allthatgoes | well, there's a lot of this one.

This was originally written aeons ago, really, which is why it's as odd and choppy as it is. I was young.

Seth Moynahan was, for as long as he knew, which was likely as long as he was alive (he's not telling), a very normal kid. Normal life, normal family, normal boring friends. When he was in eighth grade, he fell in love.

Her name? Meghan Zimmer. She didn't believe that someone could be 'in love' at the age of thirteen, and Seth wasn't so sure that he did either. It hurt him as she saw other people, and she wasn't sure what she was feeling when she did. They learned, though, as they grew older -- Meghan loved Seth and Seth loved Meghan. It was all perfect.

Until that accident. In the beginning of their senior year of high school, Seth was driving his Morris Mini to Meghan's house when he came to an unfamiliar four-way stop ... that had no stop signs. They found out later that some students had gone 'sign stealing.' The lack of stop signs caused a two-way collision that killed everyone involved -- a young woman, her daughter, and Seth.

It's been a year since Seth's death, and he's been getting used to heaven.

one
When I look from where I'm sitting, I see a thousand miles of fire.

Of course, I know that isn't what I'm looking at. I'm looking at sunbeams hitting the tops of buildings, and hitting the water, and making it look like a beautiful, glowing, blazing fire. I never liked fire until after I died. I didn't appreciate it, either. I didn't know how to appreciate anything. Appreciation is important.

That's not true. I appreciated a few things. My parents, my sister, and especially Meghan. I thought I was alive for Meghan - I knew if anything happened to Meghan, I would die.

And something happened to me. And the first few weeks I was here, I spent all my time crying for Meghan, almost wishing Meghan dead too, so we could at least be dead together. Sylelle -- she was my first friend here, and still one of the best -- always tried to cheer me up, and tell me that Meghan wasn't done with her life.

"I wasn't done with mine either!" I cried out. "I wanted to keep living. I had to marry Meghan and become an unknown writer, and Meghan would become a doctor and we'd have two children, both boys, because Meghan hates little girls ..." I trailed off and flung myself onto the bed they had given me.

"Learn to appreciate what you have, Seth, because appreciation is important. Think of how much you love her, and how much happier she'll be living a full life." Sylelle glowed that curious green of hers and vanished.

She didn't get it. I knew that Meghan would really be happy living a full life, only she'd want me in one picture, just like I would. What about my full life? Why didn't I get to be with her?

I was tempted to ask Fate, or perhaps ask the dog who guarded my door. This dog had wings, and told me she was an angel, but that he also really was a dog, and I truly didn't understand her one bit at this point. Nor did I know her name, which she insisted on telling me.

The fact that she was a dog and knew how to talk didn't bother me at all. Part of being dead is to be able to accept things faster, I guess.

Sitting up here, though, thinking about how Meg is down there living, and is getting used to me not being there with her ... I think she's going to be okay. I remember that I said I wanted her to be happy, and she said she wanted the same. I said I'd only be happy with her, and she said ... well, she said the same, but I hope that she's still happy.

I want to see her again.

I know I can't.

There's only hope.

two
The trouble with Mondays is the fact that everyone seems to always be gone. Weekends, this area of Heaven, or what I think is Heaven, so far as I know it's Heaven ... well, back to the point, the place is jumping. Everyone I've seen so far is always around.

I usually spend Mondays alone, just thinking. Thinking, and missing those that I tend to miss - my mother, my father, my little sister Alison, her best friend Linsay, of course Meghan, and my best friend, Josh. Yesterday, however, it was different. Today is a special Friday. It's May 24th. It would have been the fourth anniversary of my dating Meghan, but since it's not ...

Yes, I don't want to be alone. So I go hunting for someone, someone, to talk to. I know that it's Friday, so wherever they all go, that's where they'll be.

I'm not sure where to look for them. But I find the angel-dog. She's asleep in a comfy-looking hammock in the hall outside my chamber. I cough. I'm not sure if I mean to wake her up or if I just needed to cough - after being dead for almost nine months I still don't know if ghosts or whatever I am need to cough - but she twitches her tail and looks up at me.

"Pfui," she says. She speaks without her mouth moving, but he isn't speaking inside my head, she's speaking words -- they're coming to her mouth, somehow. Somehow that I don't really understand. "Come to have a chat?"

I'm still not sure. I still don't really know this angel-dog. I don't know her name.

She senses my uneasiness, and apparently what I consider the missing link. "It's Halfwest."

"What's Halfwest?" I query, my voice cracking slightly - this is the first time that I've talked to someone who isn't Sylelle. Of course. Sylelle. I was looking for Sylelle. "And where's Sylelle?"

"My name, silly," giggles Halfwest. I did not know that someone could speak while giggling, nor did I know that a dog could giggle, but she manages it. "My name is Halfwest. Sylelle is with the others at Reckoning. We haven't taken you there yet."

I don't ask what Reckoning is. I know that she knows that I don't know. The only thing I can think to say is, "It's nice to meet you formally ... with a name and all. My name is Seth Moynahan. I think I'm a ghost. I'm definitely not an angel like you or Sylelle ..."

She leaps from the hammock and sits down next to my feet, tail wagging jovially. "A name! At last, a name. I knew it was S-something, because Sylelle knew your initials were SM -- So it's Seth Moynahan? Funny name, and other people might say Halfwest is a funny name too. You're not a ghost, or you're also not an angel, Seth Moynahan. You are ... Seth."

I'm Seth. This I know - it's my name. Or now that she's said it, I'm even more sure that even after death, I'm still me. "Seth," I try it out. "So I'm Seth and I'm just Seth?"

"You're Seth Moynahan and you don't need to be anything else," she assures me.

I ask if she drinks frappes. She says she does.

We decide to be Red Guys together or go find some. And so I have a new flavor for yesterday. Maybe it'll be significant someday.

three
"Seth, time to wake up. You really need to eat."

I don't know whose voice it is at first that's talking to me. I only know I'm tired and I really needed that nap. I'm not even able to tune into the present for a moment -- I need to take this moment to figure out how long I've been sleeping. Two hours at best, because I know I had a dream that was probably about an hour and a half.

I've gotten pretty good at estimating time even when I'm sleeping, apparently. At least that's how long the dream lasted ... the one I was paying attention to. With Meghan. A good, reasonable dream with Meghan's presence. It didn't last nearly long enough.

I could've had other dreams, but they didn't even matter enough for me to remember. Probably with no Meghan in them. Dreams don't matter to me without her -- nothing really does. And I'm about to sound sappy again, I know it. If I've got to sound sappy, I could go along about how I was glad to die to have the chance to know her, instead of living and having never known her*, but at the time I think sentimentality isn't the point as much as thought. As figuring myself out and wondering, as Halfwest has said.

I've often wondered why exactly I can dream at all being dead, or why I get tired or need to sleep, or why I need to eat ...

Eat.

I come crashing into one present again for a minute.

One voice is Sylelle's.

"Eat?" I murmur. "How long have I been sleeping?" I was about to continue racking my brain for things to consider, but Sylelle had talked. When? My idea of being able to estimate time well flies out of my head as I realize in all these words I've managed to think through it can't really have been that long since she talked. "Two hours or so?" I manage to moan out rather quickly after, just now realizing that I feel terrible ... and hungry.

"More like two weeks or so," an agitated version of the usually sweet-sounding Sylelle's voice responds. "You've been sleeping for a very long time. You've been sick."

I blink. "Sick? And I'm dead." That's when I realize I also feel hot. Like fever-hot. Which I'm not used to either. I'm supposed to be dead, how can I become ill? Or will becoming deathly ill make me die again?

"Yes," Sylelle continues, "but in the same way that you need to sleep and eat or breathe and worry about whether you're wearing your glasses -- although I notice you've stopped doing that -- you can get sick."

My glasses hadn't occurred to me either. That wasn't the point ... "Okay," I groan. "So. Food. What do you have?"

I look up toward Sylelle. Her usual glow of sparkly blue is a sort of concerned, irritated pinkish-orange. "Not much you'll like. Way too much ambrosia -- I know you won't like that. Here," she adds, offering me Doritos. "Not good breakfast food, but it'll work."

"I was a teenager when I died," I reply, grabbing the Doritos.

Sylelle smiles. "And when you're done with that appetizing meal, I'll make you some soup and explain to you what happened -- since I doubt you've even remembered to wonder enough about how you got sick to ask."

I don't attempt to figure out that statement of hers, though I really do know what she means (the way she talks is just painfully confusing) and shove Doritos in my mouth. Confusing explanations can, as always, wait.

I am afraid to think of how people who died when they were meant to handled the stress. At least everyone else is helping me.

four
My eyes open. I don't know where I am Ð where have I been? I thought I was dead, I thought I'd died, but apparently I'm not dead.

If I were dead, I wouldn't be standing here in the grocery store, watching my kid sister try to get a box of cereal down from the top shelf. I know I died, so how am I here?

It puzzles me, and apparently I'm standing here blinking a little too much, because Alison turns around to look at me. I jump Ð Alison's face is just the same as it was when I'd died. I thought it had been a long time. Sylelle was saying I was just ready now to come into being since it wasn't my time, but that I had sat in stasis a while, and I didn't know what that had meant but I knew Alison should have grown.

"Seth?" my little sister asks. I want to run to her and hug her, since it's been so long since I've seen her, but I find that I can't.

"Just a headache," I say -- except that I don't. My mouth formed those words by itself. I hadn't meant to say anything of the sort, I'd meant to talk to her, to ask, to beg, to try and figure out what was happening, Alison Alison how am I with you

"Are you going to help me?"

"No." Of course I am! I want to help you but I can't, something else is controlling me -- "You can get it yourself. You've got to learn."

I can't believe myself.

"I'm not learning anything by stretching!"

"You're getting good exercise."

Apparently, whoever or whatever is forcing my words around is a real dick.

"I hate exercise, Seth, and I hate you!" Alison squeals, and just as she's begun to do that, she falls.

The other cereal boxes begin to fall, too, and my sister is crushed under them Ð I run to her, still not in control of myself, and begin pulling the boxes off from on top of her, scared for her, if she's hurt, drowning in pieces of cereal from broken boxes -- these fears are conscious in me and in whomever is running my every motion.

It's kind of disturbing, I think, that I don't mind. Don't mind that I'm being controlled by some outside force, that is Ð but like I think I've said before, maybe being dead makes me more tolerant. Or better at adjusting.

When I finally get to Alison, which only takes a few seconds, we look into each other's eyes.

And laugh.

She's fine. I'm fine. We're fine, as brother and sister, we're not hurting each other and we're not fighting.

Then I remember.

This happened.

It happened a long time ago.

I was fourteen and Alison was only nine.

She wasn't nine when I died, was she? Of course she wasn't.

The moment froze.

"It's kind of upsetting, isn't it," says Sylelle, from behind me. She's moving, and I find I can control myself again, as I turn to look at her.

"What is?"

"Starting to slip back into time." She's glowing green, intensely involved in whatever it is we must be doing, and I continue to blink at her. "Your memory," she adds, "is restoring itself. Slowly. You're becoming you again. It's not always the most pleasant experience."

"That why I've been throwing up?" I ask.

She seems to giggle, again. "You can't throw up if you don't eat anything but a bag of Doritos in a week. But, approximately, yeah. A lot of it has to do with what fate wants, and you're a big mess-up. You don't belong, really. It's not agreeing with you."

"Everything happens because it's meant, I thought."

"Well, almost everything." Sylelle shakes her head. "Come on. You should get back to sleep so you can wake up again and I can feed you."

"Have any real food for me tonight? Maybe not cereal, considering the circumstances?"

"We'll see."

five
"Seth, time to wake up. You really need to eat."

I don't know whose voice it is at first that's talking to me. I only know I'm tired and I really needed that nap. I'm not even able to tune into the present for a moment -- I need to take this moment to figure out how long I've been sleeping.

Wait a minute.

I've even had this train of thought before. It was this morning. It was yesterday. It was a month ago. It was tomorrow --

"It's a glitch in the Matrix," I murmur.

"... What?" asks Sylelle, leaning over me, eyes bright, grinning like the pixie imp she possibly is.

"Nothing. Pop culture reference. Holy ... that was weird. That was the weirdest thing I ever --"

"Seth, do you know the date?"

"May twenty-fifth?" I guess, remembering that I remembered the 24th was yesterday, except that that probably wasn't yesterday, the day I remembered it, I didn't know when --

"June 19th."

"Sylelle. How long have I been sleeping."

"You've been remembering. But you've been going in and out of stasis, and reforming, and, well, stasis isn't your fault, is it? How could it be?" She is so chirpy and happy all the time that I'm not sure what to think. I know somehow that I've had these thoughts before as well, and that Sylelle has never made sense to me ...

I wonder as I wander

Why is Barbara Streisand running through my head?

"It's a glitch in the matrix," I murmur.

"... What?" asks Sylelle, leaning over me, eyes bright, grinning like --

"You did that on purpose," I interrupt, glaring at her. "You're controlling this."

"I did stasis on purpose, huh?" she answers, looking utterly confused.

"No, you reset my -- I made the Matrix remark again -- I -- huh?"

"No you didn't." Sylelle sighs, and places her hand (warm) on top of mine (cold as a Slushie machine turned on extra-extra-super-high) sympathetically. "You just slipped backward in your memory a little. Becoming whole again is hard, I know, a lot of the early deaths are like this."

"I have no idea what's going on and I want out."

"Do you want to be in stasis forever?"

"You mean like ..."

"Like not thinking at all."

The idea makes me sick. Sick, sick, torn and unfortunate, afraid, poor unfortunate souls ...

"And I don't like the Little Mermaid, can we change the song that's stuck in your head?" Sylelle continues, sweetly.

I blink at her.

"All I really want is for our lives to be over, I want to know right now --"

"Sylelle. I hate Paula Cole." But Sylelle likes Paula Cole, and now she's managed to get Paula Cole stuck in my head for her own enjoyment. Little imp.

six
I'm beginning to hate the timeflow.

I find myself today on an airplane; I don't know where we are or where I'm going, or ... even whose memory this is, really, because I'm beginning to think it isn't mine. I don't know why I'm trapped doing this -- it's not really 'living' per se because I'm not 'living' anything -- so why I'm trapped experiencing memory from my past or from anyone else's.

I look out the window.

Clouds.

Nothing interesting.

And so I sink into my mind and remember the events I've already relived; many more fights with Alison and subsequent makings-up, accentuating my missing of my sister and my family; walks with my dog; talks with many of my good friends. All from that same uncontrolable point of view where I'm simply re-experiencing events I've already performed, trapped inside my own head, unable to actually make motions independent of that exact moment's period of reflection.

I haven't seen Meghan in a single memory.

Don't they know that -- whomever 'they' is, anyway -- don't they know she's everything I care about?

I may be a melodramatic teenager, but for crying out loud, I need to see her. She's going to drive me insane, the thought of her, if I can see everyone else, and hear mention of her, but not ever make contact --

I look up and Meghan's sitting next to me.

I want to turn to her and kiss her. Tell her I love her. Miss her. Need her.

But I'm not me.

I've suddenly realized I'm not me.

I'm definitely in a body that's female (and I won't even get into how awkward that is) but I'm not any member of Meghan's family, or anyone I've everbeen able to call attention to before. One time, I was seeing memory from the point of view of one of my friends, apparently so I could watch myself (Sylelle refused to admit to it), and before I even saw, I knew who I was, because I knew him.

I don't know this woman.

"Hi, Caroline," says Meghan.

"Good afternoon, Miss Zimmer. How are we proceeding?" I reply, or Caroline does, because she certainly isn't me and I'm definitely not her.

"I'm good. Kinda miss Seth, though."

"Who's Seth?"

I want to kick Caroline. I know who I am.

"The love of my life," Meghan answers, and inside -- inside me, past the inside that's Caroline, who probably isn't even aware that I'm there, not that it's real, it's just a memory (but why am I seeing it?) -- I swoon a little. And sigh. Because I miss her, and it's entirely bloody possible I need her by my side as much as she needs me.

"Where is he?"

"Home. When I get back you can meet him."

"I'll bring Susie over sometime, I think."

That's when I realize.

It's the first thing about any circumstance that Halfwest ever told me, looking back. I had asked her, silly dog, about the people who had died in the accident with me. The people who were, while just as at fault as I, were also just as unfortunate.

Caroline Westerman and her daughter Susannah.

Am I Caroline Westerman?

Did Meghan know her too?

"You should. About a week before my birthday, do you think?"

My heart's sinking just a little bit more.

I'm quite possibly in the mind of the woman who died with me.

"What's that date?" Caroline asks.

I'm tense.

"How about September twenty-ninth?"

I start feeling sick.

"I'd be glad to."

I want to tell her no, but I can't change it.

"You can come over before Seth does, then."

No.

"Is he going to stay the night?" Caroline teases, and I feel like it's my mouth moving, and I don't like teasing myself. I was never a blusher, though.

Meghan, though -- she was never really a blusher otherwise, but she blushed this time.

"Hope so. We've talked about it."

We had.

I knew that much.

But somehow the memory itself wasn't coming.

seven
"Seth, time to wake up. You really need to eat."

I don't know whose voice it is at first that's talking to me. I only know I'm tired and I really needed that nap. I'm not even able to tune into the present for a moment -- I need to take this moment to figure out how long I've been sleeping.

Wait a minute.

I've even had this train of thought before. It was this morning. It was yesterday. It was a month ago. It was tomorrow --

"It's a glitch in the Matrix," I murmur.

"... What?" asks Sylelle, leaning over me, eyes bright, grinning like the pixie imp she possibly is.

It takes me a minute to realize, and then I narrow my eyes.

"I am getting very, very tired of repeating the same conversation over and over again," I say. "By now you most definitely know. Why are you making me go through this nonsense?"

"You're remembering."

"What?"

"The circumstances around your own death," she replies, her glow morphing to a faint irritated red. "How do you not understand that?"

"I know what happened. Stop signs. Crashes. Apparently I crashed into Caroline and Susannah Westerman when they were coming from Meghan's house."

Friends of hers.

She didn't just lose me, she lost three people, and we all lost her.

Hurts.

"I bet it does," says Sylelle sympathetically.

"Did I say that last part out loud?" I ask.

She nods. "Hurts," she answers, "and I bet it does."

"Why do I need to learn this?"

"Because you died out of synch, and there isn't anything ready for you unless you understand. The threads were twisted, ripped and pulled, and we have to set them back. You need to be a part of that."

"... what if I'm not?"

"Then we send you back."

Back? Back? My entire inner self is rejoicing, heart singing, lungs dancing, metaphorically speaking, as my heart has no voice and my lungs no feet -- "Please."

"It's not that pleasant."

"How can it not be?"

"It's not back to the point in which you died, and it's not quite back to Earth, really. It's back in someone else's form."

"... Someone else's ..."

She nods.

"I'm getting used to it," I say, thinking on three of four of my friends' memories, and my experiences seeing them through me.

"You wouldn't be," she answers. "Please, Seth. Don't fight it."

I am silent.

It is an answer.

Affirmative. No, I won't fight it. But I can't actually bring myself to say it. Don't want to. I want to fight it. I want out, I hate this. This ... half-death, this uncertainty of where I am, but I don't say it. I don't think it too highly either, don't think close enough to the surface that she can intuitively pick up on it.

Or so I think.

Maybe she has. She isn't showing it.

"Are you ready to go back into stasis?" Sylelle asks, calmly, glow returning to its blue.

I shake my head. "I want to eat, and I want to go out."

"Where?"

My hand waves toward the door. "Out."

Sylelle seems to think for a minute. She turns to look me straight in the eye and suddenly I'm taken aback by the beauty of her -- it's her eyes, they're the strangest and most alluring things I've ever seen. Magnetic. It's impossible to look away from them.

She seems to notice I'm caught.

She smiles.

Her lips form one calm sound as I slip away, back into the nothingness I've learned to follow along with, to understand as stasis.

'No.'

eight
(Ten years ago, give or take a year, I found myself on an enforced stopover in Los Angeles, a long way from home)

I'm in a library.

(The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed)

Caught up in my favourites.

(It was an early morning in April and clocks were striking thirteen)

King. Gaiman. Orwell.

(spinning in riches and rags and in rhythm and rhyme)

Doctorow.

It's a strange memory, a library. I don't know why I'm here, but I see the books I've come to love -- Smoke and Mirrors, 1984, Ragtime, The Gunslinger, the Lays of Beleriand, even old favourites like Guards! Guards! and classics such as Great Expectations that I'd found just as satisfying as the previous -- and I reach out for the first one I find.

It's Smoke and Mirrors, of course.

The story I open to is Murder Mysteries.

Was I murdered? I wonder.

(This is true)

No. Of course I wasn't. It was just an accident. Nothing important, nothing at all -- a stupid incident of sign stealing --

A Caroline Cooney book called Driver's Ed is lying in the corner.

Isn't that what happened in that book?

It was one of Meghan's favourites. Is one of Meghan's favourites. How terribly ... not ironic, ironic's not the definition I want, but suddenly I'm not sure what is. It's close to ironic, I tell you that.

(A hand in front of my face, holding out a quarter)

I read Murder Mysteries, once, twice, thrice. It's not a very long story, I can tell you that.

It's only then that I realize that I'm really and truly controlling my actions. I blink. It's confused me. How is it that I can do this now, only this time? Where am I? Whose memory is it?

"Yours," says Halfwest's cheery sort of voice.

I blink.

"Where did I come from?" she says, fluttering her wings. "Good question. Watching, that's all. But it's your memory. It's a memory of right now. There are also memories of would-have-beens, but we don't usually show anyone that, not even special people like you."

Special people. People who died too soon. People too young. People who broke the pattern.

Too young ...

"What about Susannah Westerman?" I ask, nervously.

"Who -- Oh. Oh, the little girl. She's okay." Halfwest wags her tail. "She's actually very nice. I'm playing guardian to her mother, so. I'm just visiting you. I'm one of the City's best hounds."

The City.

I look down at the book in my hands.

"The Silver City?"

"The very same!" the dog chirps happily. (You would not believe how odd a sentence that is to comprehend, I tell you. Next, birds will be barking. She is the strangest creature I have ever met, and quite possibly the strangest creature I ever will.) Suddenly I wonder if I'll be running across Smoke & Mirrors' vibrant characters, or if the ethereal beings around here live in small compounds most commonly referred to as cells.

But it's nonsense.

"I have a doghouse," adds Halfwest, "and a couch."

I grin at her. She clambors over and climbs into my lap, knocking the book away, and I ruffle her ears calmly.

Then I start to read a story.

She's unfamilliar with Ragtime, and nobody should be.

nine
"Seth."

It's Sylelle, of course, standing over me, and I'm lying here in the same crumpled ball I feel like I've been in for a couple of days, although it's really been quite a bit longer, for as much as time works all the way out here, that is.

"... I really need to eat?" I wheeze, finding that I can't really speak.

And also that coming out of stasis for the first time I remember where I am.

"No," she says. She smiles at me, gently, kindly, nonthreatening, as she always is, but those magnetic eyes have begun to scare me. "No, you do, but that's not the point. I just wanted to know if you enjoyed your break."

I blink at her.

"Your library."