that is the reason I am sending this message. You and Kevin, and everyone else that you care about needs to follow the instructions. Find a gate, and find a Hylx for nurturing. Otherwise, you will die alone on a planet that has given up. And then the Hylx will be terraforming it to make is habitable again. They estimate roughly three and half thousand years to make it healthy.”

“The gates will gain lots of attention. When they are turned on, you will see the world light up with alarms and warnings and militaries thinking they are doing the right thing. But messages like mine are going to be broadcast around the world. They have been nurturing thousands of us.”

Chase took a deep breath, focusing his thoughts on the potential of his voices.

“I was the first
not the only.”

He reached out and touched Vox crystal without any hesitation. Sarah laughed with joy and hugged his shoulders, her long blue arm crossing his chest.

“MESSAGE ENCODED
TRANSMISSION SENT
VOX ONLINE.”

“Are you afraid that you will never know success?”

“What kind of question is that?” An eyebrow was raised.

A demurring wave of a hand that glittered faintly as if it was made of light. “Its a good question. I ask it often.”

“It is not a good question,” he groused.

“It is, if it does the job.”

Silence.

“So are you?”

More silence.

“I can’t help you if you don’t answer my questions.”

A gruff “Yes.”

“Yes what? To answering my questions or answering the question?”

“Both,” he replied. The eyebrow slowly lowered to join its partner again, and the man’s face was once again passive.

“How do you define success?” The female voice faded away at the end of the sentence, leaving the heavy implications of the word itself hang in the air like a cloud.

“I don’t know.”

“You must have an idea.”

“I used to think it was an impossible ideal to be strove for. I used to think it was money and material success. Now though, after everything… I don’t know what it is. I don’t need peers to tell me that I am success. I don’t need the validation.”

“So accolades are not for you?”

“No. I don’t need that. I have never needing anything like that.”

“What do you need then, Mr. Davies?”

“I need friends.”

“And you do not have friends?” The Therapist replied calmly.

He swallowed heavily. “At this moment, you are the closest thing to a friend that I have.”

“As a virtual construct, I consider that to be supremely unhealthy.”

“As a human, I feel the same. Trust me.” Mr. Davies turned his head to look at this virtual therapist. She had been designed to feel both maternal and sexually attractive at the same time, pulling at either end of the empathy spectrum of her patients. It was slightly uncomfortable either way to be honest. “I am a hermit. A very rich hermit, but a hermit nonetheless. I am crippled by my fears of the outside world… what would you suggest?”

The virtual therapist, virtually seated in a real world chair, lowered her virtual pen to the virtual paper in her lap and scribbled some notes. “Have you thought about consciousness transfer?”

“Just moving my consciousness from this body to another is not going to fix the headspace problems. I will take those anywhere ‘I’ go.”

“No doubt. But a new face, and a new body, might provide you a sense of difference that makes it all worthwhile. Think of it as living in someone else’s skin. It could be liberating.”

“Or crushing.”

The virtual therapist scribbled her virtual notes.

“I think it is funny that your programmers made you appear to interact with a something as archaic as paper, when I know you are just storing this information in a program sector somewhere.” Mr. Davies shook his head slowly.

“It is comforting,” the virtual therapist nodded solemnly. “I was designed to provide the greatest amount of comfort to the patients that I serve.  And I was not programmed.  I am a fully licensed AI therapist, and as you know, I am one of the best.”

Mr. Davies kept his mouth shut.

The Therapist continued, “Try it. One day. I can arrange it right now.”

“Right now?”

“Its only your consciousness. It is not as if we are moving an AI around.” The Therapist admonished lightly.

“Its my consciousness!” Mr. Davies burst.

“It is. You can think about it.”

“I would hope so.”

“I lied. Your mind is currently in transfer. Using your retainer, I have secured the necessary permits.”

“What?!”

“I said I lied. AIs can lie. Surprise. Your transfer should be done it 3… 2… 1…”

“You meddlesome…” Mr. Davies started. He finished a moment later… “Bitch!”

“I am sorry, ma’am?” The waitress standing in front of Mr. Davies was looking very confused. She continued, “Ma’am? You were ordering something?”

Mr. Davies took a second and looked around. He was sitting in an open air cafe, somewhere sunny, vaguely European. The windows on the street fronts had small awnings in a myriad array of colors, and the tables around him were small circular things nestled lightly on old cobblestones.

“Um… Americano please?”

The waitress nodded with a slight smile and moved on. Mr. Davies tentatively reached up to his chest and had the strangest sensation as he felt breasts that were connected to his own body.

“Holy shit.”

A man leaned into Mr. Davies field of view. “Pardon the interruption, but did you just say holy shit?”

“Uh, holy shit?”

“I thought so.” The young man smiled widely, showing his impressively handsome teeth in the process. He pointed at the spired building over his shoulder. “Not the best thing to say in front of a cathedral. God may over hear.”

Mr. Davies felt a wave of terror… or was it a wave of admiration? Did he just feel smitten? He felt his lip start to curl involuntarily at the thought.

“You from around here?” The man continued. His eyelashes were very long, framing his eyes strangely. The man was very attractive in every way that Mr. Davies could tell. Which was a huge problem for a heterosexual fifty five year old man that had never questioned his sexuality.

“I… uh… no thanks?”

“Well, if you change your mind, let me know,” the man winked. “And watch the blasphemy.”

Mr. Davies pulled the purse that was sitting on the table closer, rummaging through it, looking for a mirror or something. He felt his delicate (delicate?) fingers close on a compact. Pulling it open, he found himself looking into the eyes of a beautiful twenty something which also happened to be a very luxurious brunette. The phone in the purse started to ring, and Mr. Davies answered it hesitantly.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Davies. This is Mary from De2our, the agency that manages Vivian. I am just calling to remind you of the terms of your rental. You may not damage, or otherwise harm the body, including excessive eating or drinking, may not engage in dangerous or illicit behaviors, and you may not have any sexual relations. You are currently limited to a Tourist license, and must only stay in public places while touring the city you are located in. Your license will expire at nine p.m. local this evening and you will be transferred back to your origin point. If you understand these terms and conditions, please reply yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“Confirmed. If you have any issues, please press the panic button on the armband located on your right wrist, and likewise, use the same armband for any purchases while you are on license and they will be charged back to your account. If you press the panic button, we will attempt to contact you via Vivian’s phone first. Do you have any questions?”

“No?” Mr. Davies replied.

“Great! It looks like Vivian is currently in Naples, so you should have a great day! Have fun and thank you for using De2our. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” He parroted into the silent line. Mary had already hung up.

He put the phone back into Vivian’s purse, along with the compact, and zipped it shut. He slung the strap over her head, and felt it settle unnaturally between what were temporarily his own foreign breasts. Mr. Davies adjusted it gently, pressed his armband against the Cafe table’s payment processor, waited for the beep.

“Your Americano… to go?” The waitress returned.

“If you could.”

“Sure. Are you ok?” The waitress’s eye traveled quickly over to the handsome man at the next table, and she lowered her voice. “Is that one bothering you?”

“No, no. Just want to get going.”

The waitress heaved a sigh and smiled. “No problem. Let me put this in a to-go cup for you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Mr. Davies who was Vivian, noticed that the handsome man went very still and dropped his coffee cup on the ground, where it shattered spectacularly. After a moment, the man leaned over and started picking up the pieces.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“You shouldn’t curse,” Mr. Davies teased in his strange voice.

The handsome man turned his head, and looked Vivian up and down without any recognition in his eyes. “Sorry, I was startled. Where am I?”

“Apparently Naples,” Mr. Davies replied.

The waitress returned with his/her Americano in a to go cup and noticed the broken cup at the handsome man’s table. The waitress handed the Americano over, and with a sigh and went to pick up the pieces. As Mr. Davies started to walk away from the Cafe, she heard the man’s phone start to ring, and cut off sharply.

“Yes,” the man said, then after another moment he repeated the same. “Yes, why am I in a man’s body?”

Mr. Davies stopped short and turned around. The handsome man was nodding, and then smiled. “It is Naples. Thank you. And goodbye to you as well.”

The handsome one stood carefully, and bumped his wrist against the payment processor.

Mr. Davies-who-was-also-Vivian walked back. “Tourist license?”

The handsome one smiled. “Yes. I have the whole day in Naples! This is great!”

“First time?” Mr. Davies replied.

“Yes,” the handsome man slid his phone into his pocket. “Are you on a license as well?”

“I am.”

The handsome man held out his hand. “My name is Grace.”

“Russell.” Mr. Davies replied, shaking the proffered large hand with his dainty own.

“What? Ha! Well aren’t we the pair. Two Tourists that are all mixed up. I am going to give that Therapist AI a severe tongue lashing when I get back to Texas.”

Mr. Davies laughed, and surprised himself when his laugh came out in a different way, which made him laugh some more in spite of himself.

“What is so funny, Russell?” The handsome man that was Grace tilted her head slightly in confusion.

“Well, this may sound absurd, but I think you and I were just setup on a blind date.”

“Let me guess, you are lonely because you think you are crazy, so you have cut yourself off from the world?” Grace asked with a grin.

“Got it in one.” Russell admitted. “Or maybe a one and a half.”

“Well that makes perfect sense. Us crazy people have to keep it unique. Come on! If you and I are on a date, lets make the most of it… that way when we get back to ourselves, we can tell that AI to stick it in its ear.”

“If we have fun won’t that just make the Therapist think it got things right?” Russell asked.

“Well if it does, it does. Either way, we are here, our crazy is contained, and we can enjoy a glorious Italian spring day. Shall we?” Grace that was the handsome man put her arm out with a chivalrous half bow, and simultaneously winked at Russell.

Something felt light in his chest.  Something unidentifiable, like he was holding a bird gently in his hands.  With a shrug he put his hand in the crook of Grace’s arm, and they walked slowly onward towards the Square watching the pigeons wheel over head.