Untethered

by Joceline Eickert

“Excuse me—are you okay?”

I struggle against the weight of my eyelids as an unfamiliar voice sounds nearby. A bright light immediately blinds me and I squeeze my eyes shut against the assault. Where am I?

Footsteps approach and I try to open my eyes again, forcing myself to squint through the brightness. A morose gray sky hovers above, washing everything in the same moody light. I’m lying in a field of thick grass but I can see trees and the edge of a playground in my peripheral. A park? I’ve never been here before. At least, I don’t think I have. Have I? I can’t remember. A tinge of worry flutters in my stomach at this thought and I push myself upright with shaky arms, my heart racing.

“Take it easy,” that unfamiliar voice says. I lift a dirt-stained hand to my forehead to block the light and find a worried face peering down at me. A young man, perhaps my age–wait, how old am I? “What’s your name?” he asks.

That’s a good question. I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out. What is my name? I don’t know. My initial twinge of worry spirals into full alarm. How do I not know my name? “Where am I?” I say instead of answering him. My voice croaks from my mouth, hoarse and raspy. Why? From screaming? Illness? Have I not spoken for a long time? I don’t know.

“Can you stand?” the man asks. “There’s a bench over there; it might be better for you than the ground.” I look in the direction he points and discern a bench beneath a large oak, not far from where I currently sit on the ground. I nod. The man holds his hand out and I take it. It feels smooth and clean and a little cold against my palm and I’m suddenly conscious of my filthy state as he pulls me to my feet; flakes of dried mud and gravel cling to my skin and clothes, which are scuffed or completely torn in places. My hip hurts a little–actually, a lot. How did I get like this? I sway on my feet.

“Take it easy,” the man repeats, winding an arm around my waist before I crumple. It feels reassuring, steadying, and I lean into him as we shuffle toward the bench.

“Who are you?” I rasp.

“I’m Ollie. Here we are.” The man ensures that I’m settled on the bench before flopping down beside me. He’s lanky and wears distressed black jeans and a black zip hoodie over a faded rock band shirt. A silver hoop glimmers in his left nostril and straight, dark hair falls nearly to his shoulders. “What is the last thing you remember?” Ollie asks me.

“Um…I don’t…I’m not sure,” I mumble, sifting through my mind for any memories and finding none. Out of habit, I reach into my pocket for my phone. I’m relieved to find it until I see that it’s completely dead, the dark screen shattered like a mosaic. “Oh no!” I cry.

“What’s wrong?”

So many things, I think, but I say, “My phone is dead. Is there somewhere I can try to charge it, see if I can get it back?”

“Sure, come with me.” Ollie springs to his feet and holds out a hand to help me up. I rise and, though my hip still hurts, I feel steady enough to walk without his aid.

“Where are we going?” I ask, limping slowly at his side.

“Not far. There’s a café a few blocks away.” He leads me out of the park and suddenly we’re in the middle of a city, though I can’t tell which one: Chicago? St. Louis? I look everywhere as we walk, hoping to recognize something, anything, but all the stores and skyscrapers are generically city-like. For some reason, I can’t decipher the words on the street signs or license plates, either. We pass several people on the sidewalk but it’s not as crowded as I would expect. And maybe I’m projecting my own confusion onto the strangers around me but everyone seems bewildered. I try not to stare at one woman who walks backward while gazing up at the skyscrapers like she’s never seen one before in her life, or at a man who keeps getting in and out of the back of a taxi as if he can’t decide if he wants to take it.

“Hey, let’s stop in here for a moment.”

“Huh?” I tear my gaze away from the taxi man just as Ollie darts toward a store that doesn’t look like the café he’d promised. “But I need to charge my phone!” I protest.

“Just a little detour,” Ollie says as he tugs the door open and holds it for me. “We’ll be quick.”

With a huff of annoyance, I concede and step inside. It’s a record store, exactly the sort of place I would expect to find Ollie. The walls are covered with band posters and photos, many of which are signed, and shoulder-height shelves filled with CDs and vinyl records form a neat maze through the small space. Music plays over speakers somewhere in the store, some sort of rock song. It’s familiar to me and, though I don’t precisely recognize it, I find myself humming along to the melody as I follow Ollie through the store.

“You like Guns N’ Roses?”

“What?”

“The song you’re humming. It sounds like ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses. Do you listen to them often?”

“I’m… not sure,” I answer. An image hovers at the fringe of my mind–an impression of a woman singing, her voice a little off key, of blonde corkscrew curls and a feeling of safety–but it’s too fuzzy for me to actually grasp. A headache blooms behind my eyes and I rub my temples. I need to charge my phone so I can figure out what is going on. “We should get going,” I tell Ollie.  

“All right.” Ollie returns the Nirvana CD he’s been examining to its shelf and leads us out of the record store.

We walk in silence at first. Though I have a dozen questions running through my mind, I can’t seem to hold onto any single one and I conclude that whatever happened to me must have given me a concussion. Why else would my mental faculties be as impaired as they are? Carefully, I raise a hand to my head and start probing my scalp for abnormalities–bumps, tenderness, blood–but find nothing except for a few bits of grass, which I’m sure I picked up from my nap in the park. Ollie watches me, but where I expect to find judgement or amusement in his dark eyes I find only sympathy. It encourages me to snatch at the simplest question in my messed-up mind. “Are you from around here?”

I’m hoping I can figure out where “here” is from his answer, but all he says is, “Born and raised, unfortunately. Let’s pop into this bookstore for a moment.”

His invitation is so abrupt, and I’m so distracted by his less-than-helpful answer, that I follow him without protest. The aroma of paper and coffee hits me the moment Ollie opens the door, along with another intangible memory: the feel of scratchy sheets beneath my fingers and a woman’s voice reading aloud. Or is it a memory? I swear I can hear the woman’s voice but the store is empty except for Ollie and me. Maybe it’s a recording? I wander down the aisles, scanning the shelves, ceiling, corners of the store for speakers or some other source. When I don’t find anything, I decide the woman’s voice must be in my head. Then I hope it really is a memory and not a sign that I’m going insane. But I can’t be sure because, just like before, the harder I try to examine the memory, the quicker it seems to slip away.

“Do you like to read?” Ollie asks, appearing suddenly from around a shelf and yanking me from my thoughts. He already has a book in each hand, as if he can’t help himself; I stare at the covers, hoping for a flash of recognition and finding none.

“Honestly? I have no idea,” I reply, feeling distinctly frustrated. “Do you?”

“I used to,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t anymore.”

There’s a melancholy in his tone that would ordinarily intrigue me. But right now, my head hurts, my hip hurts, I might be having auditory hallucinations, and I’d really like to remember who I am. So, I take a bracing breath and say, “Listen, Ollie, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for your help, but I would really like to get to this café. You can stay here; just point me in the right direction.”

“Nonsense,” Ollie says quickly, tucking both books into a random space on the shelf in front of him. “I’m here to help you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. But…”

“But what?”

“We need to stop at the little store on the corner first.”

“Why?”

“Because I would like a snack and you should probably pick up a phone charger.”

I sigh because it’s another detour, except that he’s right: I do need to buy a phone charger, which I hadn’t thought of until now. So I follow him out of the book store, down the block, and into a small convenience store on the corner. Ollie heads directly for the candy aisle while I navigate toward an electronic section near the back. On my way, I pass another patron, who is staring at a bag of chips like it’s a problem he needs to solve, and give him a polite nod. He returns it, his expression troubled, and I consider stopping to ask if he needs help. But I have my own problems to solve, my own troubled expression to sort out, so I keep walking.

Music plays overhead but it’s some kind of generic elevator music–intended more for background noise than for customers to actually listen to–and I can see the speakers mounted in the ceiling tiles. Relieved that it’s not in my head, I don’t pay it any attention as I browse the display of phone accessories in search of a charger. Phone cases blanket the wall, the sheer volume and variety overwhelming, next to cheap, wired headphones that I don’t think anybody actually buys, and yet I don’t see a single phone charger.

“It’s times like these you learn to live again…”

A woman’s voice cuts through the jazz piano that plays overhead. I pause my search to listen, startled by the abrupt change in sound, and wonder if it’s some sort of store announcement. But as the voice continues her crooning, I realize it’s the beginning of a new song. I listen for a moment, mesmerized by the haunting lyrics and the inexplicable feeling that they’re meant for me, before abandoning my search for a phone charger. I hurry to the front of the store and find Ollie near the registers, a packaged cookie in one hand and a slim, clear-plastic package in the other. He holds the mystery item up as I approach him. “Your phone takes USB-C, right?” he asks.

I don’t know how he found the right phone charger in the middle of his snack mission when I examined an entire wall of electronic accessories and couldn’t find one, but I don’t care. I’m anxious to leave this supermarket so I can revive my phone. But when I reach into the back pocket of my jeans and retrieve my wallet, I discover that it’s empty–no credit cards, no cash, no driver’s license. I curse out loud, realizing that I should have checked for it ages ago if only to figure out my name.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Ollie says, stepping up to the counter.

“No,” I say, throwing my arm out to stop him. “I don’t want to be in your debt more than I already am. I don’t even know you.”

“Do you have to know me to accept my help?”

“Maybe I should.”

“Or maybe you should have a little trust. Is it so impossible that a stranger would want to help you?”

At his stark question, I suddenly wonder why I’m letting this stranger guide me through an unfamiliar city in my current state. Does he genuinely mean to help me? Or is he messing with me? What if he has far more sinister intentions? Worst-case scenarios flash through my mind, muddling with the fuzzy half-memories and my headache and inspiring a fresh wave of alarm that tells me I should thank him for his help and leave.

Except Ollie hasn’t done anything sinister; it’s because of his generosity that I’ve even made it this far. And I need that phone charger. “Okay,” I mutter. “Thanks.” I hover behind him while he checks out at the self-scanner, grateful the store has one because I haven’t seen a single employee in this place. He hands the package to me once the transaction is complete, and I slide the charger into the same pocket as my empty wallet before following him outside once again. “Are we nearly to the café?”

“Just a few more blocks,” he answers. “Except…”

“Enough with the detours!” I exclaim.

“Last one, I promise,” Ollie says with a smile. Then he darts into the street and I gasp because he didn’t look for traffic beforehand and what if he gets hit–

A crosswalk in the city–New York, I know, where I live and work–and a blinking pedestrian crossing signal that I can barely see from beneath the low hood of my raincoat. Incandescent headlights and a white car and the screech of brakes and the blare of a horn. Horrible, excruciating pain in my side accompanied by a flash of terror and then– 

“I was hit by a car,” I whisper aloud, stunned by what I’ve remembered and that I was finally able to remember. It sounds ridiculous, yet I know it to be true. I probe deeper into the memory and more details from my life emerge. “My name is Nova”—honestly, how had I ever forgotten?—“and I’m an attorney in New York City. I remember now, I had stopped to grab coffee before work but that made me late and it was raining and I wasn’t paying attention and I didn’t see the crosswalk signal change and I… I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“No, you’re not dead—not yet,” Ollie says. He speaks so calmly, so at odds with the turmoil that’s heaving inside me at my recollection.

“Not yet?” I echo, panic rising. “What do you mean?”

“You’re in a coma.”

“A coma? Then what is all this?” I demand hysterically, gesturing at the city around me, at myself.

“Your soul is… wandering.”

“Wandering where? Why?”

“When someone falls into a coma, their soul disconnects from their body and gets stuck here,” Ollie explains patiently. “I don’t know what this place is–some sort of in-between plane that parallels the real world and what comes after, I think.”

“So I’m stuck here? For how long?”

“Until you remember who you are and find your way back to your body.”

“But this… this is—I don’t,” I stammer breathlessly as the sidewalk spins beneath me. My bad hip—the one that I now understand absorbed the impact of someone’s car bumper–gives out and I lurch sideways. Luckily, Ollie catches me before I collide face-first with the sidewalk and sets me down on its edge.

“Please breathe,” he tells me, rubbing small, soothing circles between my shoulder blades.

I force myself to suck down a few gulps of air. “How do I get back?”

“Well, now that you’ve remembered, you should feel something in your chest, maybe some sort of pressure?”

I focus and am surprised to find that I do feel something; somewhere beneath my sternum, amid the crushing weight of my malfunctioning lungs and racing heart, is a tugging sensation. I nod.

“Good, that feeling will guide you to your body—you just have to follow it. You should hurry, though; you don’t want your body to die before you get to it.”

I take a few more deep breaths and try to comprehend what Ollie’s telling me. That I’m not dead but might still die. That this place is real but isn’t reality. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “Who are you? Why are you here? Why are you telling me this now?”

Ollie gives me a look. “Would you have believed me if I told you before, in the park, that you were in a coma, toeing the line between life and death?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “I would have thought you were crazy,” I confess.

“Exactly. I’ve learned things usually go better when I don’t introduce myself with the full explanation.”

“You’ve done this before? Why?”

“Most souls regain their memories eventually, but it can take a while, especially if they don’t experience anything here that reminds them of who they were or what happened to them. Or if no one visits them—n the hospital, I mean. But some souls…”

“Never figure it out,” I finish quietly.

Ollie grimaces. “That’s why I try to help.”

“You never meant to take me to the café, did you? All of those detours were intentional, to help me remember who I am?”

“Guilty,” Ollie replies with a crooked smile. “It’s amazing how mundane things like music, books, and random items in a supermarket are all that a person needs to remember who they are. Your recovery was a surprise, though.”

“It was?”

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to spark your memory by crossing the street. How was I supposed to know you were hit by a car?”

The reminder makes me shudder. Seeking a distraction, I study the people—souls—around us, now understanding their various states of bewilderment, and wonder if Ollie has already tried to help any of them. “So what are you, some kind of guardian angel?” 

“Hardly,” Ollie snorts. “I’m no different than you.”

“You mean… you’re also in a coma?”

“Yes.”

“Then why haven’t you gone back? How long have you been here? Wait, you could die—really die—at any moment?”

Ollie shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already died. This time is just bonus.”

For a long moment, I can only stare at him. “I don’t understand,” I finally manage. “Don’t you want to live? Don’t you have people who want you back?”

“Nah, I’m better off here.”

“You don’t even want to try?”

“Nope. At least here I can help a few people.”

“What if we go back together?” I suggest, my voice rising with a desperation that I don’t understand. After all, I barely know Ollie and I have my own life to sort out. “Maybe I can help you?”

But Ollie is already shaking his head before I finish speaking. “You won’t remember any of this when you wake.”

“How do you know?”

“Before this, did you know your soul could separate from your body?”

I don’t respond, but I don’t need to. Ollie smiles reassuringly at me. “Don’t worry about me—I’ll be all right,” he promises. Then he holds out his hand. “You, however, need to go.”

My mind spins from everything he’s told me–and the things he’s left unsaid–as I set my hand in his and let him haul me to my feet. I want to ask who he will help next–maybe the taxi guy or the guy in the supermarket? I want to ask how he figured out this in-between place, how he came up with his tour, his routine, to help people remember. I want to ask what happened to him, why he believes he can do more good here than in life, why he doesn’t think he has anyone waiting for him.

But my useless mind won’t connect to my mouth and, before I can ask anything, Ollie gives me a cheeky little salute and then walks away. Within moments, his long strides have carried him out of my sight, leaving me staring at the point in the crowd where I last saw him, feeling almost as shocked by his abrupt departure as the recollection of my near-death accident. But I can’t risk my soul trying to go after his. He’s gone and I have to leave, too. I close my eyes and concentrate on that tugging sensation in my chest. It draws me to my body, like a sewing needle dropped next to a magnet, an inexplicable force inside me that grows with every step I take until it’s nearly moving my feet for me.

***

The first thing I’m aware of when I return to my body is my mom. She sits in a chair beside my hospital bed, her hands busily knitting something long and cerulean as she sings quietly to herself. I recognize the song—The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”—almost immediately. How could I not? As one of Mom’s favorite songs, I must have heard it a thousand times, perhaps as many times as “Times Like These” by Foo Fighters.

The thought prickles the edge of my sleep-fogged mind and I frown, sure that I’ve forgotten something important. The movement must catch Mom’s attention because she abruptly stops singing and jumps to her feet, spilling her knitting onto the floor. “Nova, you’re awake!” she gasps. Her blonde corkscrew curls tickle my cheek as she cradles me, as familiar as breathing, and I lift my own arms to return her embrace. The movement is slow and stiff as my body struggles against however many days of dormancy it has endured, and Mom pulls back quickly, revealing an exhausted face overrun with tears. “How do you feel? Do you remember what happened?”

What is the last thing you remember?

The memory of a similar question asked by a different voice spears through my mind. Who had asked me that? And when?

You won’t remember any of this when you wake.

“Nova?”

I know I’m ignoring Mom’s question, but I can’t answer her, not when I know I’m missing something. I squeeze my eyes shut and scour every corner of my mind. I’m struck by the suspicion that this isn’t the first time I’ve struggled to remember something about myself, or to answer someone’s question, someone–

“Ollie!” I bolt upright as the name tumbles free of my subconscious and am instantly rewarded with a wave of nausea so severe I think I’m unfolding from the inside out. But I don’t have time to be sick; I have to find Ollie. I grab a fistful of sheets and try to shove them off, but I’m impeded by my own weakness and a tangle of plastic hose.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Mom cries, pushing me back down in the hospital bed. As she tucks me back under the scratchy sheets, they catch on the plastic hose and I realize it’s an I.V. line, connecting my body to a bag of clear fluid like an artificial umbilical cord.   

“I have to find Ollie,” I blurt, even though I know it doesn’t make any sense.

“Honey, you don’t know an Ollie.” Mom sweeps a lock of hair behind my ear before brushing the back of her hand across my forehead, like she used to check for a fever when I was a kid. “Are you feeling okay? Let me call a nurse.” Before I can answer, she pushes a little gray button on my bed railing and the light above my door blinks on. 

“I feel fine,” I tell her, even though we both know it’s an outright lie–I feel absolutely awful. “But I do know an Ollie and I need to find him. He has long dark hair and a nose ring and is in a coma. He has to be somewhere in this hospital!”

“Do you mean Oliver Jackson?” a nurse in lilac scrubs asks as she bustles into the room. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation, though I don’t think Ollie ever told me his surname. “Can you take me to see him?”

The nurse gives me a sympathetic look as she presses a different button on the wall behind me, canceling Mom’s call request. “I’m afraid there isn’t much to see; he’s been in a coma for months.”

“I know,” I say. “Please, take me to him anyway.”

Mom’s hand wraps around my own, warm and familiar, and squeezes–hard, like she can keep me safe if she never lets go. “Nova, sweetheart, you just woke up. Why don’t you rest for a little while and then we’ll see about visiting your friend?”

I know she’s probably right, but I don’t want to wait until I’m rested. I can’t, not when there’s this deep anxiety wrapped around my heart like a thorny vine that Ollie is going to disappear before I can help him. I return her squeeze–just as hard so maybe she’ll believe that I’m okay–and say, “Just a short visit? Then I promise I’ll rest as long as you want. But I have to see Ollie first.”

Mom looks to the nurse, who just shrugs in a it probably won’t kill her sort of way, and then releases a defeated sight. “All right. If you’re so determined…”

The nurse fetches a wheelchair and then whisks me down the hall to a room identical to mine. I’m stunned by the person on the bed inside; he looks exactly like the Ollie I met in the in-between, and yet nothing like him. Though he has the same lanky body, the same long, dark hair, and even the same silver nose ring, this person looks empty. Like there’s something missing. Or maybe I just think that because I know his soul is someplace else. Next to him, a machine beeps rhythmically, the monitor displaying all kinds of data that I don’t understand. Several wires run from the machine to his body, just like the ones I’d woken to, but I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with him.

“What happened to him?” I find myself asking as the nurse wheels me to his side. 

“Drug overdose,” she says matter-of-factly. “Not the first time we’ve seen him here, either. But this is the first time anyone has come to claim him,” she adds with a glance at me.

Just like that, I understand.

And it breaks my heart.

I reach out and take Ollie’s hand as the nurse leaves and am surprised to find that it feels just like it did when he helped me off the ground in the park: smooth and a little cold. Then I just stare at him because I have no idea what to do next. I feel like I should say something to him, but will he even hear me? I know my mother never left my bedside and yet I don’t remember hearing her voice–

Wait. Yes, I do.

The music I hummed along to in the music store, the woman’s voice I heard reading in the bookstore, that same voice singing one of Mom’s favorite songs in the convenience store–it was my mother. All along, I was hearing her singing to me, reading to me, being there for me. While I don’t know that Ollie will listen to me–he didn’t before–I have to try, don’t I?

“Hey Ollie,” I say lightly. “How’s the in-between?” He doesn’t respond, of course, and I bite my lip, feeling foolish. But I think about how he helped me and press on. “I want you to know that I admire what you’re doing. It’s noble and selfless and it’s helping a lot of people. But I also want you to know that you are worthy of life, Ollie, and I hope you choose to come back. Not for me—though I promise I will be here to help you-but for yourself.”

Somehow, the words sound more awkward out loud than they did in my head and I sink back into my wheelchair, feeling drained and even more foolish than before. Part of me hopes Ollie didn’t hear any of it. But a stronger, better part of me hopes he did.

It’s that part of me that reaches for my phone and opens my music app. I’m glad that I thought to grab it from Mom before leaving my room, even if I have to be careful of the shattered screen as I scroll through my library in search of the right song. Eventually, I stumble upon a song from the album I remember Ollie holding in the music store and hit play; with the volume pumped up, the iconic guitar riff almost masks the noise of the machines and then the beeping fades away completely with the vocals. “Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be…”

I set the playlist on shuffle and prop my phone against Ollie’s leg, hoping that the music might achieve what my feeble speech could not. Then I watch him, searching for any indication that he hears any of this, that he’s changed his mind about abandoning his life and is on his way back to his body.

But nothing changes. If not for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, I might mistake him for a marble statue carved into a hospital bed. But Mom didn’t give up on me and neither did he, so I make myself comfortable in my wheelchair, ready to sit with my music and Ollie for as long as it takes.

***

“Excuse me—are you okay?”

I jolt awake, momentarily baffled by the harsh smell of antiseptic and the scratchy hospital sheet that’s stuck to my cheek. It’s not my sheet, I realize; I’m hunched over the handrail of someone else’s bed, my lower half precariously balanced on the edge of my wheelchair. The actual resident of the bed is sitting up and staring at me, a puzzled expression on his pale face. “Do I know you?” he asks hoarsely.

I gape at Ollie, my stomach plummeting even as my heart soars. He’s alive–but, in my determination to bring him back, I hadn’t considered the probability that he wouldn’t remember anything. How will I possibly explain how we know each other?

Then Ollie’s bewildered expression dissolves into a crooked grin. “Take it easy—of course I remember, Nova,” he says, his dark eyes dancing with so much warmth and mischief and life that I can’t speak, can’t express the overwhelming relief and joy and gratitude I feel at his decision to return to this life and try. All I can do is grin back.

BIO

Joceline Eickert is a fantasy fiction writer from Montana. She earned her BA in Communication Studies before serving as an Officer in the United States Army, where she found great adventure around the world. She recently completed her MA in Professional & Creative Writing after deciding to revive her lifelong passion. When she is not dreaming up new worlds, she can be found reading, hiking, or wrangling her husband and two cats.         ​