Ain't life a dream

"Jessie." An echo rang in her ears. She felt like she was being pulled out of a pool of water. Everything felt slow and fuzzy.

"Jessie. Wake up." The voice said, louder this time. 

The next thing she heard were birds. Then, the smell of damp moss and a forest after rainfall. She couldn't move yet. She felt the earth under her, wet but not muddy. 

"There you go, you're okay. You're safe." Safe? Why wouldn't she be safe, she thought as the voice rang clearer in her ears.

Gaining the feeling back in her hands, with a brush of fingertips over the ground beneath her, she knew she was on moist earth. 

As the rest of her body gained feeling, the last thing that seemed to be working were her eyes. She blinked them open, and she looked up. Branches and leaves spread out like a system of veins across the open sky. Breathing in, she smelled the fresh air after a rainstorm.

Forgetting the voice from a moment ago, she came to her full senses. With a lot of questions. Had she fallen asleep in the forest in her backyard? Attempting to sit up, she looked around, and it looked like she was still in Oregon, but not a forest she knew. 

Looking down, she realized she was dressed, thank God. She wore jeans, a blondie t-shirt, and a light jacket she'd tossed on in a rush that morning. The only thing missing were her shoes. 

"Where the hell are my shoes?" She said to herself but was surprised at the response.

"Ah, yes, those didn't seem to follow you through. Likely due to what happened right before." A voice she realized that was male. 

"Before? What happened before?" She turned and asked the man to her left. 

He had short, blonde, scruffy hair and a 5'o clock shadow on his face. Maybe in his mid-thirties. Round wire-rimmed glasses and dressed similarly to Jessie. Jeans, a Ramones t-shirt, and old dirty vans. 

Getting to her feet, she looked around and could tell it was mid-morning, and she was definitely in a forest. But how had she gotten here? 

The last thing she could remember was getting ready that morning for work. To her bookshop just outside of Portland. She tried to remember, but the memories kept rushing away from her. 

Closing her eyes and rubbing her hands over her face, she tried to recount her morning; she got to work, and she was doing inventory. No. She didn't get to work; she had to go in early to do inventory. Jessie did remember riding her bike to work and stopping for coffee. Remembering the taste of the sweet vanilla cream from her triple shot latte, as if it were still on her tongue. 

"It usually takes a minute for it to come back. I can't answer any questions, so I'll be here when you're ready." Said the short man; she ignored it as her recent memories started coming back to her.

It had started to rain while she was on her way to work. Then she got a frantic call from her Mom about something her little sister had done. Lizzie had dyed her hair green or something before her own wedding. And then…that was it. Blackness. But she remembered a loud screeching sound and maybe the sound of a horn? She questioned her memory.

Wait a second. She thought.

"Am I dead?" Spinning to the man, shocked and confused. 

He gave a shrug and a half smile.

"Yeah. I'm so sorry." He paused. 

He looked at her and then the ground as if the next thing he should say would be found down at his shoes.

"You got there faster than most. Which may make things a bit easier for you. It's best to process and accept it instead of trying to make sense of it. People go mad trying to logicize their way through this." He said with another shrug and a wave of his hands.

"Through what? What is this? Where the fuck am I?" She was starting to hyperventilate.

"I'm not sure what this place is called, but it looks like we're in the Pacific Northwest, and based on your vibe, I'm going to say somewhere near Portland or Oregon. It's different every time I meet someone new." He said with that half smile she was growing to hate.

"New? What do you mean? Did you kidnap me? I don't have money, and neither do my parents. The only thing of value I have is my bike, so go for it and piss off!" She said, getting angry. She looked for her bike; maybe she could use it as a weapon.

This little shit. She thought. Kidnapping me? Why? She stood a little taller and started walking towards him.

He put his hands up, and she looked at him closer; he looked familiar. She knew that face.

"Wait a second. Weren't you that guy on the news who was piloting a private jet for some pop star and fell asleep and crashed? You're dead. Aren't you? What the hell is going on?" Coming at him again, fists raised. But he put his hands up again, and she paused.

"Okay, look, you seem like a brass tacks sort of gal, so I'll make this simple. Yes, I'm Henry St. Josephson. I was a pilot. I got drunk and fell asleep while flying my plane for the latest tween pop star; I couldn't even tell you her name. We crashed. We died. I'm here to guide you and others who die in accidents to their next chapter. I didn't kidnap you. Your bike isn't here. And there are no weapons here. So, do you want to step the fuck back and hear the run down of what you do here or not?" He said with an exasperated breath after his clearly practiced speech.

Frowning at him, she was a brass tacks sort of gal and weirdly calm about the whole dead thing. She, of course, had questions, but this could be like the lobby of the afterlife, and answers would come later. As an avid reader, she could imagine something this loopy happening; she never dreamed it would happen to her. But, here she was. In a forest with a stranger, no shoes, and she was dead. 

"Fine, what do I do?" She said, exasperating herself, putting her lifted fists down to her sides.

"Wow." He said with genuine shock. "That rarely works, but you know what, I'm a bit tired, so I'll take it." He walked up to her and turned her around by her shoulders.

As they approached a path, she mused that he smelled of smoke and tequila.

"You see that road?" He said, stopping and pointing to the dirt path before them.

"Yes." She said, turning to look down in both directions. The left went off on a curvy path deeper into the forest, and to her right, the path was clipped off by a boulder. Her direction was made clear.

"You are going to walk down it until you see me again. Got it?" He said, stepping back and looking at her. 

"Oh, and don't worry about your shoes; you're dead; nothing can happen here. I can't hurt you, and nothing else can either." Looking annoyed, he raised his eyebrows as if he wanted to leave.

"Um, okay. What are you going to do, follow me?" She said.

"No, I have to go meet another soul. So if you could get going, I'll see you soon. Okay? Great." Walking off and then stopping, he took a tired breath and looked back at her.

"I'm sorry you're dead. Hopefully, this path will give you some peace, and the next time you see me, maybe I can help you move on." Then he walked off and faded away.

Confused but slowly coming to acceptance. Jessie looked down the trail; she didn't see any trail markers but was game to see what came next. She began walking as she tried to piece together what had happened to her. The walk was peaceful; coming out of what happened gave her time to clear her head.

After what seemed like an hour, she reached a point in the path where it got wider, and from what she could see, every few feet, next to the path was a wooden trail sign. But they were large, with writing and what looked like pictures.

As she got closer to the first one, she saw it was a picture of her 4th birthday, and the writing was the invite she and her Mom chose to send out to all their family and neighbors for the backyard party. 

"What the fuck?" She said as she walked to the next wooden panel. 

This next was a picture of her holding her younger sister, who had just been born. Jesse was six, and Lizzie looked asleep in her arms. Her Mom sat in a chair beside them, looking tired but smiling at them both. And the writing on the panel was the announcement her Dad had sent proudly out to everyone they knew, announcing the new addition to the family.

She ran to the next one, and it was a picture of her grinning with a missing front tooth and a ponytail with a ribbon around it. She was in third grade with her favorite teacher, and they were both grinning while holding up a medal. She'd won the school writing contest. 

"Holy shit. Are these my memories?" She said with a confused smile. 

Walking through the trail, she relived every memory she held dear. She graduated high school and got her first new bike that wasn't a piece of junk the family picked up at a yard sale. Her first boyfriend from college and their road trip down Route 1. 

Jessie paused a little longer at the memory of her Dad's funeral, where he had asked that no one was black and screened all of Mel Brook's movies at his wake, not pictures of him. So he could share one last laugh with those he loved. Wiping a tear from her eye, she wondered if she would see him again.

Moving on, she saw the memory of her graduating college and a picture of her Mom and sister staring at all the books Jessie had acquired during school; she chuckled as they tried to fit everything in her tiny jeep. 

The next one shows her smiling in front of the newly bought bookstore she had dreamed of owning since she was a kid. And the last significant memory from last week was her sister's engagement party with her college sweetheart. The picture showed Lizzie and her new fiancé smiling at each other as they toasted. 

"Fuck, I'm going to miss her wedding." She said with a sigh.

Looking up, she could tell the light hadn't changed. She'd been walking for hours, and the sun was still in the same place she had been when she arrived. 

"Odd." Jessie mused.

Looking down the path, there were no more panels, but ahead was a set of stairs and a paved road that ran over what looked like an ocean. She saw Henry walking towards it from out of the woods.

"Hey! How'd you do?" He shouted as he clambered out of the woods and onto the top of the steps.

"Okay, I guess, kinda crazy to see all those memories and realize that life is just done," Jessie said as she approached him.

Awkwardly standing in front of each other now, she put her hands in her pockets and rocked on her heels.

"Now what?" She said.

"Well, now is the tricky part. You have a choice." He said with a smile, bigger than seemed natural for him.

"Okay, and what are my options." She said she was hopeful one of them was to go back and get a second chance.

"Sorry, this isn't a second chance kinda deal. I wish I could offer that, but no. Instead, you can keep walking on this path and see what is coming. Or, you can 'move on'." He said, using air quotes with his fingers.

"And what does 'move on' mean?" She said sarcastically, mimicking his air quotes.

"Well, that's the thing, I can't say. I'm the guy who relays the message, and you move on. I can't say where you go. Or you keep walking. So yeah, not fantastic options, and both pretty ambiguous, but it's my job to share and guide you through whatever your choice is."

"Yeah, those options suck, Henry." She breathed out and looked around. 

"Well, I'm not ready for the big ending if that's what it is, so I think I'll walk down that road and go from there. Sound good?" She stated as she headed towards the paved road over the ocean.

"Sure. I'll see on the other end." He said with a somber sigh she didn't notice.

As she walked this road, she noticed no trail markers were showing her memories. This time, they were small pilotless planes with giant banners streaming behind them. She had to shield her eyes from the sun and wind to make them out.

They looked like memories as well, but not hers. As Jessie went on, it looked like they were Henry's. After graduating high school, he was in an Air Force uniform, then what looked like a wedding. Then it got grim; there were a lot of memories of him and the woman from his wedding photos in and out of the hospital, her bald and sickly but smiling with a party hat on as he showed her the picture of his first private plane and an ad for his private plane business. 

Then, a somber picture of them holding hands and seeing him tired but smiling for her. And eventually, one of him hugged what looked to be his brother in a crowd of people, wearing all black. 

Looking ahead, she didn't see or hear any other planes; she felt bad for Henry. It seemed he had such a joyful life until he didn't. She couldn't help thinking more about him and how he got to where he was now. It explained the drinking, she mused.

She walked towards another set of steps at the end of the paved street; it looked like it went down to a garden gate. Once she got there, she looked over it and saw an open meadow with a friendly dirt road and flowers.

She heard a rustle to the right and saw Henry sitting on a small garden bench, looking at the ocean behind her.

"I'm assuming you put two and two together on whose memories those were." He said, not looking at her, still lounging on the bench.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry." She said and walked towards the bench, sitting next to him. She felt like she knew him like they were friends now. 

"That's life, isn't it? Things have a beginning, middle, and end. Do you want to see what your next beginning is?" He said, turning to her with a small smile.

"If I'm not, whose memories will I see past that gate?" She said, looking at him and taking him fully in for the first time. He looked sad and tired.

"No clue, it's different every time. The pattern goes, it's the dead person's memories, then mine, then someone else's." He said, looking back at the water.

"I can't handle seeing someone else's life like that. I think I'm ready for the next chapter." She said; he jolted and turned to her, grabbing her hands.

"Really? Are you sure?" He said excitedly.

"Um, yeah, I don't want to do that again, so let's go, I guess." She said with a shrug.

"Wow, okay, yeah, alright. Here we go. You'll feel a pull, and then you'll wake up somewhere." He said hurriedly. "Thank you, Lizzie, really. I wish you all the best." He said, and he closed his eyes. 

She did the same; the next thing she knew, she was being pulled into darkness.  

She woke up with a jolt and looked around. She is on a bench in a vast, empty park with a single sidewalk curving through an endless, quiet city. She felt something on her lap. Looking down, it's a folded piece of paper. She opens it and reads.

"Hey, Lizzie, I'm really sorry to have tricked you, but you have no idea how long I've been there, guiding souls through all those memories, and no one wants to pass one. Reliving my own over and over. It was torture. The deal I'm supposed to share with you is that you are now a guide until you get 100 souls to 'move on.' Stuck, walking people through memories until one hundred people choose to go to their next beginning. They are reborn into their new life, and their old memories are wiped away.

But they have to choose, you can't make them, and you can't tell them what will happen. If you do, you go somewhere else; I assume it's terrible. It took longer than I'd like to get people to move on; maybe I'm not convincing enough, and perhaps you'll do better. Again, I'm sorry, but you have to buck up. Your first soul should be there in a bit. Good luck, brass tacks girl."

Looking up in horror and rage, she saw a young woman lying ahead of her at the start of the path. Crumpling up the letter and stuffing it in her pocket, she stood and wiped away the angry tears.

Looking at the woman who was starting to come to. Shaking her head, she knew this would be annoying as hell. 

Fucking Henry. She thought. She walked towards the woman, and realization came in waves. It wasn't some random woman.

It was her sister. Lizzie.

"Shit."