2
What’s Real
Josh Stockwell hadn’t meant to hit the strange girl who was dressed like some sort of eerie ghost. He had only wanted to touch her, to see if she was real.
From the moment he had entered the kiddy ride, nothing seemed real. As the entrance door to the ride swung closed behind him, and the space around him narrowed and darkened, he felt a horrible chill. He knew that the little girl in the car ahead would fall to the tracks. He knew her screams would slash through the sickeningly cheerful music. He knew he would try to save her. And he knew he would fail.
He knew because he had seen it all in a dream.
He had awoken from that dream, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat, but somehow he had forgotten what it was about seconds later. Only the terror remained.
It wasn’t until he was already living it that the details came back to him, but by then it was too late. The tragic ride was already in motion. There was nothing he could change. Not one thing.
Why then, Josh wondered, did he even have that dream? What was the point? Weren’t premonitions meant to save people? Isn’t that what they always said after a terrible plane crash, how someone miraculously didn’t go on the plane because he just had a feeling? What was the point of having a feeling, if it didn’t stop you from getting on the plane? And what about the other part of that terrible nightmare, the part that wasn’t so bad, the part that hadn’t come true?
In his nightmare a beautiful girl in a blue dress sat next to him on the ride, a girl who most definitely was not Jen Baker. He had never met her, but he had seen her many times before in a different dream.
The other one, which had repeated itself over several nights, had been equally vivid. In it the beautiful girl in the blue dress splashed in a fountain and filled the air with laughter and drops of water that sparkled like stars. She smiled shyly at him and blushed. He reached out to kiss her, but before his fingertips could touch the curve of her neck, he found himself awake in his bed and alone.
The first time he had that dream, he wanted that girl, and with each repetition his feelings for her grew stronger. It wasn’t long before he was impossibly in love.
That beautiful girl in the blue dress had sat next to him in the nightmare about the kiddy ride. She had been closer to him then than she ever had in his other dream. He could almost feel the warmth of her body where their shoulders touched. She smiled at him so sweetly and said, “It’s all right. You’ll see. It’s going to be all right.”
But when the child really did fall on the tracks in the kiddy ride and Josh had failed to save her, the beautiful girl in the blue dress wasn’t there. Why then was she in that nightmare? And what did she mean when she said he would see? He was... dead. Or at least he thought he was. What was there left to see? And how could it make everything all right?
Josh jerked his hands away, as if by doing so he could somehow undo what he had just done. He hadn’t meant to hit the strange girl in the ghost costume. He had only wanted to see if his hands would pass through her, like everyone else was passing through him. He had only wanted to find something real, something he could hold onto so he wouldn’t feel as if the world had gone insane.
“I’m so sorry!” he cried.
The girl crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at Josh with the biggest eyes he had ever seen, eyes that shimmered with tears and hurt and pain. So much pain it put a twist in Josh’s heart. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, and yet he had.
The girl wore white face paint and bright red lipstick, and there was black makeup around her eyes. Her brown hair had a white streak. She wore a frayed, white, gauzy top over a dark pair of jeans. She didn’t look like the girl in the blue dress. And yet...
The longer Josh looked at her the more familiar she became. There was no smile on her face, and it was hard to see her behind all that makeup, but her movements and the shape of her face were right. Her eyes were right. The longer he looked at her the more he became convinced this must be her.
And suddenly everything began to make sense.
There was a reason for everything he had gone through, and here it was sitting on the pavement in front of him, her eyes filled with pain.
“It’s you,” he whispered.
“What?” She wiped her nose with the back of her trembling hand.
“You’re the...” He paused. Could he tell her she was the girl of his dreams? It sounded like a cheesy pick-up line. So instead he said, “I think I’ve seen you before.”
The girl shook her head. “That’s not even possible.” Then she pointed to the right of him and added, “Watch out.”
Josh tried to step out of the way as another man ran through him, but Josh wasn’t quick enough. A paramedic was about to rush through him, too, so Josh stepped onto the pavement. It was less crowded than the asphalt path, but the girl was already sitting on the pavement, and it was short and narrow. He didn’t want her to think he was intruding on her space.
“May I?” he asked, pointing at the place beside her.
“You got a ticket?” she asked.
Josh reached into his pockets, but he found them empty. That was odd. He always had something in his pockets, even if it was a just a stick of gum or a dollar-store receipt. “I did.”
She shrugged. “Go ahead. A place on the pavement is included with the price of admission.”
The pavement felt rough, hot from being in the blazing sun all day, and comfortingly solid. It was still there. It was still real. It was good to know some things were.
“What’s happening?” Josh asked.
“You died,” she said.
“Are you sure?” He didn’t know what it felt like to be dead, but it didn’t seem right that it should feel like this.
The girl patted his arm gently as if to console him. He smiled at her. Then she pinched him. Hard. Josh yelped at the sudden pain and pulled back.
“Yup, I’m sure,” she said. “I can’t touch anyone alive, so you must be dead too.”
His arm stung, but considering he had just slammed her in the chest, he couldn’t really blame her. “So we’re both dead?”
“Yes,” the girl said. And then she mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“About... you know. About you being dead.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks and turned away.
Josh was sure now that this was the girl from his dreams. But she was so broken.
He tried to put his hand on hers. He wanted to comfort her, but his fingers passed through and stopped at the pavement. He gasped and pulled his hand away. What had comforted him before—the rough, hot feel of the pavement—was now terribly disconcerting. It told him that she was only an illusion. And if she wasn’t real—if the only person he could touch wasn’t real— what was?
“I’ve been here a while,” she explained. “Years. And I’ve learned a few things. You can control what you feel and what you don’t. You can’t touch me unless I let you.”
“And when I hit you before?”
“You caught me off guard.”
“I see.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, as he often did when he was confused, and tried to make sense of what she was saying. He looked at her and looked at her until she looked back, although it was only for a moment. It was nice to see her beautiful face, even if it was hidden behind white-and-black makeup and bright red lipstick. He might not be able to touch her, but at least he could see her. He could hear her. And she would not disappear when he awoke. The girl from his dreams was here, with him. And somehow he knew that meant everything was going to be all right.