The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare by MG Buehrlen

game piece, the way the light winks off the little boy’s wire-rimmed glasses, the way Porter rubs his pinky knuckle with this thumb – it all combines and swells and swirls until the black swallows me like a tidal wave, and I am plunged into the dark.
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    LIMBO
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    This time, the light doesn’t rush in and flood my senses. I remain in the black. As silent as death.
    No breath, no sound, no taste, no touch.
    Just black.
    Lonely, lonely black.
    It feels like hours, days, even weeks pass, staring into that yawning black, feeling nothing but nothing itself, before I finally see something in the far distance. A blue-white flicker of light, like the guttering flame from a match. Hauntingly faint. So faint I can’t tell if I’m really seeing it at all. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking.
    Then, a voice.
    â€œI’ll just let you settle in, shall I?”
    Porter stands next to me in the dark. I can make out his polo, jeans, and ball cap, but only just, as though he’s illuminated by the faintest glow of a crescent moon. Has he been there the whole time?
    â€œIt’s a bit disorienting at first,” he says. “But you’ll get used to it.”
    I look down and realize I have a body too, faintly lit. I’m still wearing my nerd glasses, my army-green parka, jeans, and Gran’s old flowery scarf from the Seventies, but my body doesn’t work quite right. I feel sluggish and willowy, and, at the same time, like I’m not there at all. “Why are you still wearing your cap?” I say, gesturing to it. “Have our bodies left the restaurant?”
    â€œNo, only our souls have left.” He taps his cap with his finger. “My cap isn’t really here. You’re seeing my soul through a perception filter. My body. Your body. You see what you think our souls should look like. You hear my voice as you recall it in the restaurant.”
    I gape back at him in awe. The thought is too profound to grasp. “What’s happening to our bodies right now? Are we slumped over at the table?”
    â€œNo,” he says with a chuckle. “Time does not pass in Base Life while our souls are in Limbo. Our time spent here will be but a fraction of a second there.”
    â€œSo I’ll return to the same time I left? Just like every other time I have a vision?”
    He nods, and I turn my gaze back to the faint flicker of light in the distance. “And the light? Is that just my perception too?”
    â€œNo, the light is real. That’s where we’re headed. That region of Limbo is called Polestar. That’s where every soul passes through on its way to Afterlife.”
    I expect to get a chill when he says that, an overpowering sensation of wonder, but my body remains somewhat unresponsive. I look down at my hands, turning them front to back, back to front, slowly. They look translucent. I lift a foot, then I lift the other. It feels like I’m pulling my shoes from mud. I expect to hear the slurp of suction, but there’s no sound.
    â€œLike I said, you’ll get used to it,” he says. “It takes a lot of practice, but soon you’ll be bounding around this place like a young colt. Just like you used to.”
    I frown because he keeps saying confusing things like that. “What do you mean, ‘just like I used to’?”
    He opens his mouth to reply, but hesitates. He rubs his pinky knuckle. “I’ll... get to that part soon enough. For now, you need to know where we are.” He stretches his arms out wide. “This region of Limbo is called Eremus. It means wasteland or wilderness. It surrounds Polestar on all sides. It’s very easy to get lost out here, so be careful. When in doubt, just look for Polestar and head in that direction.”
    â€œHow did I get here? I mean, how did I stop here, in Limbo?”
    â€œYou stepped through.”
    â€œStepped through what?”
    He stands up