cesar-ramon

[cesar-ramon]

“You know what —?” Cesar began, but he was quickly silenced by his own guilt and reticence. It wasn’t polite to make fun of a dead girl, even when said dead girl was roasting him. Joss being the first intelligent haunting he’d come across meant something and he knew it. Even if he didn’t know why or how, there was a feeling inside Cesar that told him things were happening the way they were for a reason. Thought it had only been a few hours, Cesar noted somewhere in the back of his mind that it had been a few hours without the wailing of trapped spirits or the haunting faces of the damn that lingered in the corners of rooms. Were they afraid of Joss? Was it because she was a witch? Or maybe it was because a residual haunting couldn’t be around an intelligent one? Whatever the reason, Cesar found himself relieved for the moment of reprieve. 

As they finally arrived on a beaten path, Cesar couldn’t help but give Joss a knowing look. “ Okay, I gotta fuckin’ say it — you know this is a little on the nose, right? Like a hooked nose with warts. Maybe old, greenish flesh on that hooked nose?” He smirked. “I mean, I heard of off grid living and shit like that, but this is…” He chuckled to end his sentence, his point made. Instead he took in the scenery of the day as it shifted to afternoon like slow creeping vines that covered a castle in due time. The days always seemed slower to him than they used to when he was young. He never felt like he had enough time. He was always on stage, on the road, running around doing things without so much as a moment to sit and take in the calm of his surroundings. Now? Now he had nothing but time, and he hated it.

Coming upon her home was like seeing Joss for the first time as something other than a hallucination. A part of Cesar still doubted his own sanity, and even though he had more than proved his ability to read minds was true, he still felt iffy on the ghost things.

Still, she had a house. She hadn’t led him to an empty lot or some cliff to push him off of or anything his mind could fearfully cling to. It was just a house. She was real. Both then, and now.

The beaten path had led them past old, rundown shacks that told of a bygone era when people lived hidden away in the bayou in a then undeveloped, rural New Orleans. When people were untethered to society and the world was small and only around them. It seemed like such a peaceful state of being that Cesar almost envied those times before cell phones and TV. In a way, he could understand why Joss chose to be away from all the madness in the world.

Stepping inside her place, the smell was an assault to his noses. A light coat of dust covered everything. Kicking up when the gust of wind from the swinging door disturbed it. Cesar sneezed, turning his head to let it catch on his coat before he looked around. There was a damp smell, like something wet had been left to mildew under the belief that she would get to it later, but never did. That thought made him sad. He felt a new wave of pity for Joss at that moment. Cesar looked around and had a vision of himself leaving his apartment on day —- the dishes unwashed in the sink, an old Chinese food box left on the old, second hand coffee table with the contents half eaten and beginning to stink. He imagined telling himself that he would throw it away when he came home only to have someone else find it. He pictured Gabriel — his closest friend and possibly the only person who would notice he was missing, coming to his place to clean up and finding dirty clothes on the floor of the closet and toothpaste hardened in the sink….

Cesar cleared his throat. “ This is nice.” He said, his voice cracking a bit from the sadness he inflicted on himself. He wanted even more now to help Joss. He realized that a residual haunting was far easier than this. What she must be going through, he couldn’t fathom. 

“Uh, thanks, yeah…. I’ll… I’ll take a look.” He said as he tried to keep his voice even. Cesar took tentative steps into her home, for some reason feel the need to wipe his feet by the door to avoid tracking mud and dirt inside. He slowly eased forward, taking stock of Joss through her belongings. Her knick knacks were somehow what he expected of her, but they told a story of her likes and dislikes. It was a jarring thing to remember that there are people out there with whole entire lives they’ve lived. Cesar being the main character of his own life and being a man with few connections in New Orleans, had forgotten to smell the roses for a while now. A mistake he wouldn’t make again if he could help it.

His slow venture into the deeper parts of her hope saw Cesar often glancing over his shoulder as Joss for a sign that it was okay to keep moving. He touched nothing, but on occasion paused to take a long look at a photo posted nearby or take note of the books she kept around. When he finally made it to the kitchen, he looked back again to seek her silent approval before he made his way to the fridge and tugged the door open.

Inside there were no old takeout boxes or foul smells like his fridge — it was exactly what he’d expect of a girl. He bent down and looked inside at the milk, which was still good to drink, and at the fruits, which were only just starting to turn a little brown of get spots. It was nothing that bothered him as he could easily cut the pad part of an apple off and consume the rest. 

Popping open the freezer, he noticed ice cream and practically began to drool. “ What did you do… You know, before? For money… This is a pretty well stocked fridge for what I’m guessing is a Gen Z?” He said with a sideways glance at her. Her face had a useful appearance to it, which made Cesar feel just a bit like a creep for his earlier thoughts and comments when he remembered the silver hairs that were beginning to sprout from his mess of curls and untidy beard. 

Laziness and immaturity won him over as he plucked the half eaten container of ice cream from the freeze and nudged it shut. He moved to the drawers and found a spoon, turning on the sink — “Water still works,” and giving it a quick rinse to rid it of dust before he dug in. 

Joss scoffed, giving no room for another snide comment at how right he thought he might be for the words could not form in her head. She even felt like she could give up at that point, a sudden dip in the urge to finally let something go, but it was short lived. An open, crooked smile formed in her mouth and stayed there, watching as he pulled an imaginary pen from the crook of his ear to write on an equally invisible notepad in thin air. “When you’re done writing a list of all those jokes maybe you should write a song, too.” Her eyes rolled, a common occurrence now as they crossed the threshold of leaves and cover of long hanging tree branches to reveal a small cottage of a home.

In an ideal world, someone’s first introduction to her home would be under less scrutiny given that they would have known nothing about her supernatural status - but she was no longer afforded that luxury. Her home, albeit probably exactly what he would have pictured outside of a black and tattered shack meant to lure children, was still as cozy and quaint as she’d remembered however long ago that may have been. Not many people had seen it, under the condition that she wanted them to it was otherwise shielded by a spell that kept it under somewhat of a concealment, not that he would have noticed a difference given she’d led him right through it.

He seemed to be enjoying himself too much to the point where his hunger and its lingering impact of anger subsided for short moments, amused by one of the many things she had said to him. It was nice to hear him laugh even if she’d known him for a short while, and the smile on his face was warm and charming. It made sense why he had such a hard time with women, for when he lacked such warmth his dead eyes and stern mouth made him look withdrawn and nearly lifeless- not anything like how he looked to her now. Joss returned the warmth as she looked back at him, more inclined to share his joy now that he’d seemed more hopeful in the belief that she was all that she said she was.

“Oh I will, you don’t have to worry about that.” she didn’t want to fuss over it, or think on it until it was absolutely important. It still felt sour and stung, especially now that she couldn’t sate the nostalgia of returning home, feeling and smelling everything around her for herself. Her hand lifted softly and unlocked the door, leading the way as they made their way through her home, which seemed to open up the further they entered. “Well…..this is it.” Everything was left untouched, a jacket hanging over the end of her couch where she’d left it, an open book on the table beside it. “No black cats or cauldrons but it’s a home. And I don’t have to pay rent on it, so.” There were logs still in the fireplace, and she made a point to start as they walked by, illuminating the room even though the many windows brought in the light from outside. Through the living room into the kitchen she led him, feeling for the first time in a long time that she might be safe.

Suddenly very grateful that the last thing he’d done was having been uncharacteristically clean and done her dishes, the sink was empty. “You’ll have to tell me what in my fridge isn’t expired - I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve been away.” She wondered, half worried to check herself even if she could open the fridge with a wave of her hand. It simply couldn’t have been that long. “I mean, take whatever you want, in the cabinets there’s a ton of shit I know is still good. I don’t know how much of a chef you are but you’re welcome to whatever you want. When you’re done with that I have a bunch of sweaters that I’m sure would fit you if you want to change into something different. There’s also wine in the lower cabinets that I’m jealous I can’t enjoy with you, but you’re welcome to that, too.”

[cesar-ramon]

He shouldn’t have been so pleased with himself to hear that he was right about something, but he was. Cesar had long since gotten in the bad habit of romanticizing his depressed life, and part of that was believing that he was cursed with bad luck and pretty much wrong about everything. It was the only way he got through most days —- viewing the world as some black and white French film, himself the unkempt protagonist, chain smoking and drinking his coffee black as he pondered things too deep for anyone to understand. Was it manadaptive? Of course, but it seemed the better option to anything else.

His current predicament wasn’t helping it not seem like more fun. His stomach was growling a bit and he was getting to the point of being that kind of tired where you can’t even sleep anymore. To top off the shit sundae, he was either talking to a ghost, totally insane, or had a tumor that was making him see and hear shit that wasn’t there. None of those were favorable. Especially when the ghost was a pain in the ass.

“Sorry, I didn’t really hear anything after you saying I was right.” Cesar grinned smugly. At this point he was trying to piss her off on purpose. He wasn’t sure how to deal with a sassy ghost, and clearly ignoring her didn’t work. It wasn’t enough to make him miss the wailing ones, but he was at least having a bit of fun.

“Right, original.” He said as he mimed pulling a pen from behind his ear to write on an imaginary notepad. “ No living in the woods jokes, no candy houses or eating children, no hooked noses and green skin… Is black cats off the list or is that true enough to not be low-bar stuff?” He grinned. 

Much more fun.

“You’re the one who said you liked back door, not me. The last thing I want or need is to get my shit pushed in by some three-hundred pound felon.” He smirked, amused with himself. His crass humor flowed freely with Joss, which was…oddly refreshing. Their banter made the time pass quickly, and before he knew it, she was pointing off in a direction that gave hope that he’d eat soon. “At this point I’d take being done anything to by a woman if it mean one would get near enough.” He paused, looking at Joss as he was unable to resist the joke. “ A solid one, I mean.” He snorted. Should he have been so casual about making jokes that she was dead? Of course not, but he was too much of an ass not to do it.

Her comment took Cesar by surprise. He didn’t have the time to see if anyone was around before he doubled over in laughter. It was just so absurd that he’d finally reached his limit. His hands on his knees, Cesar felt tears form in his eyes as the laughter erupted from the pit of his stomach, hearty and healthy and the most genuine he’d given in ages. When he righted himself, he dried his eyes with the back of his hand, shaking his finger at Joss as she caught his breath. “ You… You’re something else…” He chuckled, slowly breathing, holding his sides. It felt good to laugh. 

“I haven’t… “ He smiled. “ I haven’t laughed like that in a while.” He said, a hint of sadness in his voice as it dawned on him that learning to love his melancholy made him closed off to the idea of ever being happy again. Even if only a little bit.

“I guess when you put it that way, it does sound like that…” He chuckled, the humor fading into the sadness once more. He looked at her for a moment, the crinkling of skin around his eyes holding the last of the smile he’d just worn. “I think — I hope that if… When. When we find a way to fix this, that you’ll fuck up the bastard responsible before going on to live a happy and full life like you’re supposed to.” Cesar smiled.

“It’s like your special skill.” Eyes glazing over suddenly set in focus and turned over to him, pointedly as to her knowledge and his lack thereof. “Talking about things you don’t know about and being right about half of them.” Keeping in pace with his walk was easy, not that she would notice the difference, but even now when he argued with her his back almost hunched, same frustration collecting in his brow. In the moments following, her eyes rolled back into her head as if it were the least surprising thing he’d said all day. She found herself settling into his eventual habits and mannerisms, the way he continued to leave one subject just to round back around to it later. Still unconvinced she was what she said she was, Joss now knew the neglect in his gift was probably half rooted in disbelief, as with much everything else.

“Me not being able to prove I’m a witch, which…I did already by the way, does not mean I’m not. I am one. I’m sorry you can’t fit me into whatever movie variation makes the most sense, but coming from you it shouldn’t matter. Anyone who’s got this little marbles in the bag isn’t allowed to pass judgement on me.” She waved her hand in the air, moving at a steady pace, turning her feet as he followed, towards a less residential and more wooded area. “And don’t make a fucking comment about me living in the woods. Be…original.”

Sighing again as he followed, she allowed him the curtesy of at least letting him ramble before she chimed in, fighting the urge to interject. “Your obsession with being in jail and becoming someone’s bitch is concerning and maybe you should reflect on that first.” She pointed a finger at him, leading him closer to her place. It wouldn’t be much longer, five or ten minutes at the most. The city was starting to tuck itself behind the trees and the quiet had almost begun to envelop them. It was strange for her to come this way with someone by her side, as most of the time she never left home or did during odd hours. She even hated chancing the idea of someone following, as ironic as it seemed now.

“I don’t know I feel like you enjoy being bossed around by a woman.” Now she smiled, looping back to picking on things she knew would make him flustered, happy to veer away from things that were either an argument or harsh truth. “No control in life so having someone control you in bed kind of thing.” Her eyebrows rose in suggestion, light chuckle when she opened her mouth to continue. “You think if I could find a way to make myself whole again it’d be so you could fuck me with a candle?” Another laugh met the air. “Unfortunately praise and approval isn’t my kink, per se. Probably a bit more like what you were doing before but with less apathy and more direction. Generally I like being told what to do, but I don’t think you have the strength or the nutrients.” She sighed into a smile. “Maybe a few home cooked meals and a seance and we can find some common ground. Maybe after you’ve borrowed an oversized shirt from my closet or something, that way you could focus on my holes instead of the ones in your jacket.”

[cesar-ramon]

He really wanted to be more inquisitive — he wanted to be a lot of things that didn’t work out for him, but between the lack of sleep, the hunger, and the overall burden of wondering if he was a lunatic or not, Cesar barely had the energy to be launching an investigation into the world of witchcraft. There was still no definitive proof that he wasn’t losing his mind, so there didn’t seem like there was any urgency in finding out how magic worked. If he didnt’ die or get committed soon, Cesar presumed that there would be plenty of time for him to find out about the occult or whatever it was that the ghost beside him dabbled in.  For all he knew, she could — if she were real — be a some kind of demon or something trying to trick him. The lack of hard evidence was something he had been getting used to dealing with.

“I heard that.” he noted, his brows furrowing together like the grumpy old man that he was. It wasn’t so much the name that insulted him as much as it was the fact that she was insulted. The whole point was that he knew nothing of witchcraft beyond what they showed in movies — why did his question have to be something so offensive? Why did any of this have to matter? She was dead and he was most likely crazy. 

“How am I a fuckin’ dickhead when I’m just asking a question?” He asked a bit more defensively than he needed to.” I’m still not one hundred percent on if I’m seeing things or not and here you are — a dead girl — telling me she’s a witch and shit and I don’t know if it’s like a The Craft witch or one of those chicks from Charmed or if you just like to use crystals and tarot cards and dance under the full moon naked…” Cesar scoffed.

He didn’t mean to insult her, but he also wasn’t feeling secure overall. “ You think I don’t see guys that look like me on the news? I have a hobo beard and holes in this coat and for all I know I’m about to break into an apartment of someone I don’t even know just because you tell me to. I could get shot or arrested or both. What am I gonna tell the cops, huh? ‘ I’m sorry Sir, the ghost told me it was her place and that I can take whatever food I wanted that hasn’t gonna bad because I haven’t had a gig in three months and I’m living off spaghetti from a can and old lunch meat. Please don’t throw me in jail because even if I wont have to get worried about rent and I’d get three meals a day, I really dont’ want to have to share a two-foot cell with a guy who beat his wife or some dude named Butch who wants me to be his new boyfriend.’ ”

Amused by himself, Cesar found himself pausing at her comment. It made him a little red in the face as sexual frustration, while closer to the bottom of his list of needs not being met, was still just one of the many things contributing to his perpetual bad mood. “ Look at that – a girl after my own heart. “ He said almost mockingly. �� I’m going back inside if you don’t start walking.” He said flatly.

Following Joss, albeit reluctantly, Cesar stuffed his hands in his pocket as he surveyed the streets. He knew the city pretty well, but it was still better to pay attention to where he was going for a number of reasons. “Control? No…” Cesar scoffed. “ I’ve barely had control over anything my entire life. I’m annoyed because there’s a ghost bossing me around who wont let me sleep and my fear is being overridden by the promise of something other than cereal and stale bread.” Caesar said with a tut. “ You might get gratitude at best, but if you really want me to be nice to ya, find a way to make yourself corporeal and let’s revisit that candle thing.” He snickered.

“I want to let that one go but that’s a deep cut. Deeper because you know literally nothing about the practice.” She paused. “Technically, yes, witches usually are in covens instead of just being solitary.” She smiled to herself as he got ready for yet another aimless walk, her own ego fresh off a scathing and ignorant guess. “Dickhead.” She added once a few more moments had passed. It was one of the few widely spread beliefs and myths about witches that just happened to be true, even if most of his assumptions seemed outlandish.

Like he might instead be holding a microscope concentrated by sun right into her chest, she felt the sting of insecurity from his thoughtless comment. It wasn’t something she tried to sit with for long periods of time, especially given how many years had passed already. Being a lone witch wasn’t completely out of the question, or even taboo, but it certainly didn’t feel good. Through no fault of her own had she ended up alone, many of her own friends moving from town to safer spaces, no family left within the practice to join her. Staying behind was a choice made mainly due to nostalgia. What felt familiar and comfortable soothed her, and for what she imagined up until now, safe. Even if the idea rattled her, it made the most sense that her friends and family’s leave could correlate to the very reason she now hung in limbo, but like much everything else she opted not to dwell too long on the thought.

She peered over at him as he rustled his things back in his pockets wearily, waiting patiently for him to collect all his items back on his person. An unexpected laugh filled her mouth, a smile stretching across her lips. “Okay, you little freak.” She charged with amusement, thoroughly enjoying his lapse of judgment and the embarrassment that came along with it. “I’m not opposed to a little back door action, probably not with a candle, but..” She shrugged, smile still lingering as he fought against his slick mouth and shoved his wallet in his pocket as they made their way out.

“Well don’t get mad at me you’re the one without food.” Pushing back, she rolled her eyes as he made yet another quick and witty false remark. ““Oh I’m sorry I thought you were following me?” She narrowed her eyes at him as they made their way down the street, remembering her house was not too far from where they were now, even if it was a fairly unconventional route. “I feel like you get so bothered by the lack of control you have right now..” she sighed. “I feel like by now you should be used to it. Hopefully after I’ve fed you you’ll be a little nicer to me.”

[cesar-ramon]

“Okay – har har har…” Cesar remarked with narrowed eyes in the brunette’s direction. He was more than away that his overall disposition left much to be desired, but he was too old and too tired to pretend to be something he wasn’t anymore. Having pissed away his youth on the road, drinking too much and eating like shit was catching up to him, and with his career and dreams basically in the grave, the motivation to start eating healthier and working out wasn’t there for Cesar. He didn’t see the point when he didn’t see much of a future for himself regardless of whether or not he had abs and better kidneys. That and he didn’t want to imagine what kind of ghosts there were in a gym.

“Did this whitty person come to you in the afterlife, or was it always there? Cause I’m starting to understand why you wouldn’t have many other witchy friends you could go to for help the more you talk.” Cesar huffed. He knew nothing, but he would assume that witches ran in covens like they did in the movies, so why was Joss not trying to connect with them through some kind of seance? Before he could think of anything else , her comment halted him in his tracks. It wasn’t what he was expecting, but before he could think about what he was about to say, his loose lips spilled his inner thoughts. 

“You and me both, honey. Believe me, I’d be shoving a few things up your ass too if it’d get you to shut up.” He scoffed. It was only after the words were floating in the air that he realized their implication and sighed. “ No, not –” he closed his eyes and took another breath. It wasn’t as funny out loud as it was in his head, and Cesar really had no way to explain himself other than being hard up and not thinking before he spoke. “ Just… C’mon.” He grunted. His clothes were back on and his useless and empty wallet was stuffed in his pocket next to his beaten up old phone. He basically had anything of mild value on his person and was ready to go.

He yanked the door and instinctively held it open for her, locking up from the hallway when they both stood, although it was mostly for show since there was nothing of true value worth stealing. He then began to march towards the stairs and out the door with Joss in tow. “ I’m defiant because I’m hungry.” Cesar reminded her. “ Besides, I bet you did a lot less talking to those guys and that’s why they went so easily.” He teased.

“Thankfully the only people who ever called me daddy were women over twenty-one who didn’t want child support.” He remarked as he shuffled out the main door of the decrepit building he called home and back out onto the streets. The concrete felt jagged underneath the worn soles of his old shoes, and Cesar found himself hoping they made the walk there and back without falling apart as he looked left and right. “You gonna point me in a direction, or am I supposed to use The Force or something to intuit where your place is?”

“They wouldn’t be telling me something you haven’t already been told a million times yourself.” She resolved, confident that was the case outside the great pleasure of their meeting. Besides, she was probably much more agreeable than this most times and given the circumstances she was at a certain disadvantage. Joss figured she was probably less charming while transparent and not tangible, and perhaps had she been a real woman she would’ve met a different person. Still, she was glad they met this way because at least she knew he was being honest.

“No one is asking you to be a ray of sunshine, I’m not looking for a miracle here.” She raised her hand in defense, scanning his hopeless eyes as his voice rose. Maybe that was just his regular base tone because he only softened it when he felt pity for her, and she suddenly found herself with a preference for the first. Joss watched his eyes light up with disbelief, fear and shock that this world was as a wicked and unbelievable as he’d previously thought. “Well yeah.” She chuckled at his question. Of course it had been her way of life for some time. Another laugh followed, this one with much less snark. “I wish I could shove candles in my ass for spells but that’s not how it works unfortunately.”

Joss looked at him inquisitively. “Don’t tell me you’re a dad, too.” Had she been tangible she would have offered a hand on his shoulder. “Pathetic and hot only works when you’re not a deadbeat.” Knowing the only thing worse than not sleeping this very instant was waking up on an empty stomach, Joss gave a sympathetic smile for his cause, snickering when he finally recognized how similar they were. “Way to assume I’ve been dead for a while,” She responded with an air of attitude. “I said they would expire eventually.“

Narrowed eyes focused on him as he slung on his boots, keeping her eyes on the equally dead ones that met hers. “Let’s not waste change on what could be a jarring embarrassment for me and we’ll walk okay?” She huffed, tapping her foot along the floor where it would muster no noise. “Maybe the walk will make you hungry enough to stop being so defiant. You know it’s never been this hard for me to get a guy back to my place. You should be so lucky.”

[cesar-ramon]

“Anyone ever tell you your jokes are an acquired taste?” Cesar glared. Impressively witty as Joss was, he was still trying to cop with the fact that either ghosts were real and he could in fact see them and wasn’t just insane, or that he was just insane. Neither option was favorable for him, and it was hard to be jovial and optimistic in a lose/lose situation. 

“Oh, I’m sooooo sorry for not being a fucking ray of sunshine when there’s a ghost witch in my apartment dragging my ass for my poor life choices while I try to wrap my head around whether or not I’m effing senile or not. Excuuuuuuse me for not believing thing a see-through woman who I met in a graveyard when she tells me about witchcraft!” Cesar scoffed. “I-i-is this just normal for you? Ghosts and-and witches and candles and — fuck, I don’t know! Ten months ago I thought I was facing the biggest thing I was gonna deal with when my band broke up and I had to take whatever gigs I could get to cover my rent. Had I known then that I could just shove a candle up my ass and spin around in a circle five times while throwing sheep knuckles or something and it’d fix my life I’d be lubing up every day!” 

He knew he was being unfair in yelling at her, but there was a stubborn part of him that didn’t want to accept this as his new reality. He in fact would have probably preferred the insanity option — at least then he wouldn’t be homeless or have to worry about bills and food. At least in an asylum he’d have friends. 

“What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t be fucking racist.” He chortled. They were back to joking (maybe) as Cesar found himself melting deeper into the couch. He just wanted to sleep; partly because he was tired but more than anything because he hoped this was a bad dream and he’d wake up to find that he lived in a mansion in Hollywood with a Victoria Secrets model for a wife and a few Grammy’s on a mantle from all the amazing movie scores he’d made.

“Last time a woman talked to me able Plan B things didn’t go so well.” Cesar snickered. With a sigh, he looked up at her. “You’re not gonna let me sleep, are you?” He shook his head, knowing the answer and sighed. Her level of sarcasm and quick wit mirrored his a little too well, and Cesar suddenly felt bad for Gabriel. “ I hate that this is what a conversation with myself much be like.” He said before shooting up. “ Fine, let’s go to your place. Dunno what food you can possibly have there that’s still good enough to eat but if it’s better than stale cereal than there’s that, at least.”

Sighing, Cesar pulled up his pants of the ground and shimmied back into them before plopping on the couch to put on his shoes. “ Your place is walkable, yeah? Like within walking distance? Or are you gonna grab my broom and fly us there? I don’t have a fireplace for you to zap us there too so I hope it’s not a far walk. And if these references aren’t doin’ it for you, I have enough change for the bus, but you’ll probably have to stand so you dont get sat on.”

“You didn’t believe me.” She insisted, voice leaning on the side of irritation. It was true most of his remarks were made in disbelief, and even now Joss felt like what she was mentioning was so minor that she said it with ease because she knew it was the least of what might worry him. “I’m not winning myself any points here but yeah, some do. I’m a bells at the door girl myself, but that’s half for the noise it makes. You’re so cranky,” she huffed. “You’re acting like I’ve just ruined Santa for you, I think it’s time to start reevaluating your expectations.”

Her smile was quick to fade, hearing him turn sour and snap at her with less patience than he had in the last few minutes. Her arms crossed at her chest though it did no work on making her look any more solid, or serious for that matter. He began on his apology and she could do nothing but roll her eyes at him. Joss would have otherwise entertained his ramblings, listed off on all the ways he was wrong and how his innate ability to misconstrue and make situations worse would get the better of him, but didn’t in anger. Her brows had pressed into a fitted knot, annoyed that an apology should even follow. It hurt in a childish manner, like she’d spent so long trying to plead her case that when he felt like he couldn’t take he’d shut her up.

She let him have his moments and then some. Joss tried to be sympathetic as holding grudges was not something in her nature. It felt frustrating trying to get him to understand, like she was meeting a wall with words falling flat. What’s worse was that it wasn’t even the worst, and that all the things he had to fear she’d left out of mentioning, not wanting to overwhelm him. It seemed even comical, as the rise of witchcraft had brought these simple things to the forefront so much so that it shouldn’t have even been an issue, but him she guessed it wasn’t.

A snort hid behind her laugh and superseded her frustration with him. “Of course that’s your name.” She sighed to bring herself no closer to relief, turning around to meander at more of the things in his house. Sometimes looking at his face made her feel smaller somehow, like she had something to prove. “If you’re gonna bitch about spell work then we’re just gonna have to go to plan B.” Joss looked over the tattered edges of his vinyls, thinking warmly of their next course of action. “Wanna come back to my place?” She smiled to herself, distracted by her current focus, turning her head at the perverted implication of her suggestion.

“There’s plenty of food there, so we don’t have to dive into a money spell since you’re obviously not ready.” She teased and half serious, as any more of his objections might spoil her mood entirely. “You’re not so far from where I live, maybe a 20 minute walk. I need my plants watered. I imagine the food will expire eventually, but it might be a good gage as to how long it’s been, since we have no other way to measure the difference.”

[cesar-ramon]

This world, he was coming to realize, was vast. All too quickly had Joss opened doors to things in his mind that Cesar frankly would have been happy to have kept closed for the rest of his life. Things like curses and hexes were terrifying on their own in everyday superstition, but he had grown up with all kinds of silly practices being done on him and his family to ward off the evil eye or sickness — he knew it all to be silly stuff from the old world that the previous generation couldnt’ let go, as did everyone else. To think that in this day and age spitting somewhere or some herb or leaf was actually going to protect you from the boogeyman was just plain dumb —- but then again, so was the idea that in this day and age, people were still believing in witches and hunting them. He supposed, seeing that he was talking to a ghost, it wasn’t that hard to believe after all. Still, Cesar was fifty-fifty on being insane and not psychic, and the way things were looking, the man found himself leaning towards hoping he was crazy.

“Jesus Christ…” He found himself muttering as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Animal sacrifice, candles, buried jars… What was next? “ You gonna tell me next that I should put salt at the doors and windows too? We’re in the voodoo capital of the country, can you at least pretend like some of this is the mambo jumbo I thought it was so my head doesn’t implode? This is a lot for one day!” He groaned, slouching further into the seat before he took another drag.

He would have presumed by now that he was no stranger to fear, but the reality was that Cesar had barely scratched the surface, and that in and of itself was a horrifying realization. To understand this world was to layer more danger on top of the already dangerous world he lived in. He found himself longing for the days where a rogue or crooked cop or being the victim of a stray bullet in a drive-by or drug deal gone wrong were biggest worries. 

He was so busy being wrapped up in his paranoia that Joss and her smart ass remarks almost went over his head. Almost.

“Will you can it for five minutes so I can at least process all this?” He snapped. He instantly regretted it, if only for the sake that she was …well, dead. Still, he felt annoyed. Here he was trying to accept all this supernatural stuff and she was making jokes. “ Look, I’m sorry, I really am, okay, but this… All this? This is a whole hell of a lot for one day. I mean I didn’t even have a proper breakfast this morning. Not long ago my biggest worry was getting a gig to cover the rent and bills and now I find out that at any given moment the witchfinder general and the other puritans are gonna bust through the door and tell me that I hath sinned and drag me off to be burned or something. I don’t wanna deal with any of this right now. No spells, no hunting anything, no…candles, just…. I just need a freaking moment.” He stammered, nervously taking another drag from the almost burnt off cigarette.

After a long pause, the man looked at her. Pretty girl, sweet honey-colored eyes, a dimpled smile… and yet he could see right through her. It was terrifying. It reminded him that at any moment, he could be gone. He could just die for a number of reasons, and hardly anyone would care or miss him. He would be unknown — a failed musician, no kids, not goals achieved at all… Would anyone ever remember his name?

“Cesar.” He said after a long pause. “ My name is Cesar.” 

“No burning candles is a thing.” She pointed a finger out from under its crossed position. “And animal sacrifices, too, to be honest. Different strokes for different folks.” Joss looked off into the distance for a few moments then resumed when she caught the thought in passing. “You can burn a candle to make contact with spirits, burn one for love, burn a candle to do harm on someone. Hexes and curses those are real, too. Like don’t touch any buried jars on land or in water, that sort of thing.”

“Usually the more accessible something is means it’s a surface level spell. It’s different for everyone but in my practice it’s a lot of open communication with ancestors, lost loved ones, sometimes friends or angels, “spirit team”, whatever.“

It felt like it the first time she’d taken him seriously. “Yeah, of course.” There was hunters for every supernatural creature, so she answered it with the same sentiment. Joss didn’t have the heart to tell him that hunters were the least scariest thing out there, so she left well enough alone. This was enough for one day. “They’re usually from a long line of other hunters, kind of like a family business thing. Most of them hunt with the goal of total extinction in mind but I guess they half-assed it with me. Maybe they wanted something, I don’t know.”

She laughed, smiling back at someone who seemed aghast to hear the horrors of the supernatural world to a mirror of settled contentment. It felt so commonplace to her now that his reaction made her almost feel bad for him. “I’m racist but you just spoke Spanish..right..” She nodded playfully with narrowed eyes. “Yeah, what’s your first name? I’d love to be proven wrong, in the rare instance that ever happens.”

Her eyes softened for a second, briefly moved by his sympathies, maybe because this time it didn’t feel so generic. “It’s fine. At least it can’t get any worse.” She smacked her tongue against her teeth, brows raising as she sighed it off, trying to convey a brief imitation of disdain. “Well act sorrier than you look. I’m not above a little lying for the sake of my vanity.” Joss made a face at him. “How bad do I need to make you feel before I can convince you to do a little spell with me?”

[cesar-ramon]

As he listened on, part of Cesar wanted to laugh. What made her think that this man cooked anything ever was beyond him; he was a boy in a Latino household for pete’s sake. The women did everything and spoiled him rotten, he could barely wipe his own ass. Still, that much was more than likely lost on her due to the cultural differences. The other part of him that wanted to laugh was a deep, childish thought in his mind that found it amusing that she used stuff like that for whatever spells and potions she made instead of the traditionally described eye of newt and whatnot. It was movie hogwash and cartoon bullshit, but part of him assumed it to be rooted in truth if only for the fact that regular shit like leaves weren’t special, so what power could they hold?

“So you write something on a leaf and burn it and that’s somehow magic? No red and black candles or sacrificing a goat or something? When you put it like that la brujería suena aburrida.” Cesar chuckled to himself. 

It would come to dawn very slowly on Cesar that everything he thought he knew about magic and witches was not only fake, but so far from the truth that he might as well not claim to know anything. His brows furrowed as he listened on, another drag taken from his cigarette as he listened to her prattle on about closed practices and spirit teams. He was, once again, incorrectly presuming that witchcraft was generally fake, but could be practiced by anyone. They were in New Orleans, after all —- it was voodoo central. Anyone could order some books and open up a shop where they sell charms and candles to tourists and make tall claims. Likewise anyone could buy a couple of crystals and other silly trinkets and call themselves a wicca. It was new aged bullshit to him that people just did or said to feel different and special. Or so he had always thought. This would only be further solidified by what Joss told him next.

“Witch hunters?” He said with a tone of disbelief and fear. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him that such a thing was possible. “ You mean… like, that’s a thing?” He asked, clearly bewildered. It read on his face as his eyes stared widely at Joss, his jaw slack and his expression on of obvious dismay. He had grown up in the South and of course heard all the stories and history of the Salem Witch Trails and all the stuff that came with it, but he, like everyone else, knew it was nonsense. Only innocent women who were victims of jealous old wives or creepy men that they rejected were burned at the stake, no actual witches. But to hear Joss say it so matter-of-factly…

A chill ran down Cesar’s spine as the thought added to the many others floating in his head. Suddenly he was looking at Joss with renewed sympathy. It almost made perfect sense now that some witch hunter killed her. If that was a real thing, it seemed like the most likely and obvious answer. But there was more…

“First of all, that’s racist,” He said as a joke in regards to his name, but there was no humor in his voice. He couldn’t joke like he normally would when everything Joss had been saying had started filling in so many gaps in things he’d written off before. If there were witches and there were witch hunters, what else was out there? And if on the off chance his grandmother was actually a witch, did that make him a witch, too? Did witch hunters kill his grandmother? His father? Would they come for him too?

“So…” He began, but couldn’t find the words. If Joss was really murdered like that, he felt even more for her now than an hour ago, but didn’t know what to say or how to say it. He could only look at her with soft eyes and shake his head. For the first time, his shoulders slumped as he considered her position with his whole heart and mind. 

“I’m …so sorry, Joss.”

“I’m actually not worried about that at all.” She almost snorted laughing at the very idea. “You’ve been through too much to let a little hunger kill you. You’re living out of spite.” She waved a hand at him dismissively like she might be swatting at a fly, which ironically, was probably how he felt about her. He moved from the window and slunk into the couch, cigarette nestled between two fingers.

“It’s for cooking.” She tried to sound instructional but her contempt joined it. “We use it sometimes for what I guess you could say like a manifestation? It’s really basic stuff.” She laughed to herself, realizing they were never going to reach a point where anything she said was actually believable. “Well so there’s this thing - let’s just say your spirit team. It could be old family or friends, good spirits wanting to help, angels, whatever you can wrap your head around. There’s other ways to go about it, but you ask for something, write it on the leaf and burn it, that’s the gist.”

She spoke out with her hands, trying to make sense of what probably sounded like nonsense. “And you’re in luck because I’m a spirit.” Her hand was pressed to her chest now with an expression of pride. “And if you’re on your best behavior I can be on your team. Now it’s not super straightforward, no one’s gonna show up with a large check and balloons. You’ll find money on the ground, loose bills in an old coat, you get the idea. Not voodoo. That’s a whole other coven and a closed practice.”

He only seemed to give her attention when the shock settled in, like opening a can of worms. He’d have to find out some time or another, especially knowing his little gift didn’t seem to be going anywhere. “That would be my best bet.” She gave him another smile, exchanging a look of disappointment and experienced expectation. “Witchhunters, witchfinders.” She waved her hands and laughed, smiling at him with a little bit of fondness. Knowing much worse was out there than witches and ghosts, she almost felt like protecting him from the truth. He had no capacity to think about them now, especially when they posed no threat.

“No, it wasn’t a deer hunter, that’s actually.. I’m kind of insulted by that, actually.” She gave him a glance of dry disapproval. “They probably wanted something from me, I mean, they knew where I lived. I only remember walking and walking until I realized no one could see me. Couldn’t find my body, don’t remember how I died so I’m not stuck in a dreadful loop. Part of me thinks I might be around somewhere, which brings me back to my previous theory that it’s definitely someone skilled and not some low level zit hunting for game. And with the way you were looking at me earlier I’d say it was personal. I’ve laid down some solid cat in my days but I doubt it was my pussy that got me killed.” She crossed her arms again. “How about we start with why you don’t have a bay leaf in your house? The last name on that tombstone was Ramon, not sure why you don’t have a bay leaf but, okay. Are you nice to your neighbors you easedrop on, maybe they have a one.”

[cesar-ramon]

“One hundred and fifty percent sure.” He scoffed, a hint of humor in his tone as he watched her from the corner of his eye. It was a long day in the making, and the fact that he was already eager for it to be over was very telling. Still, as he blew smoke out the window, Cesar listened on. He knew he wasn’t the most enjoyable of company to be had, but he knew they were both stuck with one another now. Like it or not, he had to listen to learn. 

He let out a heavy sigh, her nagging already becoming an issue. If he had something of more substance to eat, he would have been eating it. “ Did you miss the part where I said I don’t have any money?” He all but hissed out, the obvious hunger making him cranky, but the lack of sleep adding to his overall curmudgeonly personality. He was just not a happy many — he was once, but now this is what she got. “You don’t need to worry about that, worry about figuring out what happened to get you here so we can fix it. I get that you’re worried I’ll starve to death and join you to haunt this shitty apartment forever, but let’s be optimistic about it.” He said with a flat expression in spite of the irony.

“What the fuck is a bay leaf?” He asked as he moved from the window and plopped on the couch nearby.The fire detector didn’t work, so he was mostly smoking out the window to stop the smell from stinking up the place and getting the landlord on his ass for smoking inside. It was more so a precaution than a worry about the status of the place, as the old miser knew damn well nothing worked and if there was a fire, he’d be blamed for it even if he didn’t start it. 

“So it’s like voodoo? That one movie with that blonde chick and the old lady… What was it called? Where they were taking care of some old man…” He mused, already distracted. He groaned aloud with obvious discontent as she pelted him with questions, his brain already taxed to the point where it was now just about not yelling at the dead woman haunting him and getting carted off to an asylum. 

“I obviously want to sleep, but since you wont let me do that, we’re figuring this shit out. “ He retorted in a way that he hoped conveyed that he was done with her nagging. It was in between his puffing away and his wondering about everything involved with their predicament that he heard the echo in his mind about what she said. “Wait —” he paused, his hand up to stop her from interrupting him, the cigarette braced between his fingers. “ What do you mean hunters? You think a hunter did this to you?” He was shocked by the revelation as his eyes landed on Joss. “ So you were like, in the woods or the bayou when this happened? Was this like deer season-ish or were you by the swamps?” He asked. It almost could make sense; he could picture some inbred gator trapper seeing a pretty girl all by her lonesome and trying something heinous only to strangle her to death when he failed or was done. 

“You’d be the only one doing the living so let’s not start there.” She huffed at him, getting particularly aggravated out of the blue that she wasn’t materialized enough to whip a slap on the corner of his arm. There was a permanent look of gloom on his face, and even from where she stood she could hear the harsh crunches of stale cereal. She saved him from another slight, rolling her eyes as he kept on.

“Well you’ll get used to it, it’s not like there’s much money in the other thing either.” Joss felt herself mirroring his emotions, trying to shake it off before they both became miserable. “You’re so hung up on the possession thing are you sure this isn’t reverse psychology for what you actually want?” Done with having to watch him painfully eat that expired cereal, Joss turned to look around at some vinyls he had tucked into a cubby framed in dust. “There’s lots I don’t remember and it’s of course the most important shit at the end, but I guess the library would be our starting point. What would be interesting to see is if they’ve got me under missing persons or deceased.” She sighed as if she wasn’t talking shop about her own mortality.

“How much of it do you really want to know? I mean, an hour ago you thought this was all you.” She turned to face him, almost entirely sure he wasn’t ready, crossing her arms at her chest again. “It’s likely it would be someone like me, but it very well could have been a hunter.” She tried to measure the look in his eye, but her gut already gave it away. She knew he wasn’t ready to accept that there were far wilder things out there than her, but if they were going to be honest with each other she had no choice. “I think you should eat something substantial before we get into that, and not something that expired last fall.”

But whatever she said, now or before, stuck with him in an unpleasant way and caused him to have an outburst. It was very likely that it was a combination of things, at the top of the list sleep and adequate food the main aggravators. Joss knew enough that little would get done if he wasn’t getting his basic needs, and the part of her that felt his suffering didn’t react to his little tantrum. It was the least she could do as she figured he was already regretting it as it happened.

“Do you have any bay leaves lying around? I know you have a lighter..” She moved on quickly, not acknowledging his words. “I’ll work on getting out of here.” She watched as he blew smoke out of the window, hand now resting on her collarbone, unaware of how ironic her action of discomfort was. “But this isn’t going to work if you’re halfway dead. I want you to have an open mind, because it’s not going to work if you don’t believe it. That’s the whole thing.” She squeezed her fingers in quotations. “What do you want to do more right now, eat or sleep? We’ll start with one thing at a time.”

[cesar-ramon]

He sighed, plopping down on his couch with his dry cereal and a scowl on his face. He needed ideas and means to execute said ideas, but he also needed to keep his lights on and get milk that wasn’t spoiled into his fridge. That coupled with the fact that he still wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t going insane, Cesar was more open to suggestion than his face gave away. He turned to her and wanted to protest or object to her request, but one look at her face kept the words inside. As much as he wanted to remind her that she was in fact dead, something about Joss and her soft brown eyes and the way her face was almost pleading, he felt for her again. His stupid, musicians soul. 

“So what, we take our show on the road? You flicker with the lights and stuff and I tell people what they’re thinking? We make millions and then go live on an island?” He snorted. The joke itself wasn’t as funny as the fact that he was genuine in his consideration of the idea. It would make money, after all. 

“Never said that.” He replied with a mouth full of cereal he was now believing to be slightly stale. “I just never actually did this before so I don’t know what the next steps are. LIke… I’m winging it here based on things I’ve seen on TV and a few paranormal research youtube videos. There’s no guarantee that any of it is gonna work but I’m willing to try if it helps you find peace.” He said flatly. “Maybe it’s what I’m here for — what I”m supposed to be doing. There may not be money in it, but it’s not looking like I have much of a choice about it anymore.” He said, resigned to his fate a little more. 

“No possessing me. Period.” He firmly reminded her before scooping another spoon into his mouth. “Well, we have to do something — figure out stuff. It’s not enough to just…know your past. You gotta dig deep and figure out what’s keeping your spirit here, that much I know. “ He said matter-of-factly. “And it —” he paused, narrowing his eyes at her comment before continuing. “ And there are probably details about it that you don’t remember… The library and old newspapers might have details. I’m grasping at straws here, but like… Anything you wanted to do or maybe you had something important you wanted to say to someone? Something’s holding you back.”

SIghing, Cesar dropped his spoon with a loud clanking sound before letting the bowl rest in his lap. Her question was valid, but it didn’t mean it was any less invasive or annoying. Given the fact that he himself was asking deeply personal questions, this was hardly pressing or nosy of her to ask, but because he didn’t like the answer he had to give if he was to respond truthfully, Cesar copped an attitude as he replied. 

“Do you think I’m joking when I say it’s been rough? Look at me — I’m a forty year old man with no degree living in a shitty studio apartment in the ghettos of New Orleans. I almost had what it took to be a promising and successful musician, but I had no long term plans that would have provided me with any stability and blew the money on expensive gifts to show off to my family and pricey guitars that I later had to sell anyway at half the value when I hit rock bottom. Now I’m sitting here eating dry, off-brand shredded wheat that’s tearing up the roof of my mouth because my milk went bad weeks ago and I didn’t even know. You think among me trying to take whatever poorly paying gigs I can get to keep the lights on and hitting up my last few friends for loans they know they’ll never get back that I had time to grill up a wagyu steak and fresh asparagus?!”

He didn’t mean to yell. He also didn’t mean to throw his bowl on his old thrift store coffee table so hard that the contents spilled everywhere. Still, he was annoyed. Not so much at Joss, but the fact that what she was just learning about him. He already knew and had to face every day. He pushed himself off the couch and stomped his way to his discarded coat, fishing the cigarettes and matches out of the pocket before he moved to the window. It pushed up with a grunt and a creek before Cesar leaned out the small opening and lit up. He paused, taking a deep drag and blowing it out into the afternoon’s dry air before shaking his head. “ None of it was supposed to be like this.” He mumbled, mostly to himself. 

“I can do that.” She tried to reason with him, meet him at the crossroads of their unnatural arrangement. It was fun, admittedly, to lay into him after he’d given her such a brutal greeting. But part of her watched him with endearment, helpless and formless to come to any real aid and feeling somewhat useless herself. “Alright,” she put her palm up in protest. “Not too much on the dead bit.” She opened her mouth to comment on the state of his face and how much more deceased he was looking than her. Per their agreement, she reined it in and tried to be a little less judgmental to the only person in the world who might be able to help.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “We could always try? I mean I can tamper with things, like your light. I bet I could do it with electricity, I’m sure that happens to you loads with other ghosts.” He looked spent and increasingly over her charade. “Well obviously.” Joss chided in, resting the weight she would’ve had on one leg as she crossed her arms with slight annoyance. “You know what maybe you should. No kind of cat frequents this apartment, clearly and maybe it would do you some good.”

Her eyes were narrowed but her temperament remained content. For the first time since their initial meeting, Joss took in her surroundings and slowed her interrogation as he sludged around and unfastened his pants until he was walking about in boxers and a white t-shirt. Nudity wasn’t such a foreign concept that the action moved her, but she certainly took note. It didn’t throw her off how comfortable he seemed to be in front of her, and with her sneaky side eye she got to admire what she had before, now with less fabric.

“You don’t want my help?” She urged him, trying to incite the idea of taking her help instead of trying to rush her out. “It’s not as simple as snapping my fingers but we can make do with what we have. If you trust me and really try to believe what I’m showing you. Otherwise it won’t work.”

“Me and my mom are fine,” she brushed away the thought, remembering it had been some time since they spoke, and no measure of extending an olive branch would be worth the realization that she was, to everyone else, still dead. “No one knows. So unless you want to make it worse, we could probably skip that step.” She sighed, trying to find an answer. “Library is a good idea..” Joss broke out into a short burst of laughter at his question. “Oh, plenty. One’s in the room with us now.” She looked over at him as he crushed cereal flakes between his teeth. “I’ve got a few shit ex-boyfriends who could go without another mention.” Her eyes fixed with concern. “When was the last time you had a proper meal? Some meat and vegetables.. A starch?”

[cesar-ramon]

Joss was not funny. Okay, she was pretty funny, but Cesar could hardly appreciate it when he was tired and hangry. The sad thing about hearing thoughts and ghosts was the pain that came along with it. It wasn’t like Medium where Jennifer Love Hewitt was pretty crying and helping totally normal looking ghosts cross over to the light. No, Cesar’s was more like Gothika and he was Halle Berry trying to solve a mystery while being haunted. Ghosts looked like holograms of their worst moment — sometimes they were mostly normal like Joss save for the dark ring from strangulation around her neck, other times they were bloated and water spilled from their mouths if they drowned in a bayou or creek. Other times black spots and rot riddled their skin or drooling gunshot wounds could be seen. Their voices were the worst, however. While reading minds still was jarring, Cesar could tell his own mental voice from the other person and it wasn’t grating as much as it was annoying. Ghost though… Their voices were disembodied and high pitched, giving him headaches and at the worst of times, nosebleeds. All in all, Joss was hardly the worst ghost he could be stuck with, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be haunted any less. 

“Joss.” He echoed. “ Look, we’re gonna need sound ground rules, Joss. Like number one, limit roasting my ass like an insult comic in the middle of a divorce who can’t see his kids to a minimum so I don’t feel as kicked when I’m already down and probably crazy.” He sighed. It was really the only thing he could think of in that moment as his mind slowly wound down and was almost — almost — in a sweet state of hibernation. But of course, that would have been too nice. Joss spoke up, and his dark eyes fluttered open as he stared into space like he was a character on The Office and the camera was zooming in right in front of him. 

He watched her as he sat up, his once-again unamused expression flat and full of disapproval for her. “ Postal? You’re dead.” He reminded her, although he supposed it made some sort of sense for an intelligent haunting. With a heavy sigh, Cesar flailed his arms. “ I don’t —- can you ever touch things? How are you supposed to turn a page or change a channel? I don’t…” Cesar huffed, flustered as he looked around the room. He had a TV, but no cable.  It was pretty old to boot and while he wanted to get one of those things that allowed him to watch Netflix and stuff, he was, at present, making due with a functioning DVD player and an impressive supply of box sets of shows from a couple years before anything that people were even watching now. But what about when he was gone?  How was she gonna change DVDs for seasons? 

“You do remember that the living need sleep, right?. You can’t expect me to entertain you day and night like a jester? A cat would be less demanding. “ He scoffed. “I’m gonna need to sleep at some point, and you’re gonna need to find a way to get your kicks or whatever it is you plan on doing because there’s the fact that I’m still actively looking for gigs because I need money to pay for this shithole.” He reminded her with a hint of exhaustion in his attitude. 

Standing slowly and unevenly, tiredness was giving way to the hunger that had been nagging at the pit of his stomach, but Cesar didn’t want to exhaust his meal resources until he really needed it, so instead of calling a friend up and begging them to take him out, Cesar pushed off his bed and stood. He paused, sighing, then reached for the buttons on his pants and carelessly shuffled out of them. They were mostly clean, and he didn’t want to dirty them up and make more laundry. After picking them up from the ground and sort of folding them, Cesar placed them at the foot of his bed before wandering lazily over to the small kitchenette and digging through the cupboards. 

“You can stay here and watch stuff if you want — I can put something on for you before I leave and it should play until the season is over. Or you can go do something that’ll help you … I don’t know, figure out what your unfinished business is or whatever.” he said as he grabbed a bowl and an open box of off brand cereal. Maybe we can take some time to go to the library or you can tell me where some of your friends or family are and ask them some questions that could jog your memory. Maybe you need to reconcile with your mom, I dunno.” He snickered almost. As he opened his fridge, Cesar glanced around until he found a bottle of milk and pulled it out. His joy over his find lasted a few moments before opening it revealed a smell that made him wretch. Tossing the entire carton into the sink, Cesar grabbed a spoon and shuffled his way to the couch with his dry cereal. “ Anyone you maybe pissed off or something?” He asked, dancing casually around the topic as he wasn’t sure she was aware what her neck looked like. 

Joss thought she might have heard a groan as he sank into his mattress hopelessly, but maybe it was just her imagination. Still less than pleased at making new friends, she stayed some feet behind him as he wallowed in self pity and measured the new slew of mental burdens atop the many. Her head tilted to the side curiously, admiring the curve of his pants over his ass. Her eyebrows raised and her lips made a curt frown, mouthing an inaudible hum.

It carried on until he sprouted up in opposition, her eyes widening in unsurprised shock as he dejected whatever she had managed to say now. “Wow.” She added, nodding expectantly as he emerged with a quick rejection. “Relax no one’s asking for your hand in marriage and a pen to sign the lease. I know you like to move fast but I’m squatting here. No need to make this a romantic thing, I know being in proximity to a woman is difficult for you. Probably especially because I’m dead, since that seems to be the type of shit you’re into.”

A knowing smile crept on her face. “Joss.” Delighted to hear him care enough to ask, she refocused her energy on not letting him get to her, at least not for now. “Seeing as I don’t take up any space I don’t see why I should have to pay anything.” She argued, and started to look around the room and not at him. “I do think we should establish that I am going to need some kind of entertainment so I don’t go postal. I was thinking since it seems you have some vinyls we could listen to music? TV,” she shrugged. “Put on a little antique roadshow, I’ll be such a quiet roommate you won’t even know I’m here.”

He moved around to get more comfortable in his bed, looking like something might be sitting heavy at his shoulders as he leaned forward. “You’re taking a nap?” She almost sounded offended. “But I just got here.” Like it might be a valid enough reason to stay awake. “Do you want to start today, or are you asking me if I plan on being complacent? If you stay and don’t sleep we can talk all about them. Or you can nap and I’ll be complacent.”

[cesar-ramon]

He was too old and too tired to keep up with her wit. Too underfed and too emotional to think of something snappy to hit her back with in order to continue sparring. Whatever she got out of it, he couldn’t guess, but he was ready to concede as he fell onto his old mattress. Even with it’s lumps and permanent dents, it was more comfortable than other places he’d slept in his lifetime. The tragic truth of being an artist was that you were unemployed more than you were employed. Like many actors who had never made it to the movie star level or painters who would never be featured in a gallery, Cesar had spent time in his travels sleeping in his then car, on the floor of friend’s places, and in a sleeping bag in a crowded room more than he’d been in a fancy hotel putting him up for a nice lengthy gig. While he didn’t mind it as much when he was young, he knew now that he couldn’t go back to that. Not when his hair was graying and his back was fucked up when he slept on the floor. 

“Everyone loves a good vapor job.” He mumbled, weary as he maneuvered slightly around a spring that was poking him in the chest. He would have drifted off if her comment about being roommates didn’t spark some deep fear in him. He shot up, the action slightly dizzying as his eyes quickly scanned the room until they found her. “ We’re what now? No no — no, no, no. We are not anything. We aren’t even a ‘we’. We’re barely a ‘ you and I’, alright? Look….” He paused, snapping his fingers a few times as he tried and failed to recall. “ What’d you say your name was again? Look, you’re a you and I’m a me. When I said I would help you I didn’t mean I would be putting up a bunk bed and leaving the seat down and all that shit. You need closure so you can move on, and if I was that desperate for a roommate and had the space in this crappy studio for one, I’d at least want them to be able to pay half the rent.”

With a sigh, he waved his hands and slumped back over, lazy in his efforts to shrug of the outer layers of clothing he’d gone out in. His long coat was weathered and beaten, and the fingerless gloved he often sported almost had a hole in them — his socks for sure did, but nobody was going to see those. He reckoned he looked a little homeless and was overdressed for the mildly warm weather, but the sad part about having ghosts flock to you was that one often felt colder than others. 

“Y’know… When I watched Ghosts back in the nineties… Never thought Whoopi Goldberg’s character would be the one I could relate to the most.” He joked, scoffing as he let his hole infested socks, dingy coat and out-of-season and fashion gloves pool together in a nice pile on the floor that closely resembled the pile beside the toilet in his small bathroom that he’d discarded that morning. The saddest part was how they would either stay there a few more days until he went out, felt like doing a little laundry, or needed to go out and didn’t care ( or couldn’t tell) what was clean and what was dirty.

“Well…” He paused, twisting his face into an unreadable expression. “ I’m gonna take a nap, what are you gonna do, Casper? Throw on Poltergeist? Possess a vacuum cleaner and tidy up?” He snorted, his tiredness making his jokes seem funnier than they actual would to him. “But no , seriously, what are your plans? Like what are you planning to do until…. Whenever?”

Appalled, Joss scoffed and blew her lips together in a noise that could only be described as disbelief. “I’m curious or you are?” She was laughing now. “You wanna test out these hands and find out the hard way, that’s your choice. They’re probably fucking vaporous, the world’s most useless fleshlights. ” She put her hands out for a closer look, shrugging in defeat. “You know you’re something else, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have a girlfriend, I mean it’s beyond me.”

“Again, not my choice. In fact I think what might be good for you is to redirect that anger with the universe who basically threw you in my lap.” She tagged along as he drudged along. “Nothing is a coincidence.” She spoke like she knew, but to her it felt factual and had yet to defy her delusions. “How am I stalking you? We’re roommates.” Already she was throwing the word around like she’d stepped a foot inside his house before.

He had already slipped into his racing mind again even before she’d finished tearing into him, like something bigger might have been on his mind. She watched his eyes as they peered instinctively over the what she could only imagine was the smell that sifted into the streets, a well lit bakery with glass panels full of treats.

For curiosity’s sake she might have accidentally hassled him with too many questions and many more things he wasn’t equipped to answer. It was probably for the best he didn’t dwell on it now. Knowing when to stay shut and when to speak, Joss followed him down the street until they reached his apartment. She watched as he huffed and sighed, hands reaching into his pockets with visible exhaustion, eyes drained and shoulders limp. It was a shame she couldn’t use her hands to find some other practical way to provide him with relief, like a homemade meal and a long hug.

When she crossed the threshold of his apartment she found things to be as she suspected, in need of a woman’s touch, and a little cluttered. It looked like a series of half-thoughts, tasks unfinished, the lack of coordination not surprising in the least. “Oh, this is cozy.” Which just felt like the southern way of saying it was small and quaint. Following suit she watched as he splayed himself onto his bed and observed the stress practically ooze from his body. She looked around and imagined she’d spend a lot more time oogling at all of his things when he wasn’t around, but that could wait. “Can my rule be no sad jerking yourself off without putting a sock on the door?”

[cesar-ramon]

His dead eyes glared unblinkingly at Joss as she got her shots in. Her wit and humor were admirable and would have been better received had the man who was the target of it not been sleep deprived and a little hangry. He paused, almost moving the phone as he looked at her. “No, and I’m getting desperate and you seem curious, so what, you offering?” He bluntly posed before walking again. It wasn’t his intention to be crude, but his circumstances were painfully obvious to him, and with his mind on getting a steady gig that could provide income without him having to suck it up and head to the unemployment office, Cesar was at his wit’s end. 

He gave her a knowing look as she admitted to living out in the woods, but deep down he doubted she ate people. Still, it was odd to him that she would. In theory, it seemed nice, but in a place like Louisiana, living in solitude far away from people as a woman didn’t bode well in his mind. The state had a pretty high rating for crime, and given her current situation, there was no way that she died from a bear attack out in the woods. Still, as obvious as it was that someone killed her, Cesar didn’t want to bring it up and risk touching on old wounds. He had some kindness left in him still, after all.

He paused on her question, the fact that he didn’t have a real answer to it being only part of the reason he didn’t respond. His brain wasn’t ready to unpack all that, and his mind was too focused on compartmentalizing trauma and shock to be microdosed into his sphere of awareness so he could deal with it all a little bit at a time. So he ignored her, offering a muttered “Tch,” in dismissal before he turned another corner. His apartment build was within sight now, and he looked forward to crashing on his lumpy old mattress and passing out. He wanted to take advantage of most of the people around him being at work to catch a few hours before he went back on the prowl for the evening, and could only hope his new friend would keep herself busy while he did. 

“You think if I knew how to ditch you or any of your kind I would be having any of the problems I have? I’d spit in all directions and sleep in a circle of salt if it meant that I could get rid of youse. But since that clearly aint fuckin’ happenin’, I guess I really don’t have a say in you stalking me or not. But hey, whatever floats your boat — maybe watching was your thing, far be it from me to tell you what to do.” He shrugged. 

As he eyed the coffee shop next to the run-down building he rented his room from, the sweet, blissful aroma called to him as someone opened the door to exit the store. Cesar could see all the pastries and sandwiches inside and could smell the fresh day’s brew, but only gave it a longing look before heading to the front door. He could have gonna a cup and a treat, but Cesar was trying to get used to saving and not splurging for the first time in his life. 

He unlocked the front door and wandered inside the building with a yawn, his body beckoning him to rest as he put his beaten phone back into his pocket and dragged himself up the stairs.  At his door, he unlocked it and pushed the door open before gesturing ahead. “ Ladies first.” He teased, wondering if she could go right through the door, but it was too late to test that out. Instead, he meandered his way inside, and kicked off his shoes by the door. The wet Earth of the graveyard had clung to the bottom of the old boots and Cesar didn’t want to make extra mess for himself to clean up by dragging them across the old wood flooring when he already had a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and a hamper of laundry overflowing. “Make yourself at home, I guess.” He shrugged as he took off his jacket and slug it over the high backed living chair that hideously mismatched the sofa set.

“You know…” He began as he moved towards his bed and threw himself down on it. “ We’re gonna hev to come up with some serious ground rules. I mean it, I don’t want you throwing any ghost house parties while I’m gone or trying to summon anything in here for me to have to be freaked out in my own home. Pretty sure some guy offed himself in this room already, So spare me any dramatics and we’ll do pretty good.

“I don’t think you want me to answer that honestly.” Like most of her words, it fell between the cracks of his own. It was rather funny to hear how hopeless his efforts were, right up until they met again at the crossroads of his foul mouth and her gutter brain. It seemed to be a bad habit of his, and had it been any other time or circumstance maybe she might have taken offense. Now all it meant was that he felt comfortable enough to spew nonsense in front of her, which was a hell of a lot farther than she thought she’d be at the beginning of their meeting.

Out came a snarky laugh and a snort, watching his body tense up as his feet stopped in their place in frozen embarrassment. “Hmm, I don’t know.” she laughed between his excuses. “Thats the second time in less than an hour.” She wiggled her fingers in the air, semi-visible in the air as they moved. “Must be a lot weighing on your mind.” She grinned. “What, no girlfriend to pull in for the assist?”

Whatever she said made him stop in his tracks, resuming only when he found words to fill the void she’d just created. “What, living in the woods and eating children? Of course it’s a myth, what the fuck?” She laughed, even if part of her still felt insecure about his disdain for her kind. “Well, okay so I do live in the woods, but that’s a totally separate thing.” Something of a shut-in herself, it made sense to be in an area where she could do as she pleased without the large tourist spots and constant traffic. She preferred the quiet, and not for the sake of snatching kids.

Joss felt her sigh slip into a smile, amused even now at how tight he was holding on to his theories. “Is it fear that you might be wrong, or just you wanting to have control over her memory and what you remember her to be like?” She didn’t know him at that well, but she could imagine the lack of knowledge about all these things could only induce the fear of the unknown. “She sounds nice. I’m not saying she was one, maybe she wasn’t.” She paused for a moment. “You don’t think she could hear like you?”

Regardless of her long thread of free thought, the idea seemed to seep into his own doubts because his teeth were digging into his bottom lip and he’d suddenly turned silent. Joss felt like she’d lifted the veil of his whole hang up, and though she wanted to break into questioning again she couldn’t, wondering and somehow knowing he had to have been doing this alone. Maybe half his issue was how much he kept to himself.

“I wish I could say you had much of a choice.” She mused, but the excitement was already starting to form. “I couldn’t tell you the extent of my reach..I don’t know I mean maybe, but I don’t trust you won’t ditch me so I’m not gonna test it now.” Underplaying her anticipation, Joss allowed herself a short and proud smirk before speaking again. “Since I need to know where you are and know that you’ll always come back, yeah unfortunately.” It was anything but. She laughed, then shrugged. “I thought if someone could hear me it’d be a witch, so imagine my surprise. My plan B would be collecting some of items that I can connect to on my side, then from there.. it’s blind leading the blind. I won’t overstay my welcome and obviously you can have your privacy during your sad, singular sex sessions, that’s no problem at all.”

[cesar-ramon]

Cesar only shrugged at her echo of words. It wasn’t a science he could break down to her — he had no idea how or why it had come to him nor how it worked, only that at every waking moment, and even in some of his dreams, somebody’s pain was coming to haunt him. “Lady, do I look like I can afford to abuse substances? You have any idea how much a dime bag goes for these days? I can either get high or make sure the lights in my shithole stay one, not both. “ He scoffed. “I can barely even afford a regular pack of smokes, and the only free vice is jerkin’ off, and I’d like to see you try to do that when the lady in 11b is crying cause her boyfriend liked another woman’s pictures on Instagram.”

There was a long pause after he spoke before his own words had reached his ears. There was something of a lack of a filter to his words when he wasn’t being cautious, and it led him to be crude and blunt when he shouldn’t have been. Cesar winced, his eyes clamping shut tightly for a moment as his feet stopped moving. “ Not — Not I want to see that…you jerkin — I didn’t mean it how it came out.” He all but groaned, loathing himself a little more than he did five minutes ago. 

Walking again, he shook off the awkwardness as best as he could before talking. “ I don’t know – I haven’t been able to get a good buzz in a while. I guess I’m a little snobby, but I don’t really like cheap hooch.” He shrugged. “ I mean, i can drink a couple of beers and feel slightly buzzed, but it wears off pretty fast since I have a high tolerance for alcohol. It takes something closer to the top of the shelf to really get me fucked up, and since I haven’t been able to afford that for a while…” He trailed off, ending his sentence with a shrug as he rounded a corner.

“But I miss it.” He added. “ I never really had a problem, even though I look like I do, but sometimes it was comforting to be numb to the bullshit. But I dunno — when it just started I was kinda out of it and thought I was going crazy, so I can’t really recall. Hell, I’m not too sure I’m not going crazy even now.”

When Joss snapped at Cesar, he was taken aback. He wasn’t expecting it, his lack of filter seeming to get him in hot water once again. He stared at her with wide eyes for a few moments, feet slowling but not fully halting before he snapped to and started walking again. “ No, I didn’t — I mean, that’s a myth, right? Like just a story.” He was almost asking, not sure himself if that was a thing or not. “ Look, nothing’s wrong with being a —-” Cesar stopped himself before the word came out. There were too many people around, and he didn’t want to sound crazy in addition to looking the part. “ Like you are…. Nothing’s wrong with it, I just think I would know, you know? If she was. I mean, she didn’t do stuff…  She wasn’t like the aunties and stuff who did brujaria and shit with the candles and the silver or whatever. She was just nice. A nice, normal grandmother. 

Turning another corner, Cesar felt the doubt seep into the cracks in his past and his excuses, making him gnaw on his lip. He ached for another cigarette, but in addition to it just being a nasty vice that would send him to an early grave, he also couldn’t afford to chain smoke. The pack needed to last for when he really needed to take some of the edge off. Instead, he fiddle with his fingers, muscle memory making his hand behave as though he were playing an invisible piano in the air. “So how long are — I mean, what’s the plan. You can obviously leave the graveyard, so you’re not bound there, so what? Are you just gonna like… follow me around, wait in my apartment while I sleep or shower? I mean, you don’t have a phone so I like, can’t call you to meet somewhere… But I also don’t imagine you’re gonna be fine with sitting outside for hours and hours. I mean, I barely know you, but I have the feeling patience and privacy have little meaning to you right now.”

With some expected pushback, Joss looked on as he shuffled in his pockets for an answer to her question. From his pocket emerged a phone which would serve as his cover. Dark, dead eyes bore into her own and left her with a peculiar sensation. Being that she was no longer fully present in her body, it wasn’t manifesting in her gut the way it would have. Instead it shifted her restless mind to the present, taking a liking to how unamused he was by her antics. The struggling musician down on his luck, raincloud of darkness over his head thing really did work for him, the way it sat quite pleasantly in his eyes.

She cracked a laugh to herself and looked down at his feet, making sure she was at his side and not tagging behind him like a child. It didn’t take him long to fill her in on all the details. Even if his words were full of resentment, the context surely made it easier to understand. She imagined an endless stream of constant conversation, emotions pouring in and staying stagnant. She wondered how it felt now, if he could feel the grief radiating from others now that they were getting closer to denser areas.

“A constant stream?” She added, even though she already knew. “I’m guessing the demeanor is a result and not a contributing factor to the problem, so it’s probably not a curse.” She was talking mostly to herself, wondering what sort of mess he’d inherited and where. “What about a little substance abuse, that do anything? Like what happens when you drink?” It was what she would do, had she not had the access to other means herself. There that look was again, this time less pleasing than the last. The spite behind it started to matter a lot less to her now that his anger was becoming attractive. The way he talked made her laugh, like he might be picking up slang she’d never used, grin smug on her face as she spoke. “I would, but like you no one in my world wants to talk to me.”

It wasn’t until his words turned sharp that her mood soured, brow knitted in confusion. An immediate denial as if the mere suggestion was an offense. He just kept going, beating against the notion. How kind and loving she was, and how someone like that could never be someone like her. “You watch your mouth.” She snapped at him like an instinctive response. Her smile quickly faded. “You must think I live in a wooden house in the forest and eat children. Should I turn green and grow warts on my nose?” Her voice held more weight now, unsurprising as anger could often make them stronger. “What’s so wrong with being a witch?”

[cesar-ramon]

His thoughts were heavy behind his smile. Gabriel was not a guarded man in the sense that he didn’t trust people with his feelings, but as long as Cesar had known him, the older man had a habit of making it seem like everything in his life was perfectly fine and that he was burdened by nothing. In the same breath, Cesar admired the man and felt sorry for him. Cesar didn’t have the right words to console his friend without giving too much away. He could only nod and not look too hard at the teacher as he spilled a bit of his true feelings. Cesar felt like it was all he was gonna get, and that it he interrupted, Gabriel might close off, feeling like he was sharing too much and made the mood uncomfortable. 

“Yeah but, even one person caring makes a difference.” Cesar argued, trying to perk up his friend. “ I mean, I can’t tell you how I learned the ABCs, but I know the names or anyone who ever influenced my love of music in my life. That shit matters. Kids are gonna remember you out of a sea or teachers because you went above and beyond to teach them more than whatever shit was just … in the textbook. That means something in this world. The way things are, it — it gets to you even if you try hard not to let it. These kids are a product of your hard work as much as anything.”

Cesar sighed. His emotions had always been better expressed in song, and there was no way he was going to pull out his guitar and sing to Gabriel. He could only hope that his friend understood without him getting too sappy. 

Letting out a soft laugh, Cesar shook his head. “ I dunno man… Been a while since I got laid, but that’s also kinda the least of my problems, y’know? I still gotta land a couple gigs if I’m gonna be able to make rent and bills this month, so that’s kinda takin’ the forefront on my mind over gettin’ some tail. No one wants to bang a guy who doesn’t have a place to bang in.” He laughed, but it was a misdirection. While he wasn’t the smoothest guy, his prospects were broader when he didn’t know what women really thought of him at first glance. “But it’s whatever, man. We should probably get outta here so that waitress stops giving us the stink eye for holding up a table.” He scoffed, the absurdity of her thoughts offensive to Cesar as it wasn’t like the place was packed or it was some fine dining and not a greasy spoon. 

“But really, thanks for the food, man. I mean it. I swear I’ll get the next one.” Cesar promised, hoping it didn’t sound empty and like lip service. He waited for Gabriel to gather his things and get the check before he shimmied out the booth and began making his way to the door. “ Ladies,” He said, tipping an imaginary hate to the scowling waitresses as he exited. 

Once on the street, Cesar took a deep breath. It was as if the walls of the diner had shut out all the voices passing by, but now that they were among the crowd, thoughts began to ooze into his mind. It took a few moments of deep breathing and stillness to quiet them enough to not go crazy, and as the all melded together, Cesar took a breath of relief. It was, at the very least, manageable. “Wanna walk off some of the bacon grease and cholesterol?” He asked Cesar, pulling the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Or you got papers to grade?”

All that he was saying was absolutely true. There was no room left for wondering the true cause and course of where their futures might lead them, Gabriel knew. It went without saying that the majority of kids ended up a part of monotonous cog turning the wheels, much like what he felt he ended up doing himself. At the very least he prided himself on the point that he had accomplished his dream of becoming a teacher, and had been a good one thus far. But sometimes it felt useless, like he was not doing enough, not helping enough children - even though he felt his hands constantly full and overflowing.

Gabriel sighed, trying not to let the always present feeling of dread overcome him. It wasn’t a place he sat in for long, too drawn to overcoming whatever obstacles he felt passionate enough about, and he could only do so much all at once. “It’s tough sometimes when you know what’s going to happen next.” He looked down at the table, focused in thought as he stared into the weathered white table.

“You do what you can even when you know where they’re going. You just do the best you can. Honestly,” he shrugged. “Worst part of it is watching the system play into their failures. They make one bad choice, fuck I know I have, and they get them in this cycle and keep ‘em there, and then they’re adults and they only one thing… I don’t know.”

He shook his head and looked back at Cesar, who he hoped didn’t darken his mood on his account. “I try not to let it all get to me. It always feels like everything needs fixing.” He left well enough alone, absorbing his words and smiling again. “You say that until she’s asking you to change her diaper.” He laughed, playing with the straw wrapper and spinning it between his fingers. “She’s gonna treat you like a nursing aid.”

Gabriel hadn’t thought much about leaving as much as the tasks of daily life clouded his mind. Sometimes it felt like so much was going on that he forgot how quickly time passed or how long he’d been there. “Everywhere pays shit.” He added, taking a sip of his now hot, refilled coffee. “I don’t know.” He laughed. “I mean are you out here looking? There’s not much out there if you are. It doesn’t help I don’t know a thing about the online dating thing.” He flicked the paper at his arm, missing and hitting his chest instead. “Women are a whole different beast now. We don’t even have the excuse of youth anymore, too broke to be sugar daddies.” He chuckled at himself. “We’re sugarless. Maybe the dad bods can get us by.”

[cesar-ramon]

She was walking behind him, but he heard no leaves crunching on the ground or any soft footsteps in the damp earth beneath them. It was always so jarring how the spirits were both there and not at the same time. Cesar had it in the back of his mind that he should have been used to it by now; that somehow, he should have become acclimated to having his world view and beliefs rocked and his head filled with the thoughts of others and his sleep should no longer be disturbed by the wailing of the trapped. Her question was enough to keep him present and not lose himself in the fear and discomfort of it all, but he wasn’t annoyed or caught off guard for once. At her query, Cesar simply pushed back his coat and dug his phone out of his pocket. It was an old model with a small crack in the bottom right hand corner of the screen with a weathered  blue-green case that was originally only blue. He paused his stride to look pointedly at Joss with a deadpan stare as he held the phone to his ear. It was just about the only thing he had an answer to.

Resuming his walk, the gates of the graveyard were in view, almost in reach, and there was something sweet about it. Even if there weren’t always many spirits in the graveyard due to them not being tethered to their bodies, but a place or person, he still felt a little weird about spending too long there. He didn’t want to be that guy who sat in a graveyard talking to dirt and stone. Sure, most people would understand it, but he already looked like a homeless drug addict half the time, so he didn’t want to complete the look with ‘insane’ added as an accessory. 

He breathed a sigh of relief as he cleared the gate, taking a minute to once again be somewhat stunned and disappointed in her question before walking again. He placed the phone between his ear and shoulder and held it there as he fished around in his pockets. “ In a perfect world, I would, but this kinda just happened — I don’t understand how all of it really works and to be quite fucking honest, I didn’t get these bags under my eyes from a partying lifestyle.” He admitted with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “ I can’t fucking sleep. It’s a…. It’s just everyone and everything. Sometimes I can’t even hear myself think when people are really going for it. Emotions, they… They make it louder. “ Cesar shrugged as his feet hit the ground, putting distance between himself and where his grandmother lay. “ Sadness is loud. Anger’s loud too.” He informed her. It was the only thing he had figured out. “ If they’re really close, I can hear everything, but anguish… You can be two floors below me and if you’re day’s goin’ bad, I’m gonna know.”

Turning a corner, Cesar paused, his dark eyes hollow and narrow as he watched Joss with a look of disapproval. He held the thought in, but he really felt like he’d hit a knew low having a ghost ripping him to shreds over his lovelife. Or lack thereof. “ You’re a real fuckin’ cut-up, you know that? You ever think about takin’ your act on the road? I’m sure you guys need entertainment, too.” He remarked. He wasn’t going to comment about her painfully accurate assessment, as it wasn’t always the case, but he did pause as her inquiry of his Abuela made him stop and think. For some reason, he was a bit offended by the accusation. “ Now she wasn’t a fucking witch.” He said too quickly, although the idea was already taking root in his mind. 

“She was a nice old lady who immigrated from a shitty country for a better life but ended up in Louisiana instead. She baked cookies and helped the homeless, her whole life was about her family, I’d know if my grandmother was a fucking witch.” Cesar scoffed. He felt oddly annoyed, and yet, his mind latched onto several ideas as he continued his walk once more. His grandmother was a sweet woman, and she always loved to help people. She somehow knew exactly what they needed and had this way of saying exactly what someone wanted to hear and also getting people out of trouble… His face contorted as he posed the question in his mind, but no… That couldn’t have been because she could hear them, right? The question swirled in his mind as he stayed silent without realizing.

The second he dismissed her question she knew it had to be worse than she thought, because like every other man he avoided the truth entirely. For the sake of not stirring the pot she guessed, but the way he shrugged it off sealed the coffin. Whatever had happened to her was done in anger and enough to conjure pity out of an unlikely sympathizer. She imagined her neck with rows of purple and blue bruises but it brought her no closer to the memory, as if her brain were still functioning and trying to protect her from the recollection.

“Right.” She replied between his answer and following question, disbelief in her expression. “You laugh but yeah you should’ve been.” A nervous smile spread on her face, suddenly more concerned that she was going to deliver a half baked performance to a problem she didn’t know existed until now. It would be just her luck that she finally made contact with someone who could actually help, only to find out he needed more help than she did. Her eyes darted to narrow in on details that made themselves more obvious to her now, like the sunken look of gray around his eyes and the crease of stress between his brows.

It probably shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did considering she knew she was dead already, but she hated to know that it was front and center, in eye-line at all times. Of course he had to say she was pretty, he was trying to deflect from the gruesome state of her neck. Drifting in her thoughts her eyes eventually pulled themselves to attention. She couldn’t help but smile at his first rule, laughing at how quickly she knew she would break it. “Yeah, okay.” Luckily it came after an offhand joke otherwise she might not have sold it. “Okay, and how do you plan on selling that having to talk to me? You must have some kind of filter, all those voices at once.”

She followed his pace and glanced over as he made his way through the graveyard, feeling like she was tagging along instead of an unwanted guest. “Couldn’t get a live one so you had to settle for me?” She shook her head and laughed to herself. It was felt like a relief just to be able to make conversation with someone again, and when he wasn’t sulking and sullen he was easier to talk to. “Oh yeah, was she a witch, too?” She was only half joking. “Or did you just never bring anyone home, period?”

[cesar-ramon]

He felt awkward standing there, staring at the foggy silhouette of a woman. It was like looking at her through smoke, and it almost made his eyes hurt. They were never the same, the dead ones… Some were like static on an old TV with the picture tube going. They could look washed out or gray depending on their status or how they died. Some were like one-dimensional paper dolls that he could see right through — but all of them were lost souls no matter how they looked. This one was in a strange way, the most life-like he’d seen. 

“Forget it,” He waved off, looking down at his feet. Wear had faded the color on his boots and the scuff marks told many tales. They wouldn’t last much longer before — like most of his socks — they got a hole and needed replacing. They were a sad sight, but to focus on them instead of the snuffed out light of a beautiful young woman was easier. It was always easier to pity himself and think it couldn’t get any worse in order to keep going or get handouts, but lately… Lately, it was hard for Cesar to romanticize his depression the way he used to when he knew his life wasn’t that bad, and he only suffered from his own poor choices and lack of saving. 

Her question snapped him out of his funk over not being the saddest person in the vicinity, and forced Cesar to look back up at Joss with renewed interest. “ Under a year. Or maybe a little over…” He admitted with a half shrug. “ What, you thought I was like that kid in Six Sense? All that ‘ I see dead people’ shit?” Cesar chuckled. “ This just started happening to me. “ he added more sorrowfully. As he tracked back to the first time he’d seen one, it was not long after hearing that his grandmother died. He paused, but then shook his head, the thought that cropped up silly and nonsensical.  

“Look —” He sighed. “ I’m sorry too. For how I acted just now and for the …” He paused and gestured loosely to her neck and then her full body. It was still awkward to just have a regular ol’ conversation with a ghost, but there were always ones that touched him on a deeper level. “ You’re a pretty, young girl with a lotta talent. It’s fucked up.” Cesar let out a sigh. It was his best attempt at offering sympathy, but sooner or later, she’d have to face the facts. If her goal was to find peace and move on, she couldn’t live in denial. 

“Look just… I’ll do what I can, alright? I’m new to all this shit and I’m not even sure how it works and I’m half sure I’m going crazy and this is all in my head but I just — there are rules, okay? The first and most import rule being no possessing me. None of that poltergeist shit and haunting my toast or whatever. And rule number to…” he paused. Off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of anything else in that moment that would serve as a hard limit to helping the woman cross over to the other side. “ Just be respectful, alright? This is still my … my space, okay? I’m alive, the people can see me, and I’m the one who’s gonna get locked in the looney bin if people see me talking to myself so no funny stuff, got it?”

He left the air silent for a moment before he let out an uninspired huff. “Real fucked up that I meet a woman like you and she’s dead. My gran woulda loved you.” He chuckled, moreso at his own terrible luck and the irony of it all. “C’mon.” He urged, turning on his heel. “ I wanna get outta here — this place gives me the creeps and I feel like everybody’s staring at me.” He groaned as he began walking out of the cemetery.

Head tilted just a slight to the side, Joss wondered what might be on his mind that he seemed less inclined to share. Even looking at where his eyes lingered didn’t help much, no answer could be found at the end of the ashes. “Do I think what?” It was rare that a human could connect with another realm without the use of supernatural means. Joss had met many of his kind before, and while he was not the first to be inconvenienced by his talents he seemed to be the first completely inept at the skill entirely.

There was no warmth in his voice for his gift. She could tell in the way it moved within the words, the way he fixed his throat to conceal. Even the way he looked at her stirred worry within her, in her head instead of the pit of her stomach where it normally resided. Her hand rubbed at her collarbone and she found the action must have conjured some pity or empathy, because for the first time he seemed apologetic. Carefully, she watched him, observing the way his hands moved while he spoke and how disturbed his body was with his gift.

“Wait what do you mean, new?” She examined him. “How old were you when you saw one for the first time?” Joss thought a moment before speaking again. It must have been long enough because he’d met her with an experienced indifference, but not long enough that he knew how to manage it. At least now it made sense, making things a lot less personal now that she knew he was shell shocked over the whole thing. A brief look of confusion on her face before she fixed herself, eyes drifting before they shot back up to his own. “I don’t mean to be a dick but that’s not how that works. That’s not normal.”

With a cross of her arms, she sighed. “That’s really shitty, I’m sorry.” At a loss for words, she thought of something soothing to say but in all honesty she just wanted to ask more questions. She looked down at her feet, which left no mark in the dirt and beaten grass. “I just thought you didn’t want to.” There was some regret in her actions, too. “It’s fine, I mean who else am I gonna talk to?” She half smiled, crossing her arms. Anger never came from its own source, and whatever he was afraid of he laid on the table before them, which was trusting enough for where they had been minutes prior.

“I did do spiritual work before this, which was kind of why I felt like I was in limbo in the first place.” Lighting a flame was one thing, and she didn’t want to make too much of a promise without knowing if she could keep it. She had been stronger in her spirit work than with the element, so there was promise. In retrospect maybe she’d come on too strong, making it seem like she had all this power, feeling regret again. “If you can settle for one spirit maybe I can help with that, try to help?” Really she was picking at straws. “If I can’t help with what I do know, maybe my shunning can be of some use to you. I haven’t seen anyone and I saw them when I was alive, I guess it wouldn’t be so unusual for them to avoid me now. It could be like, a repellent, or something. Would that help? Make you feel like I’m using you a little less.”

[cesar-ramon]

He had to admit (to himself) that she was the happiest ghost he had ever seen. Not having realized it until he saw her laugh, Cesar came to grips with just how morbid his line of questioning was. He was alive and she was dead, and yet she couldn’t be more alive than him if she tried. Meanwhile, he was smoking and drinking himself to an early grave as though being dead would somehow stop him from seeing the dead. 

“Yeah… imagine that…” Cesar mumbled as he looked at his lit cigarette. He paused, pondering, stammering in a low tone as his eyes lingered on the burning embers. “ Hey… you think maybe I—” He paused again, this time closing his eyes and slumping his shoulders. It was a stupid thought that was better kept to himself than voiced out loud. He wasn’t a witch — there was no way he could be. He was already unsure if he was actually seeing ghosts and wasn’t just crazy and needed to be locked up, which in itself was a terrifying reality he didn’t want to acknowledge. There were plausible reasons on both sides, but he didn’t like to linger on them for too long. 

Swallowing the thick lump in his throat, Cesar fought against the burning in his eyes. He didn’t want to cry; not in front of her. Not ever, really. When he had first started seeing the dead, he cried so much he threw up. He woke up after passing out with a headache from the release of all the pent up emotion that could rival any hangover he’d ever had. He never wanted to feel that way again. Still, looking at a pretty, young woman who’s light had been so brutally snuffed out was a painful reminder. It was the way it was so subtle as well, that caused Cesar to feel repulsed by humanity. It wasn’t like in the movies — the spirits weren’t all gray and ghastly and depicted the same way. They were all people. Paled, sad faced, helpless people in pain. Some were in so much pain they couldn’t even speak, only wail. It was an awful reminder of everything bad that could happen, and the woman before him was just another reminder.

Looking at her with his throat drying more and more as she spoke, Cesar felt like an ass for not only being rude and unsympathetic, but also crass. He had spent so much time running and ignoring them that he’d never really say down (metaphorically) to have a conversation with a spirit. In spite of her smile and her laughter, there was pain and a desire for revenge in her eyes and her tone that made Cesar understand more about her than he would have liked, but still, he understood. 

“Look, I…” He stammered out. For the entirety of her speech, he’d left his cigarette burning, not having the taste for it as much anymore, but not wanting to waste that he could barely afford. He took a draft from it to give himself a moment to find words that were less offensive before he cleared his throat and tried again. “ Sorry about… I’m sorry. For before. I’m not exactly… The most..  What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to be an insensitive prick. It’s just hard, you know?”  He sighed and took another puff, blowing out smoke from the corner of his mouth with little care for who saw him talking to himself in a graveyard anymore. “ I’m still new to all this. And I’m still not entirely sure I’m not fucking crazy — it’s a lot. And I’m here being all fucking woe-is-me to a ghost right now… It’s just a lot…” He shook his head, chuckling without humor. “I just don’t know why this is happening to me… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to help…” He nodded, taking a deep breath that was cut off by a cough that made him really think about quitting smoking. 

“ It’s just scary. All this…” He gestured around him. “ It’s fucking scary. I don’t know how to make it stop. I’d do whatever it took if I could make it stop… So I guess… I guess I understand where you’re coming from, a little…”

It shouldn’t have been that funny, seeing as how her condition already sobering, could only get worse and very well might, still she laughed anyway. There was something so cathartic in laughing about it all, treating it like something much smaller than it was. It took the weight from the reality of it, like maybe if she didn’t say the word it didn’t exist. It was right around the string of another expected rejection that she laughed again, as if he were on the same stream of thought she had been in herself. “Felt that.” She added, the two briefly in agreement. It was quiet, a side comment buried under his recoil, yells and some more laughs of her own.

It didn’t take him long to realize the source, his head turning sharply. She thought how strange it was he didn’t already know, when she’d been making it so obvious. How odd his gift must be, for someone with such an inclination to the supernatural to be so fearful of it. She wiggled her fingers at him. “Witch.” She said, though now perhaps it was falling on frightened ears. They seemed to be operating at opposite ends. “I didn’t know I still could.” She shrugged, trying to press the inner corners of her lips when they failed to hold back a smile. “Haven’t had the opportunity until now.”

She watched his eyes as they shifted again in fear, a new horror unveiling themselves. She hadn’t done anything to warrant it, following his emotions carefully as they quickly moved from one phase to the next. Her smiled faded slowly, face falling in realization. She swore she could even feel the shame as he looked at her, probably actually for the first time. She’d never even looked in the mirror, in truth the thought never passed her mind. It need not be asked, the dread planting itself plainly on his face. Now it was full of concern, full of sorrow, thick with anguish for this poor soul.

Nothing more than the death she would not speak of scared her as much as this, the thought of how she looked to him suddenly becoming very real. It felt disgusting, and she almost let out an audible ‘ew’ when she saw the water well up in his eyes. “Oh my god.. what?” she groaned, pained by his perception. “What, is it worse than I thought?” How gross to be seen again in this way, with no control in her appearance, something she cared so deeply about as a human. “I don’t know. Spite, I guess. If I could kill you right now would you want to die?” She put a hand to her collarbone, annoyed at how much it was bothering her. She wanted to tell him it was mostly intuition, this gut feeling, but restrained herself. This meant so much less to men, she felt, like they didn’t carry the sense. “It’s unnatural for me to do all this. Every day, night, they pass all the same. There’s no cycles. And no one can hear me, except for you.” Her brows furrowed for a second and softened again. “I feel close to my body, like I’m just being held in suspense, but I’m here so I have to be, you know, gone.” Whatever smile she had probably looked just as sad. How deeply pathetic. “Yeah no I don’t remember. That’s the standard with ghosts, though, you know that.”

When she finally did look at him she did so earnestly. “It’s funny to think about life as only being worth it when there’s something to return to. I thought about that too, like what was even the point, and it’s probably why I feel so sure about it. I don’t need anything to go back to, I just want to. That thing they say about wanting something you can’t have it’s really the fucking truth. The world can suck and still be worth living they’re not mutually exclusive. To be honest if this all works out I’m going to find out who did it and kill them myself. And then I’m gonna do everything I ever wanted to do.”