Dorothy and the Harm

When I woke from the long nap, it took me a while to realize that I had, in fact, died. 

The Long Nap- a poetic way to consider it, don’t you think? It was true, mostly. I’d fallen asleep, dreamed a thousand dreams, and simply... woken up.

That’s the best way I could describe it. 

When I opened my eyes, I discovered I was in a house. Not my house, or any house I’d ever been in. I’d never been in this house.

The person living here had (and I say this with as much kindness as I can) an absolute obsession with angels. 

The little porcelain kind, with the painted blonde hair and the brassy halos and little weepy eyes pleading up at the heavens. 

Hundreds- thousands. Everywhere.

Absolutely terrifying. 

Fleshy little babies peeked from the bookshelf, pointed wings spiked up like mountains on the fireplace mantle, tiny pinched prayer hands jabbed the air like knives on top of an upright piano. Every space, it seemed, featured either an angel or some kind of scary angel body part. 

There were even angels on the wallpaper, one right after another like identical soldiers marching against the color of warm cream soda.

I cringed away from it all, floating to the exact center of the room.

It was all very strange and ironic, to be honest. 

Me, floating there, all awkward air and nervous vapor. Me, actually dead, not an angel, surrounded by nothing but angels.

How long had I been gone, anyway?

I lifted my hand to check my phone out of habit, but of course I didn’t have it. I also didn’t have an arm, it turned out. I had no body at all, actually. 

Panic bubbled up within me, as I examined my non-body.

Okay. Not good. 

I whirled around on the spot. Angels and angels and angels watched me as I felt my breathing quicken, searching my body for one indication that I still actually had one.

What do I do? I thought in desperation. What do I do?

I looked down at my non-hands, my non-legs and feet.

Can anyone see me? What do I do?

The sound of a door opening and closing drew my attention.

An old woman, looking about two-hundred years old, limped and trembled from the front door and made her way to the fireplace mantle. 

I slipped out of her way like a ribbon in water, watching her. 

Can she help me? Can she see me? 

In her gnarled hand, the woman held a picture frame. “A gift!” she exclaimed, in a warbly, fragile voice, before standing on her tiptoes with great difficulty and wobbling the picture frame next to an old clock on the mantle.

I glanced at the clock face (an angel at each hour, of course) and back at the woman. 

Is she talking... to me?

“Can you believe that, Sneaky?” the woman’s voice wavered. “What a joy- What a- You know, I haven’t talked to her in...” the elderly woman trailed off, bringing her hands together. She turned, and her soft eyes fell to the ground, landing with a look of love on something small and black near the bottom of me. 

Of course. 

I floated out of the way, drifting up to the corner of the room. 

She’s talking to a cat.

Sneaky the cat watched as I settled into the corner. 

I frowned at her.

What are you looking at? I mustered with all the thought-energy I could. (At least, that’s what it felt like. My thoughts seemed physical. Speaking with my thoughts felt like effort, like I was doing push-ups with my brain.)

“Hungry, Sneaky? Sleepy?”

Sneaky only observed me as the old woman approached her, her green eyes unblinking.

Leave me alone! I urged, glancing between the two of them. 

I didn’t know if the woman would notice that her cat was acting strangely and would discover she had a ghost in the house, but something told me I couldn’t let that happen. Something told me I had to stay hidden.

“Ought to write her a thank-you card,” the woman whispered, lifting a finger and hobbling over to sink into a worn floral armchair. She pulled the string of a beaded lamp atop a small rickety desk, illuminating the space with dusty yellow light.

Sneaky apparently grew bored of watching me and turned to leap into the woman’s lap, curling around herself to take a nap. 

Is this some kind of limbo? I thought, staring at the old woman incredulously. Purgatory?

I looked around at all the angels watching me, strangely demonic-looking now in the golden low-light. I recoiled, withdrawing myself further into the corner.

Is this… Hell?

It was then that I noticed the message.

Although… it wasn’t a message, in the obvious sense. There wasn’t a letter or writing on the wall. There wasn’t anything that would remotely resemble what one might think of as a message. Yet I knew it was a message, for me.

 I felt it. 

I gazed at the sliver of smoke emerging from behind the clock on the mantle. It wisped toward the ceiling, as faint as a whisper, yearning me to reach out and pull it.

I floated over. 

It called me. I felt it ask me to open it. 

So, with a slight pull of the energy around me, I did. 

Welcome, Alex!

I drew back, startled. I had heard it, felt it, seen it, but nothing was there. The smoke, even, was gone.

It sounded, it felt, as if the message came both from within the clock and from within my own self, from that place where I thought my soul might have lived. It was like I was in two places at once, almost. Like I was hearing a voice from inside a dream.

You probably have a few questions. 

Well, that’s certainly true. I glanced around the room at all the angels with a small amount of bitterness. 

You have been assigned to Dorothy Hubert. 

Dorothy is ninety-three, widowed, and has an affinity for collecting things. She’s actually quite funny, in a quirky way, despite her depressive episodes. I’ve had the pleasure of spending the past ten years with her, listening to her ramblings, her thoughts, her hopes and dreams. She talks to me. Or rather, she talks to the cat, and I listen. Sneaky’s harmless, by the way. A bit aggravating-

I glanced at Sneaky. From her curled position in the old woman’s lap, she lifted her head to eye me with deep suspicion, her tail whipping. I wondered wildly if Sneaky could hear the voice, too.

-but she’s a good kitty. Keeps Dorothy company, and boy, does she need it. Poor woman’s the loneliest I’ve seen yet. It’s terribly sad. She needs help, but perhaps she’s too old to realize it.

I looked over at Dorothy. For ninety-three years old, she worked with a surprisingly deft hand, scribbling on a slip of stationery in the lamplight. Her wrinkled brow furrowed, and she adjusted her reading glasses just so. She murmured something to herself, and Sneaky turned at the noise.

I’m sure you’re wondering what all of this means, and what you’re doing here, and why. Well, I can tell you the first two things, but I cannot tell you the third, unfortunately. That’s for you to figure out.

I floated away from the mantle, from Dorothy and Sneaky, to find a comfy spot of air at the piano. I frowned, listening.

You have died. I do hope you’ve figured that much out before this moment. It can be quite a shock, but do not worry, there’s nothing to fret about. I have died, too, and in fact, every human being has died, or will die at some point. It’s quite normal. And it’s going to be okay.

I huffed, dropping my phantom chin into a phantom hand, my elbow on the piano shelf. Perhaps this is all a dream, I mused, allowing myself a delicious moment of fantasy. Perhaps I’m in a coma. Perhaps I will wake up, for real, and everything will be-

I paused, my attention arrested by something strange. 

The dust on the piano had moved. 

It swirled in a small stream of air, away from where my invisible elbow had dropped to rest.

I retracted myself immediately, alarmed.

As a ghost, the message continued, as I stared wide-eyed at the dust now settling back onto the piano, you have the ability to manipulate your environment, in various ways. It’s difficult even for me, a seasoned ghost, to describe, but you’ll get a hold of it eventually. In general, matter is of no consequence to us ghosts, but it does take a certain amount of practice to get used to it. At this point you probably still feel as if you occupy a body. I know it’s odd, but you don’t anymore. You’re just feeling what you’ve gotten used to feeling. But what you need to do now is transcend that experience. Let go of that feeling. Just… be.

I gaped at the clock. What did it mean, ‘just... be’? They still hadn’t explained what I was doing here and what exactly they meant by me being assigned to this old woman. I shut my mouth, standing up to peer into the clock face. It was a normal clock, other than the decorative angels, but normal nonetheless. In fact, when I thought about it, everything felt normal to me. As normal as one could feel with an invisible ghost body, I guess, I thought.

I’ve decided to help you out a bit. Trust me, you’ll need it. I wish someone had done something like this for me when I first became a ghost, but alas, I had to learn the hard way. All-right. I’d like you to stretch out your… hands, or what you consider to be your hands. Please.

I blinked, and then obliged, feeling stupid.

Now, what you need to do is imagine the air around you as sort of, full of music, kind of, vibratory, in a way-

My face twisted into an expression of cynicism. 

-And what you’re gonna do is PUSH the music with your mind. Give it a good strong PUSH.

I almost laughed. Sure, I thought. Right. Okay. I scrunched up my face, focusing on the air around me, my arms outstretched like some kind of witch in a cartoon. 

Nothing happened.

I tried again, taking it a bit more seriously this time, allowing my eyes to close and my breathing to even out before pushing with my mind against the air.

Nothing. 

I know I’m not explaining this in the best way, probably, but it’s pretty difficult stuff to describe. You’ll get it eventually. Just practice. It helps me to imagine it as music. That might not make much sense to you, I’m afraid, but that is how it works for me. Music. Vibrating strings. Tangible molecules. Like the air is something to touch.

I let my phantom hands fall to my sides, glowering at the clock. You’re not helpful at all, I spat. Why is this even important, anyway?

As if the ghost in the clock heard me, it responded in a low voice.

It is important that you learn how to do this, because this is how you’ll protect her.

I frowned. Protect her? I looked over at Dorothy and the cat, watching as Dorothy licked the top of an envelope before pressing it closed. 

Alex. 

The voice in the clock grew soft, and I turned back to look at it. I drifted closer. 

You’re not being punished. You’re not being rewarded. You’ve simply been allowed, once again, to be. Like many before you and many after, you have been given a gift. 

The voice was growing fainter and fainter, and I had to hold an ear to the clock, a hand against my soul, to understand it. 

You’ve been given more time, Alex.

You have been given a second chance.

But what am I protecting her from? I wanted to yell, panicked, as the voice in the clock faded to silence. You haven’t told me enough! You haven’t told me much at all! What am I supposed to DO?

But the voice in the clock said no more, and I pulled away from it, a sense of dread overcoming me.

I turned to see Dorothy wobble to her feet, pull the lamp-string, and plunge the room in darkness.

I watched her scoot along the floor, ancient and frail, Sneaky the cat sauntering behind her. I watched her until she exited the room through a door off to the side, a four-post bed just visible behind her. Sneaky turned around, shooting me one last look. 

An acknowledgment. A statement. A warning.

Before I could determine what to do with that, they both disappeared behind Dorothy’s bedroom door, shutting closed between us.

At precisely that moment, as the clock struck midnight, as I backed away from the center of the room, as I shut my eyes against the dark, foreboding apprehension you feel when danger itself approaches, I felt the Harm. 

It slipped and coiled into the room like a strip of poison gas, tentative, searching. 

I backed away, into the corner.

Stinking, the vapor oozed around the corner of Dorothy’s chair, sniffing around the back of it. It left behind an oily trail of negativity, of despair and cruelty that felt distinctly human. In one greenish smear, the Harm felt like all the terrible heartbreak and tragedy and disappointment I’d endured as a human condensed into something tangible, something slippery and shifty, something that, if touched, would harm me.

Would harm Dorothy.

I froze, unsure what to do. 

I shrunk from it in the same way a dog cowers under an angry shout, when dogs don’t understand language as humans do.

I watched it twist and prod around the room. I carefully avoided it, lagging far enough behind so that I didn’t have to move though its putrid trail. 

This must be what I need to protect Dorothy from, I thought, glancing at the clock. What even is it? What does it do?

But I knew. Deep down, I knew. 

It was Harm, and it was something I was quite familiar with.

I reached out my hands before me, invisible, and tentatively moved my fingers through the air like I was playing the piano.

I don’t know why I did it like that. It just came to me. There was something about seeing the Harm, watching it float around the room like a hungry snake, that stirred something within me. It was like the Harm had jostled me awake, like the threat of it hurting sweet old Dorothy had opened some kind of protective instinct within me I didn’t know I had. 

I felt what I needed to do. 

But, it turned out I didn’t make a very good ghost. 

I didn’t make a very good ghost at all.

Nothing happened.

Even though I felt the molecules bump and brush against my fingers, my eyes closed as I worked them, nothing happened. 

The Harm wound its way through the room, meandering toward Dorothy’s door.

No, I thought, trying harder. I clenched my eyes shut again, fingers extended, trying, hoping, urging myself to make it work, to make it happen-

Nothing. 

I began to panic. Kicking off from the wall, I flew after the Harm, no longer caring if I got some of it on me. I tried to steady my breath, landing as close as I dared to it’s aura.

Imagine it’s music. 

Imagine it’s something tangible, something to pull or push. 

The Harm grew closer to Dorothy’s door. I shut my eyes, extending my hands.

Like strings. 

Imagine it’s your favorite song. Imagine it’s a lullaby. Imagine it’s Mom, singing-

My eyes fluttered open. 

The Harm ahead of me jerked and shuddered. 

Like a fish, caught on a hook, it flopped against the air.

It worked.

Setting my mouth, I pulled.

The Harm wriggled and writhed against my power, bucking against the line of truth and determination I’d constructed from the air around me. It whipped around, hissing, furious that I’d caught it.

I concentrated, feeling as if I had to pull from within my soul itself, from deep down within my being to bring the Harm closer. 

Suddenly, like a blast of cool air, the realization struck me.

I hesitated.

I recognized it. 

That Harm was familiar.

I concentrated again on bringing the Harm away from Dorothy, closer to me. I had the intention of yanking it close and flinging it away, perhaps in the direction of the front door, pushing it out, away, gone from here.

But, the familiarity of it pierced me all the way down to the very vibrations that made up my soul.

I faltered, and the Harm stuttered with me. 

I felt my eyes open again. I stared at that horrible wisp of evil, feeling every memory, every ounce of fury, all the desperation and hopelessness of my past life rise up at once inside me. 

All at once, I understood.

I yanked on the Harm, slinging it toward me and away, letting go at the perfect moment. It soared through the walls of the house and landed far away, where it’d be unable to bother us again for a long while.

A still silence filled the household.

‘...this is how you’ll protect her.’ 

I took a deep, shuddering breath. I knew at last what my purpose was, in this strange afterlife. 

Although I wasn’t the best ghost, I would learn to protect Dorothy. All that I’d experienced in my past life led me to this. 

I had been assigned to Dorothy Hubert for a reason.

We shared the same harm. 

This time, Dorothy would survive it.

I pursed my lips, floating to stand guard by her door.

This time, I promised, Dorothy will survive.