Wandering Spirit

I left no footprints in the snow.

               “I don’t know, Emma, that’s life,” Alice slurred later in the bar. “Isn’t it? I mean like, think about it. Really think about it,” she paused mid gesture then dropped her hands. “What was I saying?”

               “Life and footprints,” Jeremy snorted, face flushed next to the pyramid of empty beer bottles stacked haphazardly at the edge of the wooden table.

               “Life and footprints,” Alice nodded sagely. “The average soul can’t make a difference on this world by simply existing. You keep your head like down and do your… your little thing that you do in the corner of your world and like no one notices. Ever. Like ever and ever and ever,” her hands trailed into space. “Then you die and the people you knew die. One. By. One. And so, the snow of life covers your meaningless tracks until you’re both dead and forgotten.” Her arms flailed expressively through the air. “So fickle,” she sighed. “So incredibly mortal.”

Alice, usually full of wisdom and insight, was instead full of beer and whatever had been in the upside down shot glass in front of her. I wasn’t taking any advice from her tonight.

               “I’m not being metaphorical,” I said. “I’m saying I made no physical tracks. Not one. The snow was fresh. The sky clear of clouds. Perfect conditions for footprints.” I could feel my audience’s attention waver, not that I’d held it all that closely to begin with. “All the way over here I kept looking over my shoulder and nothing. Not one print. I even snow angeled! Still nothing.”

               “Al-co-hol,” Jeremy stage whispered.

               “I haven’t had a single drop today.”

               “Oh,” Alice gasped slapping her hand on the table in triumph, “that explains it!” I steadied the wobbling bottles as Jeremy and I lent in closer, waiting for her answer to the enigma. “That’s why you’re so boring today.” The giggle she had been holding back exploded from her.

Jeremy and Alice clutched at the table and their sides, doubling over in quiet, wheezing hysterics.

I sighed and sunk back into the hard seat.

I noticed the bartender stared openly from behind the counter. She carefully put down the margarita shaker she was holding and positioned herself closer to our table.

               “Hey!” A group of girls protested at the abandonment of their drinks. “Do you expect us to pour this ourselves?”

She ignored them and motioned for me to approach the bar.

I did. Cautiously.

               “I see it in the goats.” She said impatiently when I took too long to get to her. She spoke over the tightly curled pink hair of a man sitting alone at the bar.

               “What?” I sat next to the pink haired man, confused and waiting for her explanation.

               She savoured her power over my curiosity, dragging out the silence a little longer. “Glitches. Like in a video game. They tell us we don’t live in a real world but a simulation.”

               “The goats do?”

               “The glitches. The goats are one of many examples. They appear on roofs, trees, on top of signs and climb vertical cliffs like they have some kind of cheat code. They defy physics. Goats are glitches. Your footprints defy physics. Glitches.”

               Jeremy sauntered over, never happy to be left out. “Or maybe,” he pointed clumsily, it was his signature drunk move. “Our memories have all been tampered with and you are actually some type of alien changeling… sleeper agent…” his finger swirled around, “thing sent to spy on us all. This town is perfect for that… that kind of drama. All small and isolated. Up in the mountains, surrounded by forests and snow.” He patted me on the back then grinned at the bartender. “Hi, I’m Jeremy, what’s your name?”

               “Trina,” she answered dismissively then turned back to me. “Or you could be dead.”

               “How could I be dead?”

               “I haven’t seen you eat or drink anything since you got here. Maybe you weren’t walking but floating.”

               “Even for the snow angels?”

               She nodded solemnly. “It is the curse of wandering spirits, to walk through and observe but never touch the world they once lived in.”

               Jeremy tilted his head and stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Is there… is there something that you aren’t… not telling us?” He clumsily pushed one finger hard into the soft spot between my shoulder and collarbone.

               “Ow,” I complained.

               Jeremy shrugged. “Seems err real enough.”

               Alice joined us at the bar, leaning drunkenly on the shoulder of the guy with the tapered curly pink hair. “Is she dead? Did you say she’s dead? I can see that.”

               “I’m not dead.”

               “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Alice grinned slyly.

               “I’m not.” It felt like I was arguing with children. “Maybe I’m in a coma,” I said instead. “This is some kind of vivid twilight dream and my subconscious is trying to warn me.”

               “Warn you about what?” Jeremy asked blankly. “You can’t just end your story there.”

The pink haired man at the bar stopped pretending not to listen. He considered us for a moment, with the patience of a monk. “Can you show us?”

Sure. Why not. Every other stranger is weighing in.

I walked to the door and opened it, suddenly conscious that almost the entire bar was watching. I stepped into the snow then slowly lifted my foot. A perfectly formed indent appeared on cue, complete with the jagged patterns from the sole of my shoe. I tried again. Same result.

               “Hmm,” the man said.

               “It was doing it before,” I muttered moving my foot up and down on the snow.

The murmurings of the bar started up once more and the attention on me faded.

The man cautiously stepped out onto the snow. Footprints.

               “Dammit. Whatever,” I gave up and headed back for my table.

               “Wait.”

I turned back to him.

               “Huh.” The man looked impressed. “I couldn’t make footprints when you looked away.”

               “What!?” I flew back to his side.

               “My footprints stopped working when you weren’t watching.”

I jumped into the snow and he averted his gaze. I walked to and fro but no evidence of my movement was recorded in the snow.

               “Hmm.” He thought this over as we moved back to the bar. “The Observer Effect,” he announced. “The observation of subatomic particles. That’s what this reminds me of.”

               “Is everyone here today a physician?”

               “I host a podcast on science,” Trina announced proudly, as though this was legitimate credentials.

               “You mean physicist,” the man corrected, unimpressed with us both.

               “You’re not a scientist,” Alice said dubiously, staring at his pink hair.

               “I never claimed I was. No, I’m an actor, but I used to play a physicist on a not very well known television series.”

               “It all makes sense now,” she said, staring at his hair.

               “What makes sense?” the man asked, narrowing eyes.

               “Like your whole,” she gestured vaguely at him, still staring at his hair. “Fake scientist façade. You talk like you know but the words coming out of your face aren’t logical.”

               The man scowled. “You were staring at my hair.”

               “Was I?” She said with an impish smile.

It started with the small things, simple things like footprints. Then soon people couldn’t lift anything without someone watching. It was scary and frustrating, however, there were those few who delighted in their newfound abilities to flit between solid walls.

It was like we were fading out of existence when no one was watching, unable to interact with the physical world.

The Observer Effect, as Samuel Torres, or ‘Mr. Actor’, as Alice still liked to call him, had explained that when subatomic particles are observed they act like particles, but once they are no longer being observed, they act like waves instead. We weren’t sure if this was what was happening to us. Were our bodies turning into waves? It seemed convincing, but so did Google when it advised us of our impending death by cancer. We had no real experts to guide us and so deferred instead to our almost physicist, Samuel Torres and our physics enthusiast, Trina Winters.

Our little group of four had begun to meet almost every night. Jeremy was always first, being a PHD student, still living at home and off his parent’s goodwill and with not much else on. Alice would turn up just before Trina’s shift, complaining loudly about sexism in the workplace and boasting how she had put those old boys in their places, before downing three beers. One immediately after the other. I would arrive next and Samuel would flit in randomly in between, depending on the day, his mood, the weather and which stars aligned. It had been fun at first, theorising and throwing in all the usual conspiracy theory suspects - the men in black, the new world order, the Illuminati, aliens - while Trina hurriedly took notes for her Podcast, which had shifted its focus from general musings on new scientific discoveries to the journey and observations of our little town.

Then people and animals started disappearing. It was only one at first. A 5 year old girl called Emily Mandrake went out into her backyard to play one day and vanished. Then there was another. Then another. And another disappearance. No pattern in the age, gender, nationality of the victims and no bodies were ever discovered.

               “We have to watch each other even more carefully now,” Samuel sighed. “My wife’s friend and kids went to see a movie last night. Her husband had vanished when they returned.”

               “One of my colleagues didn’t come in to work today,” Alice said in an unusually muted tone. “She lives alone. Someone said they would go check on her but we already know what happened.”

               “A lot of high school kids are apparently live streaming their every move.” Jeremy told us. “It’s crazy out there. Everyone is scared to be alone. Scared to sleep even.”

After the fifth vanishing, they came. Government agents. Military. They set up fences and patrols. They didn’t answer any questions. They didn’t let us leave either. We supposed they didn’t want it to spread.

               “What is it?” We hissed, tightly huddled around a table in the bar. Echoing our strange, morbid routine half-heartedly.

Bodies crowded into the small space, standing anywhere where there was space. No one cared that there weren’t enough tables or chairs, they only hoped to remain observed. To remain safe.

“Maybe it’s not us fading out of existence. Maybe the town is, and the ones who vanished made it out the other side and are waiting for us in the real world.” Trina said.

No one contradicted her even though none of us believed it.

Jeremy shrugged, whole body hunched over. “Can subatomic particles can get sick? Contract a virus?”

               “I wouldn’t think so,” Trina said softly.

               “Not in the traditional sense,” Samuel said. “But what do we really know of how the world works? It could be something alien. A hack.”

               “Are you suggesting, this town is the new Area 52?” Trina asked. “Like do they do experiments on alien tech underground or somethin’? Did we catch some outer space bug? Or did some outer space bug catch us?”

               Alice rolled her eyes. “You watch too many horror movies.”

               “I doubt it’s that simple,” Samuel said. “It may not have even come from outer space, it could have come from the ocean or from underground. Maybe it developed naturally. Maybe it’s a reaction to the nuclear tests, an adaption or evolution.”

               Alice harrumphed. “And you act in too many horror movies.”

               “Then what do you think it is?” I asked her.

               “I think it doesn’t matter what it is. This doesn’t seem like something they are going to understand or fix anytime soon. Not like fast enough anyhow. If they don’t want this spreading…” she paused for dramatic effect. “Well if I were them, I’d like wipe this town from the planet.”

The table was silent for a few moments as everyone digested this.

               “Hell,” Jeremy whistled. “So would I.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

               “If we want to survive this. We need to get out of here and quick,” Alice suggested in a lowered voice.

               “Isn’t that kind of selfish?” Trina asked. “I mean, what if we do spread it?”

               “You’re going to just let them kill you, not knowing for sure if like that’s how it even works?” Alice challenged. “How do you know it hasn’t already spread?” No one answered.

“Maybe if we do get out there, we don’t touch anything for a while. Just until were sure. We can’t risk spreading this thing to anyone else.” I said.

               “Like wandering spirits,” Trina said softly. Sadly.

“Ok,” Alice sat upright, indicating that it was decision time. “Who’s in?”

               “I don’t know,” Trina sounded torn.

               “If we are going to do this, we need to act as soon as possible.” I said. Alice already had my vote. “Right now, all they have is a fence and a few guards. In a few days they might have two fences and double the guards. In a couple of weeks they may have built a wall.”

               “Or there might not be a town,” Alice said with a stony glare at the group. “Discuss it with your family. Make your decision today. For those who want to leave, we leave tomorrow night.”

               “And whatever happens, keep an eye on each other.” Samuel said.

Five groups left our little town the next night, moving swiftly through fresh snow. Each choosing a different direction and section of fence to cut through and wishing each other luck.

Most of our little group and families had grown up in this town. We understood the land in a way the soldiers couldn’t ever hope to and easily found a way past the fence and into the dense forest.

               “Wait,” I said as we passed the first few trees. I looked back at the short trail of footprints we had made in the snow then took the short wooden plank we had brought with us and retraced our steps back to the cut fence. I dragged it softly behind me.

I left no footprints in the snow.