Even More Ghost

Herewith Chapter 3 of Living Ghost. Chapter 1 is here. Chapter 2 is here.

3.

Syracuse University. He hadn’t thought about that place in—what?—well over a decade at least. He vaguely remembered seeing a headline on the front page of the L.A. Times Sports section that they had won some championship or other, but that was about the closest he ever came to thinking about his college years in a very long while. Well, if you didn’t count the student loan he was still paying off.

The plane experienced a small jolt of turbulence, which woke Tom out of his reverie.

“Would you like anything to drink?” asked a voice to his left.

Startled, he looked over and saw the flight attendant poised behind the drinks cart, staring at him.

“Oh, uh, just a Sierra Mist, please.”

“I have Sprite or 7 Up,” she said.

“Sprite will be fine.”

He really needed to try to sleep on the plane—but two transfers wouldn’t make that easy. He had a lot of work to do when he got back—and he didn’t know how up to it he’d be. He was always less jetlegged flying west than east, but he still spent the day after a cross-country flight feeling like he was suspended in mayonnaise.

The flight attendant handed him his soda and as he took a sip, the closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep. But he was still haunted by the basic question: How the hell did this happen? How does a person suddenly wake up 3,000 miles from where he fell asleep? Why was this happening? And, more importantly, why now, right in the middle of the most important project of his career?

There was another jolt of turbulence. His eyes snapped open, and he took another sip of the soda.

“Are you going to Denver?” came a voice from his right. It was an elderly woman in the window seat. She was knitting what looked like a giant oven mitt and she had seen his open eyes as an invitation to start up a conversation.

“Um, no, actually. I change planes in Denver and head to Los Angeles.”

“Do you live in L.A. or are you visiting?”

“I live there, yes.”

“Were you visiting New York City?” They had already changed planes once at La Guardia.

“No, I started in Syracuse.”

“Oh, my, you’ve got quite the trek today.”

“You have no idea,” he said.

“I live in Cortland. What brought you to Syracuse?”

“That’s a very good question,” he said, barely suppressing the urge to smile—for what reason he had no idea.

“Family?” she asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“Were you visiting family?”

“No, the university.” Well, it was true—after a fashion.

“Do you teach there?”

He suspected the questions would persist until they reached Denver. And he really wanted to sleep.

“No, I was…visiting a student.”

“A relative?”

“Not really. Um…” Oh, screw it. “Last night at 1:45 or so I fell asleep in my house in Redondo Beach, California, and woke up this morning in a dorm room at Syracuse University. How I got there, I don’t know. All I do know is that some strange, supernatural force whisked me there in the middle of the night.”

The woman was quiet for a moment, “Then you’d think whatever force whisked you there would have the courtesy to whisk you back home again.” She turned back to her knitting and didn’t speak to him again.

She had a point. Why didn’t he think of that? Of course, he doubted “Mel” would be particularly willing to have him hang around her room waiting for whatever this force was to zap him back to California.

He closed his eyes again and his mind wandered. I’ve been focusing on the what, he said to himself. What about the why? Why me? And why Syracuse? It wasn’t a completely random location. He had, after all, been sent to a place he used to live. And the number 503 rings a bell. Maybe that was the room he actually had lived in. That put a whole new spin on this thing. Why would a supernatural force send him someplace he used to live? Maybe there was a numerical connection. 503. He was 41. He lived there when he was 18. 41-18=23. Hm. 4+1=5. 4x1=4. 1+8=9. 1x8=8. OK, nothing there. His birthday was 8/7. It was 10/2. 8÷7=1.14. 10÷2=5. There’s another 5. But so what? Let’s try, 8+7=15. 10+2=12. 15+12=27. 2+7=9. 9x3.14159= 12.14159. OK, this was a wash. There’s nothing to numerology anyway, so that’s no big surprise, he said to himself.

He started thinking about his four years there. Did anything happen that could perhaps be seen as a preface to this? Like what? Part of his dozing of brain asked, some kind of oracle saying “you will return here against your will-”?


“Dude, you’re gonna return here 23 years from now,” Mark was saying. “You’re gonna fall asleep one night, then—bam!—You’ll be back at Brewster.”

“What a terrifying thought,” he said to Mark, taking a sip of his Sierra Mist. Then he did a spit take. Mark was sitting where the knitting woman had been sitting.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“I followed you. I didn’t study for my Psych test, and I’ve always wanted to visit L.A. So, here I am.”

“What happened to the woman who was sitting there?” He looked around and there wasn’t even any of her carry-on baggage.

“She got whisked away. I think she’s back in Cortland.”

“Whisked away?” Tom asked.

“Just like you, my friend.”

“Are you behind this?”

“Me? Nah. I don’t know who the ‘whisker’ is but you are the ‘whiskee.’” He seemed to find that hysterically funny.

“I thought you hated puns.”

“I hate bad puns,” said Mark.

“Is there such a thing as a good pun?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“You seem to know more about this than you’re letting on,” said Tom.

“I know more than you do about lots of things. I’m younger than you are, after all.”
He snapped his fingers. “Right. You’re—what?—18, I bet.”

“19. My birthday’s in September.”

“That makes you…22 years younger than me. 2+2=4. Hm. OK, so you would have been born in—what’s your birth date, September what?”

“Dude, what are you doing?”

“Clutching at straws.”

He took a sip of his soda. He swallowed slowly and thought for a moment. “This isn’t Sprite. This is Sierra Mist.”

“You can tell the difference? They’re the same damn thing, aren’t they?”

“No, I can tell the difference. This is definitely Sierra Mist.”

“Big whoop,” said Mark.

“The flight attendant specifically said they didn’t have Sierra Mist. And how did you know the knitting woman sitting there was from Cortland? You weren’t sitting in front of or behind us?”

“I overheard you from five rows back. You are one loud dude.”

“No, no, no. I get it. This can only mean one thing…”

Mark suddenly started sounding like the lead singer of Supertramp. “‘Dreamer! You stupid little dreamer! Now you put your heads in your hands, oh no!’”

“Argh! I hate that song!”

“Denver!” he kept singing. “We’re about to land in Denver! Now you…”


“—please return your tray tables to their full upright position as we begin our final descent into Denver International Airport. Local time is 7:19 p.m. Local temperature is 54 degrees and partly cloudy.”

He awoke with a start. He looked to his right. The woman next to her was returning her knitting materials to her carry-on bag and checking to make sure her seat belt was fastened.

“Sir?” said the flight attendant. “Can I have your cup, please?”

“What?” He looked down at his soda. He took one last sip. Sprite. “Sure. Here.”

She took it from him and tossed it into a plastic garbage bag. She moved on.

“Well, at least we’re only a couple minutes late,” said the knitting woman. “That way you don’t have to scramble to catch your next plane.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“Did you have a nice nap?” she asked.

“Um, yeah. It was OK.”

“You yelled quite a bit. And sang some annoying song I remember from the 70s.”

“Sorry about that.”

As the plane began its descent, he double checked his seatbelt.

From the seat next to him, he could hear the woman absent-mindedly singing “Dreamer.” She stopped and looked over at him. “I’m going to kill you for that.”