AIRE: SHE ANGLES

Abdiel: i'm inside you. finally.

Jil: what's going on? time seemed to speed up just now. or did it slow? my ankles are throbbing.

Abdiel: i won't tell Achilles if you won't.

Jil: you're alive, Abdiel! but where are you? i can hear you, sense you, but can't see you.

Abdiel: like i said, i'm inside you. i'm in your spirit. we're as one.

Jil: what? how can this be?

Abdiel: now who's the nonbeliever. i don't know, and yet it has happened.

morning struck without a sunrise anymore. Jil tried to stand up but her feet buckled. there was sand in places she didn't want to mention, but it didn't matter cos Abdiel already knew those places.

Abdiel: how do you think i feel? i've never had a sandy vagina before.

the cloud hovering over the accident above was so thick as to conceal it to the point that it might as well not have been there. it was a signal to move on.

Jil returned to the brick library only because it was a shorter distance than to her house. the patrons were deathly worried about her, which Jil found ironic.

woman: i'm ready to check out.

Jil: i'll get to you soon, ma'am. or maybe someone else will. just come to take my computer here and i'm off again. i'm OFF. see you soon, or whenever i fully recover.

Jil straddled off to her house. the walk was long and painful, she was imjured, she found it strange that nobody came to help her famous self, she was clearly struggling, but then it didn't become strange anymore, it just became let's get home as soon as possible, and at the end of the trip, Jil relished that nobody came to her aid and made a scene. Jil loved remaining anonymous. she entered her beautiful home door.

Abdiel: are you okay?

Jil: i'll live, but you won't. what is this for you, though? Purgatory?

Abdiel: i guess. i never knew how it worked till now. nobody does, that's the game. i guess this is how it works. it never seems as grand as you envision it to be. this is rather ordinary all told. i'm disappointed.

Jil: i want to remove the wraps on my home laptop, both literally and figuratively. i was scared of this thing till now. there was something addictive about it, a home computer, the concept of it, the fact that with this tool, one can hide from the world forever in a cave, never stepping foot in the real world again, content with airy wisps as friends, online conversations as light as the wind, never having to shake a hand or raise a fist, touchless, becoming less human with each keystroke.

Abdiel: that's my paradise, or it was. now my paradise is being inside you for the forseeable future.

Jil: we are meant to learn from one another, perhaps become as one eventually. maybe that's the key: all humans eventually become one in the afterlife, one spirit. but still, this is gonna be awkward when i shower and masturbate.

Abdiel: i was looking forward to that, but the clinical way you said that, i become less pervy with each of your keystrokes.

Jil went onto Instagram and immediately to the page of her friend Grisel, a kindly alcoholic whose captions were as human as humanly possible.

Jil: this is the Grisel i've been telling you about, or trying to.

Abdiel: yeah. boring. you have an email.

Jil clicked and was bombarded with spam and a work email about hours or vacation time or some such. Jil wasn't interested in her work anymore, she was interested in making real connections. she realized she had to send one final message to the community that loved her that she wouldn't be round the old brick library for a while and the town had to make due. she prepared a video recording of an aire she played on her piano awhile back and sent it to the library website. when it came in, all of the library patrons dropped their books and stood in extreme attention. the music started playing, the patrons smiled collectively, this was their Jil, this was Jil from beyond the grave, she wasn't there with them, they couldn't touch her, but she was there in spirit. the mellifluous ivory sounds of her fingers swayed the patrons back and forth, they closed their eyes to follow the ascending and descending patterns of the notes. beautiful. lovely. brava! encore! but no, it was just the one. Jil did however leave an appendage after the piece:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

the patrons stood googly-eyed with their hands on their hearts...throughout this entire thing...and they clapped furiously afterwards, so loud for ten minutes straight that the caulk in the bricks began to melt.

Abdiel: let's have fun. i'm not ready to learn my lesson and leave Purgatory, i'm ready to be a ghost. look, that's the profile of the girl i was telling you about, the serial selfie-er.

Jil: her captions are so sad, missing her boyfriend, bemoaning her putrid existence, shouting at God. let's talk to her.

Abdiel: what? no! don't give her any pub.

Jil typed simply I FEEL YA on one of the girl's pictures. the girl immediately responded with a smiley face.

Jil: see? she's a real human underneath the screen. she responds accurately, she's not a robot. i bet that was the first excuse she had to post a smiley face in years. it's just a symbol the smiley-face, and yet hers says more to me, it's a true representation, i can see her smiling face right now.

Abdiel: whoa, i do, too, but i actually see it. it's wild where i am. scroll down, oh yeah, here he is, the guy who posts nothing but cat pictures. that is so lame! that is such baiting for likes. i mean of course everyone in the world is gonna like cute cat pictures. when someone like that has more followers than me, that is what i call injustice. i was original. again, i tell you i'm actually seeing the inherent injustice in the world right now, this is fucking wild.

Jil: kittehs are kute. Caturday made me chuckle.

Abdiel: but he's posting this and it's not Saturday!

Jil: i always like every pet pic i come across, i make it a point to like them all cos animals are awesome. better than people. animal selfies i can always take. it's my general rule. i always fret that in my speedy scrolling, i miss a pet pic as i scan. i feel guilty about that, it's like i'm betraying the animal itself, by not liking the pic i'm quietly dissing the existence of the poor pet. the instagram LIKE limit also gets me anxious, i'm always feeling that i'm gonna run out of LIKEs at any time and another pet pic will spring up!

Abdiel: and i thought i was addicted to air. oh, here, another cloying BLESSED pic. now that i know what blessed is, this is REALLY annoying.

Jil: blessed pic?

Abdiel: people who post selfies of themselves in exotic locations saying I'm Blessed, Blessed, Happy To Be Alive, This Is the Best Day Ever, I'm the Best Person Ever, etc. it just boils down to more narcissistic look-at-me nonsense, look how great my life is, look at that expensive view, my friends are better than yours, i'm rich and famous, your life sucks by comparison, you suck.

Abdiel made it a point to move Jil's fingers this time as Jil typed under the caption of a Blessed Pic SPAM 4 SPAM?

Abdiel LOL'd. he really did, though, in real life, not as a nebulous online thing. Jil felt his laugh in her shaking stomach.

Abdiel: come on, that's hilarious.

Jil: no, no, it's not.

Jil chuckled.

Abdiel continued on many pics.

Jil: wait, did you just comment SPAM 4 SPAM? on a memorial pic about the anniversary of the Attacks?

Abdiel: no, no, it's fine, don't worry.

Jil still didn't trust Abdiel, and since Abdiel was her, she didn't trust herself.

Abdiel: i'm outtie before things become too serious. i'm getting enough unsolicited information about the meaning of life as it is. is there a way to shut this off? i want to sleep, or eat, or something. enough of this Disney-sitcom Ghost Dad bad-script reality. is this really how Purgatory is? Dante's epicness trembles. who knew God had a sense of humor?

Jil: He invented it. and not everything in life can be reduced to a tv show, remember?

Jil spent the rest of the lazy day idling on her brand-new home computer, wearing it out with each keystroke as she engaged in the serious idle of a long drawn-out conversation with Grisel on her instagram. she wrote novels and large paragraphs as the two women chatted back and forth talking about Grisel's sobriety and her daily challenges just to get out of bed. Jil related her struggles to get out of bed and find meaning in life and whether or not her thoughts were her own anymore or Abdiel's. was the end-game with Jil and Abdiel a combination or a takeover? who would take over? one soul or two? Jil felt alone here, Abdiel was clearly not around, he spoke not, not a shimmer of his presence anywhere, Jil felt more herself during this somber conversation with Grisel.

Abdiel was learning and becoming more comfortable with himself during his conversation with Grisel...

TO BE CONCLUDED...

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