REading: "Coda. III" from rituals of the Antithetical (A.Glass 2023)

 

“I am glad you are here...” she says with a smile, as Alaister sits down in front of the woman. “...Did you pass the man in the hallway?”
Alaister doesn't reply.
“Do you remember when you first came to me? In Seventy Seven, when I lived in Rochester.”
Alaister eyes her outfit, which is a long flowing skirt, styled in a Bohemian chic, with a silver necklace that dangles down between her cleavage. With both hands, she unties her brown hair, allowing it to fall to her shoulders.
“You were full of ideas, concepts, stories. Telling your clients of the scripts that you had written, books…” Alaister looks at the woman’s features, of beauty that has become strained over the years, within time that has passed. Yet, the woman seems unperturbed in her phantasmal form. Unaware of its predicament caught between worlds.
“...There was, from what I know of its history, the spirit of a teenager, he was Eighteen, maybe Nineteen. Used to visit her at her house in Rochester, for Tarot card readings, they’d talk. A relationship, but there was no sex. Intimate in other ways.”
“I’ll make you a cup of tea,” the woman says, standing as Alaister watches her dissipate and the surroundings fade. He stares ahead into the corner of an empty room. The spectra returns holding two cups, placing one down in front of Alaister, the room begins to illuminate its interior details as the woman sits back down.
“Thank you,” he says, as he looks at the woman. She smiles, sipping from the tea.
“We had sex just before you arrived. That man you saw in the hallway. It was wonderful. Although he is just a client, but…” She sips from the tea again. “...His alignment, star charts. They are not in a good position. He is struggling to define his path.”
“Did you tell him you idea for a movie script?” Alaister pressing the phantasm to answer his question, which can occur when sentiment of an interaction between a restlessness spirit can reorient with the living.
The woman looks in the direction of Alaister.
“As before, I have retained the sexual energy that has occurred, like the many times you had witnessed it...” The woman does not directly answer.
“Tell me then, when you knew. There was a presence outside your window in Rochester, all those years ago.”
The radiance of the woman seems to flicker, as it brightens, she closes her eyes again.
“...I didn’t tell the man you just saw about my script idea. Others, yes. But, they were just stories, we would do some LSD and speak about ideas and thoughts. My books…” She points to a darkened part of the room which has no details. “...Are documented there…” The woman opens her eyes. “...And how I knew all those years ago in Rochester? Well, I’ll tell you of one occasion.”
The woman stands, removing her dress, standing naked in front of Alaister. Looking at her large breasts and dark pubic hairs, she sits back down crossing her legs.
“...One of my clients was a Biker, he would see me on Saturday mornings. I would read his chart and then we’d do some acid. Later, we would fuck in my bedroom. Do you remember the layout? It is similar to my room here in this apartment, it’s the same bed. It used to my grandmother’s who lived in Queens…”
Alaister continues watching her, as she sits naked, in a ritual she had done countless times before. Replayed only as a past reflection in all of its translucence. She smiles at him.
“...You wrote a story, in Nineteen Seventy Seven, maybe after you had sex with that man…” Alaister pauses, trying to communicate with this ghost who is stuck within a sliver of time, forever replaying over a single moment of a timeline that should have been put to rest many years ago. “...Do you remember?” He says, intently staring into the eyes of the woman, to which she closes them, moving her self from side to side on the cushion she is sitting on.
“I remember...” Answering Alaister’s question, her figure becoming more visible, staring back at Alaister. “...You are not him?…”
“No”
“...But you seem familiar.”
Alaister nods with a smile. “I know your world, but not always the details…” He holds up his hip flask. “...And the devil resides in those details.

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Reading:  "Coda. III from Rituals of the Antithetical (A.Glass 2023)