We died in 1980. Well, the most recent time, anyway. It was a house fire. Really terrible! Brrr! I shudder to even think about it. I can't even remember what number that was, though. You lose track over the centuries because it really doesn't matter when you're between lives.
In between, you're spiritsβjust naked souls awaiting your next suits of clothing, if you will, your next incarnations. Don't ask me to really explain the process. I don't have a clue. You're born and you spend your life either consciously or unconsciously searching for your soul-mate. If you find them at all, you're lucky, but whether you do or don't, you move on and the whole damn cycle starts over. What's the point? I don't know. Haven't found one yet. All I know is that I really, really want to get laid tonight...and I have a plan.
You see, I know who my soul-mate is: Esther, Amelia, Rene, Kimberly, Deanna, and a dozen other names that I am both blessed and cursed to still recall. We almost always find each other and recognize each other. Even now, between lives, we wait together to be reborn. For more than two decades of Earth time we've longed to touch each other in love but, as spirits, we cannot. Samhain, however, is the time of year when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest and we spirits can influence the living...sometimes to the extreme. I've been patiently planning and practicing for ages. This year, I know my plan will work! Samhain. All Hallows Eve. Halloween. Tonight!
"Okay, so it's here," she said. "What makes you think this will work any better than your last twelve attempts?" We were working our way through the thick purple mists, heading toward the living world. It was like walking down a steep hill in fog so thick you really could cut it with a knife.
"Look, I know it works. Don't you remember all the stories they used to tell of ghosts possessing the living? There's too many. There just has to be some truth to them. We just never figured out how to do it before."
"Well, it HAS only been five centuries," she murmured cynically.
"Give or take. Now, listen. I honestly think the problem is that we've been trying to make the whole process too complicated. What we want to do is to just find a young couple in love, quickly insinuate ourselves into their lives and then WE share connubial bliss for at least one night while we wait to begin our chase again. We have a great time, they have a great time. Everybody wins."
"Sure, sure! You have a great time! You ever hear of foreplay?"
"Foreplay!? It's been two decades of their time since we've even been able to have sex! If it were even possible for me to have a hard-on, I would have one twenty four hours a day! And, I might add, the most raging case of blueballs in history! Foreplay! Geez! What kind of foreplay do you expect?"
"Awww, honey, women are different. You know. We need a little cuddling, a little stroking, a little..."
"Sweetheart, my fucking hand goes right through you," I said as I demonstrated by waving it wildly through what should have been her chest area. "Hell, technically I don't even have a fucking hand!"
"I know. I know. I guess we really shouldn't cling to the images we had in our last life but I didn't want to lose you again and I thought this would help."
"It does, baby. Oh, I'm sorry. We're just tense, that's all. But tonight, if you just stick with me, we will finally get to be together again!"
"Maybe"
"What the hell is it with you and all of this negative talk? Not 'maybe', 'yes!'"
"Okay...yes,...maybe. Hey, look! Is that it? I think I see the real world! The mists are parting! Where are we? Oh my gosh, this is great!"
"Right on target, my love. A typical middle class American neighborhood filled with Halloween trick or treaters, partiers and, hopefully, young loving couples. It's the evening of Samhain, and the dead are about to meet the living!" We laughed as we kind of floated to the ground as if being dropped off by some great cosmic elevator.
We both stood there on the sidewalk, just taking it all in. There were big trees all up and down the street raining colorful leaves down onto the damp, cracked pavement. Even though we couldn't feel it, we could see the wind assaulting the colorfully clad revelers running up and down the street. I don't know how you can remember a smell, but I could almost smell the reality of Autumn and that smell was absolutely intoxicating! This was going to work!
"I can't believe it. Look!" she burst out, pointing at a young twenty-something couple on a porch across the street giving out candy. "They're perfect and they're right here! It's like we were drawn to them!" The man was blond with a close cut hairstyle. He wore glasses, was clean -shaven and reasonably well built. "See! He even looks like you...or rather like your current ghost."
"And she looks a lot like you once did!" I added excitedly. The young woman was also blonde, her hair long and full and blowing in the breeze. Her smile was aglow and her placid blue eyes clearly cloaked hidden passions. "This is meant to be!"
"Okay, Einstein, so what do we do now?"
"Well, I think...no, I know...we have to go up and touch them...or maybe step into them or something."
"Or something? Or WHAT smart guy?"
"Look, I have never done this before, sweetheart and they do not make an instruction book for it! Let's just try it, okay?"
"All right, all right. Will you listen to them? They even sound like us."
I heard the male bickering. "I told you we needed more candy to give out. This bag is nearly empty already and it's not even 7'o clock!"
"What do you mean, YOU told ME? Remember when we were at Wal-Mart and I said..."
"Wait a minute. 'Wal-Mart'? We didn't get these at Wal-Mart, we got them at..."
"Well, wherever! We didn't even get the kind I like at all."
"Not that there's any left which was my original point, dumbass!"
It was true. They did seem remarkably like us. This was right. It had to be. It was time. I walked up to him and stepped directly into his space. He shivered and I pulled him tightly around me like a sweater. In a matter of seconds, I felt solid again. The effect was disconcerting to say the least.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" said the female, grimacing from her porch chair at...well, me.