My Dream Come True

*This story contains sensitive content regarding the events of September 11th, 2001.

"I wasn't expecting that!" ---the first line of dialogue I read in what must have been the quadrillionth book I picked up that morning.

"Are you sure I can't help you find something?"

"Oh...no thank you! I'm fine!" I assured the eager bookstore clerk.

It was my new Saturday practice to go out for a coffee ---light and sweet with stevia and oat milk. After getting the bougie coffee, I went hunting for a copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that sported one of the earlier covers of the laughing Vogon and hitchhiker's hand. The black background and adorable blob of a green alien appealed to me and I wanted no other version. Finding this book was the best way to get me out of bed and moving on a Saturday in my desperate attempt to feel normal, purposeful, and useful in this life. So out into the world I went that fateful day in December, a few days after Christmas, fighting my inner demons that were begging me to stay home. 

I have to admit I was enjoying myself and didn't want my search to end. I liked wandering aimlessly around the used bookstore, smelling the pages, wondering where these books had been. They made me feel connected to my soon-to-be, then late fiance. Who read all these books? What homes did they come from, and what life events happened to their readers when they were reading them? Did any of their readers have an untimely, violent death? Even the stories had stories, I imagined.

After spotting a Dickens classic and giving it a brush along the spine with my fingertip, the Earth shook Jersey with tremendous force. I truly wasn't expecting that. How ironic. A couple of moments later, the ground settled and I proceeded to hoist myself off the ground.

"Ughhhh...I'm getting too old for this shit!" I announced to no one while grabbing the built-in shelves and pulling my prearthritic knees off the floor.

"Still as saucy as ever!"

"Excuuuuuuse me? Did you say something?"

I looked in the direction of a tall, slender man in the Classics section. He was wearing a denim jacket and a baseball cap turned backwards. His build was familiar. 6'1, fit, about 185 pounds. That's all I could tell from the back. I mean he also had a great ass. Just sayin'.

"I'm sorry...do I KNOW you?" I asked.

"Yes, Monkey, you do."

"Monkey???" Nobody had called me that pet name in YEARS! I felt the blood rush out of my face on direct route to my stomach. I immediately dry-heaved and held both my stomach and my mouth at the same time. Tears welled up in my eyes. Ever wonder how you will react in a particular moment? Flight, fright, or freeze? This one froze me to my core. 

My eyes being the only thing that could move, I looked around the entire store. Was this some sort of sick joke??? Realizing that nobody was left in the store, not even the overzealous bookstore attendant, it registered in my numb brain that everything was aglow in an eerie, purplish haze. I was preparing to pass out in 3,2,1...

"Monkey?" He said it again as he turned around to face me, and that's when my mouth regained movement dropping my jaw to my toes. My brain tried to connect to its speech department, but nothing came out.

"It's me!"

The cheesy mustache, devilish grin, and twinkling eyes...I was screaming inside my head when all that came out was a whisper

"pete???"

"It's me, Babe!"

"Whaaaaa.....how???? NO!"

"It's really me, it's okay."

I shook my head and eyed him up from head to toe. No scars or disfigurements. No detectable limps or prosthetics.

"You found me, Monkey...you did it!" 

"Okay, I don't know if I'm talking to a figment of my imagination or what right now, but what in the actual FUCK are you talking about? Who ARE you? Really!"

"That's it? No hug? No 'Oh my God, I've missed you?' Just, 'What in the actual fuck?' Maybe I'm the one who should be saying that!" 

"Well forgive me, please, but this is one helluva shock. Don't ya think? I mean it's only been a little over 23 years since you were fucking blown up in the World Trade Center!!!"

"Maybe you could cut back on the swearing...it IS Christmas time AND my birthday."

"Shit...I mean holy crap you're right! I'm sorry...yes of course...today would have been your 60th birthday!!!  

He chuckled and took a couple of steps closer to me. "Yeah, it would have been. Can you believe it? I would have been a frickin' mess down here! I was wound tight about being 36!"

"Frickin? Since when do YOU say 'frickin'?' You're the king of the F bomb! Anyway. whatever. What do you mean 'down here?' Are you HERE or are you not here? I'm so frickin' confused right now! And let me say THIS...if you are here, like REALLY here...first I'm gonna kiss you and then second...I'm gonna kill you myself! Where the HELL have you been???" Do you have ANY idea what we've been through? Not having a body, not knowing EXACTLY what killed you ---were you blown up, burned to death, knocked unconscious by a beam, incinerated, asphyxiated by smoke, or did you JUMP??? Do you know I watched footage of people jumping to their deaths, Pete, trying to figure out if any of them were YOU? I can't unsee that!"

"I'm so sorry you had to live through that, Zoe. I really am. If I could have kept that from happening, I would have. I wish I would have stayed home with you longer when I doubled back to the apartment. I was out of the parking lot and half way down the road when I realized I'd forgotten to kiss you goodbye, and when I came back I should have stayed home longer with you until you left for work. I can't change that, Zoe, but I AM here now, though it's only for today. You unlocked a way to see me again. Let's not spend our little bit of time together being angry."

"I am forever grateful that you came back to say goodbye to me that morning, trust me, very sweet, but WHAT??? How did I unlock a way to see you? If I knew there was a way to do that I would have done it YEARS ago! And what the actual f...I mean this is a cruel thing to do to me, don't you think? I haven't seen you for over 23 years. You were violently ripped out of my life, your whole family's life and you're only here for ONE day? What the hell, Pete? 

Tears started flowing, my body convulsing with sobs and searing pain. He rushed over to me and TOUCHED ME! He wasn't a ghost! I collapsed as he caught me and lowered me to the floor putting my head in his lap. I could touch him, smell him and feel his energy so close to mine again.

I sat up to look him in the eyes, face to face. I wasn't about to waste any time with him looking at the floor.

"I can't believe you're really here! Do you KNOW how many times I've dreamt of this? How do I know this isn't the same thing...AGAIN!"

I DO know how many times. Babe, that's how I've stayed connected to you all these years. Remember when I told you not to let strangers into the house after I died because there were imposters coming around our apartment complex robbing people? I had to shout in your face until you acknowledged me, remember?"

"Ummmmm hmmmm" I uttered through the tears.

"Remember the dream when you were out a bar with new people and you spotted me across the room looking at you? You refused to go socialize? What did I mouth to you?"

"You have to do it...go!" (more sobs.)

And do you remember the one where I looked down at you from that clear staircase and crouched down to look through the floor at you? What did I say that time?

"I'm okay"

"That's my girl!" He said as he stroked my cheek and tucked my hair back behind my ear like he always did. I've always been with you. And in my defense, you told me several times you DON'T want to see me, because you're afraid of ghosts, even if it's me."

"That's true," I laughed.  "I did say that to you several times. But you never listen anyway, so why start now? But why are you here THIS time? I could have used you a million times before now."

"You unlocked access to me...a kind of portal through one of my books.""

"Ok, I have a lot of your books at my house. You never showed up there."

He laughed. "Not that you know of" 

I gave him a look that said "STOP it!" and he laughed.

"Seriously, though...there are two books in this store that used to belong to me. I bought and sold lots of books when we lived together and some of them are still in the area. It works like this---when the grieving Earthbounder, you, reencounters an object that their Otherbounder, me, owned in life and touches it on their birthday, a portal opens and the two can be reunited for the remainder of that Earth day. The things that once belonged to us have to make their way back into general circulation. It could even be my old dollar bill, but hey...who carries cash anymore?"

"So you have been watching since you died."  We laughed.

When you ran your fingers over my copy of A Tale of Two Cities you changed our dimensions. At midnight, normal dimensions reset.

"So that wasn't an earthquake?"

"Nope!"

"It's so hard to know what's going on in New Jersey anymore! I still can't believe this! I have so many things I want to say to you and ask you about and now that you're here, I don't even know where to begin!"

"Ask away...but let me hug you first" Bob pulled me into him and hugged me with the same strength I remembered. I never wanted that moment to end. The smell of his skin, the way we fit together in an embrace-- it was just perfection. I tried to sniffle away the tears that were rolling off my face and onto his denim-clad shoulder.

He pulled back and looked into my eyes. "Don't cry, Monkey. Let's be happy and savor every moment. Our hug led to a kiss, this time real, not like the thousands of kisses we shared in my dreams. His kiss led to a touch of his face, neck, and more. The passion and heat that we always shared over nearly 10 years as a couple was reignited in an instant. 

Our clothes peeled away, and he lay me down on top of them on the floor of the deserted bookstore. 

Those next moments were just as I always remembered and literally dreamed about. The way we connected perfectly like two pieces of a puzzle couldn't be better. We locked eyes and made love even more intensely than we ever had before. Afterwards, we closed our eyes and held one another, neither of us letting go. Our edges disappeared and we reveled in the sensation of our bodies merging together into one, as we so often did when we were both alive. It was the very thing I missed. We stayed locked in an embrace...neither of us wanting to break the spell.

Eventually I opened my eyes, my head on Pete's chest with one ear to his heart that was actually beating. He felt warm and alive. 

"That was incredible!" I told him.

"I know"

We laughed and I hit him on his arm. I contemplated NOT asking him the questions on my mind, but when would I ever have this chance again?

"So about those questions..." I reminded him.

"Go ahead, Monkey. Ask."

"How did you die up there? I know it shouldn't matter, but I replayed it in my head so many ways. Your mom told me I imagined your death a million times, but that you only died once, and no matter how horrible it was...it's over. But now that you're here, I just want to know exactly how it happened."

"I don't know, Zoe. It's not pretty"

"I need to know! I deserve to know! And did you try calling me?"

"No, there wasn't time," he said. "Ok, if you really want to know, I'll tell you. I was in my office on the phone with a vendor chewing him a new one for messing up my purchase order. Then, BA BOOM! There was the loudest explosion I ever heard in my life and the line went dead. The whole North Tower was swaying. People were screaming! Smoke started pouring into my office. Something awful had happened. I grabbed my gas mask from under the desk and put it on. I went out of my office and into absolute chaos!!! 

Out in the hallway, I tried to calm the nerves of some ladies on my floor. When I made it to the trading room, it looked like Hell. I could barely see outside through the black smoke and flames ---Dante's Inferno in real time. I was terrified! I figured we were bombed like in '93. You got so mad when I said I wished I was working in the Trade Center then, but I just wanted a good story to tell, Babe. I never wanted anyone to get hurt or killed! When I saw that scene in front of me, that's when I said out loud, 'I'm so sorry, Zoe!'

I felt myself getting upset and thought about calling you, but there just wasn't time. I pulled it together because we had to try to get out of there. The windows were blown out. Some people were blasted half out of their clothes and standing near the once-windows in shock. Others were dead. The heat was getting more and more intense when I noticed the flames moving in from the outside of the trading room. It was blazing its way in and through the floor pushing everyone towards the windows. All the exits to the elevators were blocked. The staircases up to the roof were blocked. That's when I realized...we were fucked! There was nowhere to go. So, I was either going to choke and suffocate from the lack of breathable air, burn, or jump out the window to my death."

"So what did you do?"

"I gathered some of the women around me. I tried to calm them down. I told them our choices and let them decide their fate. There were five of them. Three of them chose to wait and see if they could be saved. Two of them decided to jump. None of us wanted to burn.

"So it WAS you!"

"What do you mean?"

"You took those two ladies to the edge, held their hands, and jumped! I knew it!" I gasped for air and cried a cry I hadn't heard in 23 years. A cry that I didn't know existed inside of me until I accepted his death and realized he would never reclaim his place by my side.

"How did you know that?"

"I told you. I used to look at any images I came across of the jumpers. I always knew that if you were faced with certain death and had a choice up there, you would choose to go out BIG and jump. I also knew you'd be helping people up there because that's who you are. I'm so proud of you for helping as many people as you could in such a terrifying moment. And of course I understand that you didn't call me."

We spent the rest of that evening talking, laughing, and telling each other how much we unconditionally loved one another. Despite our Earthly imperfections, we always had each other's backs. We had a love that most people can only dream of. Nothing would have ever kept us apart besides Death. And even now, we were cheating it in a way.

"When will I see you again? Do you know when my time will be up?"

"No, Monkey, I don't. But I can tell you this. I know about one of your favorite movies Somewhere in Time. I know how it ends. That's how it will be for us, too. No matter what happens for you in this life, I will be there with my hand outstretched in the end, waiting for you, and we'll be together for all eternity."

With my vision blurred through my tears, he turned my face upwards to give me one last kiss. It was 11:58 pm and midnight was fast approaching. Lips touching and bodies pressed together, we tearfully said, "See you later." I promised to keep looking for his old books and dollar bills.

The Earth shook again...and in an instant I was pressed up against the built-in shelves in a half embrace with literature.

"Please ma'am, may I HELP you?"

"No, thank you. But can you do me a favor? Can you call me when you sell that copy of "The Tale of Two Cities? You know...It was the best of times, it was the worst of times? I can't explain why, but it would be of great importance for me to know where it goes."

I gave her my information with her assurance that she would pass it along to the buyer.

As I walked out the door of the bookstore, I immediately knew I'd spend the rest of my life browsing used books, touching their spines, and, of course,...carrying cash.