A Short Detour

Ray hadn't eaten a meal in over a week. The week before that he'd binged on candy and chips until he was sick. He had lost so many patients during the past six months that he began to imagine a dementor-like figure stalking the hallways, choosing a victim at random every hour. He hadn't really slept in months either.

Ray slumped to the ground in his quiet hiding spot behind the hospital, underneath the window of an empty psych room. To add to all of this, his best friend was acting more strangely than he'd ever seen before. The guy in the Homberg was weird enough--although if they were dating he wouldn't be that surprised considering the historical board game she'd made him play every day during middle school--but passing out? She never passed out. He'd watched her stand for an hour in front of a grocery store door as passing customers jostled and yelled at her. She needed a paper bag after that but she didn't actually lose consciousness.

The Homburg guy had held her until the stretchers came like a movie hero. Ray chuckled as he recalled May once saying "girls with disorders only get the guy if they die." He should have taken a picture.

Ray took a puff from his vape pen. He had another twenty minutes left of break. How was he supposed to tell his best friend that her step-dad was probably going to die? More importantly, how do you tell a depressed, obsessive person that all their precautions did nothing. Ray blinked back a tear for the second time that day. He shook himself rather violently and then reached down to touch his toes, feeling all the blood rush to his head. He'd ask for a psych consult.

"You look funny." A female voice came out of nowhere.

Ray looked up. A woman, not more than twenty-five was standing in front of him, hands buried in her sweatshirt.

"Uh--hi," he said, hurriedly putting away the pen.

"Vaping kills," she said, and winked.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm a doctor." It sounded stupid.

She moved beside him and took his arm, pulling them both down to a seated position level with the large bushes.

"I know," she said, when they were settled.

"Are you visiting someone?" He asked.

She smiled broadly. "In a way."

He was silent. She smelled like spring on the East Coast. He loved the East Coast.

"How did you find this place?" He was very curious. Even the attendings who'd lived in the hospital for decades had yet to discover this tiny spot.

"I was looking for you," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"M--me?" He stuttered, wishing he hadn't.

The woman reached for his hand and held it tightly. "I have chosen you as my human of the millennium."

Ray returned the pressure of her fingers unconsciously. "Your what? Of what?!"

The woman's big eyes filled with laughter. "My human. Spirits get one human project each millennium. You are mine."

There was silence.

She broke it. "You're very fortunate, you know."

Ray thought very hard. Was she joking? Was she an escaped psych patient? Was he asleep? "By any chance," he spoke slowly, "is this your window?" He pointed upwards.

She laughed musically. "Am I a psych patient? No."

The woman picked up a blade of grass and held it in her free palm. Before Ray's eyes it stood up on its own and began a kind of dance.

"I'm Stella," the woman said quietly.

Ray did not wish to wake up.