Seeing Kate

I was walking, book in hand, when I bumped into someone. I was met by a familiar face. My friend, Kate, looked back at me. But then it hit me Kate died in an accident 3 years ago. And I saw it happen. There was no doubt it was her, but how could it be?

“What’s wrong?” Kate asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” With a wink, she stuck her tongue out at me. All I could do was blink and stare, slack jawed. Finally, I found my voice. “Kate...?” I asked, dumbly. The girl in front of my giggled charmingly.

..bbbbut i thought you were..... dead! The girl in front giggled again. I stood there with this incredulous look on my face and she giggled once more but her face slowly changed to that of a screaming skeleton, she got really close to my face and said..."RUN"!!!!

I didn't hesitate. Normally, I don't take orders from screaming skeletons, but this one had a point. I turned around and ran for my life.

I couldn't end up like Kate had. To my utter horror, though, I found myself running slowly no matter how hard I tried to really pour it on. It occurred to me that this was exactly what happened to me in dreams, and I suddenly had to wonder: was this even real?

Maybe this was a sort of Inception situation, but, unfortunately, I didn't have my own fiddly-thing. I could only do one thing. I stopped and closed my eyes, trying to ignore my pounding heart and the idea that screeched in my brain that I was going to meet a gruesome demise. But

the skeleton stopped screaming, and once it was quiet again, I opened my eyes. This was just an apparition, not something solid. I had the feeling it wasn’t even Kate’s ghost, not really, but more like a memory trapped in a time loop. I reached out my hand and passed it through

the skeleton’s empty ribcage, where her heart had once been. Kate was still here, in part. Letting her go and keeping what bits of her resided in my head was the single most difficult thing I’ve ever done. But we are both at peace, for the first time in our lives.