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If I were to choose again, I would never have bought that last cup of coffee. I would have instead, tugged my coat collar closed and ducked into that windy, rainy evening in February. I suppose that one never really knows the consequence of one’s actions until it’s too late to change anything. Like when we’re looking down the long tunnel of years, how everything seems to take on the same proportions and one can find the real meaning buried there, instead of the wildly out of sync ratios that we apply in the bustle of the present, where important things seem inconsequential and visa versa. For example, at the time, I thought that one more cup of coffee one way or another would have no affect on my life besides requiring another trip to the slightly dingy bathroom before I decided to brave the elements. I didn’t realize that everything would change because of that last, extra trip through the tightly packed tables and chairs, all jealously guarded on this blustery day, around the corner past the staff hangout outside the kitchen and finally down the back hallway where the air was chilled due to some sinister draft that no one seemed to be able to find and stuff something into. But the truth is that a cup of coffee can change your life.

It was as I was walking down that last narrow hallway, surprised and relieved that there wasn’t the usual long line of slightly disgruntled coffee drinkers hopping from foot-to-foot, that I noticed it. There in the darkness, at the end of the hallway, somewhere past the crack of light seeping from the open bathroom door, there was something standing there. I’m surprised that I noticed it really, as I was myself rather desperate for the bathroom and in fact doing that ridiculous bathroom shuffle one does when in heals and with too many bags and books in tow. But I did notice it, and it stopped me dead. There was a presence at the end of the hall, something heavy and foreign. Something just the other side of neutral, not malevolent exactly, but definitely something with a dangerous edge. It was also deathly chilled back there, more than the annoying trifle of a draft that usually insisted in finding the place where your shirt had come un-tucked, this was cold, and the kind of chill that makes you think you’ll never get warm again. The kind that is too severe for shivers, or arm chaffing; this was the cold the halted movement, stilled breath and stopped time. I realized with some surprise that I had stopped breathing and that the hall was lengthening, drawing my senses forth and out of my body. I don’t remember being afraid, though I should have been. I should have been terrified that I was going to die, right there in front of the slightly dingy bathroom door, but I wasn’t. Truthfully, the only thing I remember feeling was irritation, my friends had been giving me a hard time about drinking so much coffee for years. I thought, as I stood there dying, maybe my epitaph would read, ‘One cup too much.’ That’s probably a ridiculous thing to think as all your thoughts are slowing down along with the blood in your veins, but there you have it, I was pre-occupied with the implied “I told you so” of my imminent death.

Little stars were multiplying in my vision and coalescing into a hazy mass at the end of the hall. Well, at least I would finally find out what was really on the other side, and actually, this didn’t seem a too bad a way to go. I remembered when I was little, maybe 11 or so, when all kids start thinking about morbid things, I used to wonder what the best way to die would be. Common wisdom in our little gang of neighborhood kids was that the best way to go was in your sleep. Although sometimes, someone would try to be original and suggest they thought sky diving would be a lot more exciting. I never really thought that sounded too great. There would be all of that time when you knew your chute wouldn’t open and you knew that you couldn’t do any thing about it. I just don’t think I would be able to enjoy the rest of the jump after that, just falling, waiting for you to hit earth and feel all of your bones break. No, I much preferred the going to sleep and just dreaming your way into death. A distant second was freezing.

It’s strange what thoughts pop into your head as your sinking toward the ground, before your knees hit the floor, before you’re sprawled out on your side, eyes open to the last view of life, or perhaps the first of death, somewhere down the hall. For me, I thought, “Did I leave my cell phone on the windowsill next to my table with the cute hula dancer lamp?” And as a mater of fact, I did forget it there.

The last thing I saw, as I lay there in the wedge of light from the high voltage bathroom bulb, was that the mass of light at the end of the hall had resolved itself into a figure, which was coming down the hall, walking like a black hole edged in constellations. I remember feeling the cold intensify and then fade away along with everything else.

Death, as it turned out, was a little disappointing. Oh, I had thought there would be a tunnel and light alright, but I also thought that the tunnel would lead me out of the darkness. Instead, I was frozen in the dark. Believe it or not, I still wasn’t scared, that would come later. Right then, I was irritated again. I’m not usually an irritable person, all I can surmise is that death doesn’t agree with my disposition. I presume that one should be concerned with past sins or reconciling with your God or something of the like. Instead, I was thinking that I wished my feet didn’t itch. Did one have feet in the afterlife? Apparently, because mine were itching, well stinging, like pins and needles maybe, but however you sliced it, it was darn uncomfortable.

When the rest of my body followed suit, I started getting wise to the fact that I hadn’t died at all. And then I was irritated for a whole new reason. It’s all about managing expectations. I had expected to find the afterlife, what I found instead was: myself in a somewhat stuffy, completely barren, broom closet, just long enough to accommodate my prone length, with two locked doors at either end, one with a reddish outline of light and the other with a garden variety, too-bright-for-a-dingy-bathroom yellow hue. And the worst part was that I still had to go pee.


I had always thought stories about near death experiences were fascinating. Well, to tell the truth I was fascinated by all of the unexplained, mysterious, stranger-than-fiction stuff. I had decided that I believed in ghosts, but not your run of the mill Casper sort of thing. The same with Heaven, I just couldn’t get real excited for a bunch of harp-toting, be-winged, holier-than-thou types. I figured that there was definitely something after death, I just hadn’t worked out exactly what that was yet. And as far as ghosts go, it seemed likely that just like those weirdoes in Florida who refuse to be evacuated from their trailer parks when a Hurricane comes breathing down their necks (I mean they’re living in mobile vehicles for heaven’s sake, all they have to do is drive the darn things down the road a ways.), some people were apt to say nope, I’m happy here in my little tin trailer…the afterlife’s for suckers- no one, and I mean no one, is going to make ME leave!

Mind you, I had never actually seen a ghost. But when I was a senior in High school I worked for a haunted castle. I know, one wouldn’t expect to find a castle, let alone a haunted one, in the mellow Northwest, but let me tell you, some of those settlers were real kooks and rich to boot. So it happened that our little town of 7 thousand boosted the only castle in the state, complete with turrets and ghosts. That year’s trendy, stranger-than-fiction TV show sent a crew out and everything. I suppose that added some kind of pulp-fiction legitimacy, so now all the new flavors of the same show send a crew out. It’s become quite the thing. It’s good business for the hotel anyway, that’s the latest incarnation of the castle, you understand. It’s amazing how many people want to sleep in a haunted room, just so they can check out in a flurry in the middle of the night, complaining of strange noises and such. Anyway, the TV shows never really find anything; just a cold patch here or there and some kind of electromagnetic blip. The Castle is haunted though. Some things you can just feel.


My head hurt, from where I had hit the floor, and a big knot was forming. I could feel this even with my tingling fingers. I felt dizzy. I thought, this must be what vertigo feels like, when it doesn’t matter if you’re lying down or sitting up, you feel like you’ve have one too many trips on the Tilt-a-Whirl. I decided sitting up was better, I somehow felt more in control. In control of what I’m not sure. It was black as night in that little room. I fumbled for my cell phone before I remembered I had left it behind. I still had my bag though, not that there was anything of use in there. I had my glasses, just in case I wanted to get a closer look at the pitch black. And I had my book, for entertainment, again not the best accessory for an abduction, especially one without proper lighting.

I presumed that I had been abducted, for what nefarious reason I had yet to settle on. This sent a nervous shot down my spine, so I decided to skip it for the moment. Last Christmas my Aunt gave me one of those survival guides, you know the ones that tell you how to best escape from a burning building or how to wrestle crocodiles and so on. I kicked myself for not reading it cover-to-cover now. I bet there was something in there about escaping from locked rooms or subduing captors or at the very least, instructions on how to transform lipstick, a safety pin and a lint covered stick of gum into a weapon. Ah well, like I said, hind sight is 20/20, and besides I’ve always had bad vision.

Lacking the expert advice of the editors at the Last-Case-Scenario Publishing House, I decided to check out my prison. The doors were definitely locked. I grasped the door handle to my right and gave it a slow, firm turn, all I got in return was a very uncomfortable increase in the tingling, almost like an electric current, in my arm, from finer-tips to shoulder blade. I gave a quick twist to the other door handle and was rewarded with a slightly less jolting experience.

I then explored the perimeter of the floor, walls and a low ceiling with my fingers, nothing, not even a dust bunny. Actually, a dust bunny would have been reassuring in a broom closet. The lack of such seemed to indicate that the room had been prepared for my interment, after all, everyone knows dust bunnies are notorious for aiding abductees.

I did discover one thing, what they say about having one sense removed or inhibited, does heighten the ones remaining. For instance, this room didn’t smell anything like a broom closet should. It was missing any hint of dusty disuse or mildew imbued water stains. Instead it smelled like a match right as you light it, and underneath that, it smelled like stone or perhaps the inside of one of those big freezers in the super market. It wasn’t unpleasant but simply and quite distinctly out of place.

I also noticed that the sound was all wrong in my little room. I was in what seemed to be a wood paneled closet. A bit up scale for a coffee shop I’ll admit. But nevertheless a small, stuffy, low ceiling-ed room like this one should have that heavy sound, when there’s no place for sounds to go, so they just sink to the floor. However, in this small space rather than a muffled feeling there was instead something reminiscent of empty auditoriums where the sound echoes and echoes, returning to you magnified and clarified. In essence the sound was larger than the space. I found myself jumping when some small scrape of my high heal on the floor would echo in this larger sound-space. It made me uncomfortable this too large sound, so I checked to room again, running my hands along every surface, dismayed to find that it was still a tiny closet and getting stuffier by the moment.


I’ve always liked the cold better than being too hot. Ideally, I would be neither. I have learned that like other women in my family, there is about a 3 degree spread where I am perfectly comfortable, 70-73 degrees. It’s said that we’re all products of our environments, for me this appears to be true. I actually like the rain, though no one appreciates the odd sun break more than a Northwesterner emerging from the longest season of the year. This is something like a mild, and persistent winter which melds into a gray spring, spanning from October through May and sometimes June. Some years the sun is so reticent and we get solid gray and drizzly days that seem to stretch into infinity. One summer I counted 8 days of sunshine, even for me that was a bit much. Still, a good rain after a sunny week or two will really make me smile, there’s something so serene about the rain. Around here they say that you can always tell the tourist by the umbrellas they carry. Natives know that those instruments of sidewalk torture are more likely to poke an eye out than protect you from the moisture which seems to sneak in at every angle without ever truly drenching you.

But I really don’t like being too hot. When I was a kid my mom used to drive one of the incredibly tiny Datsons around. And sometimes a bunch of would cram in there. The back seat was some car designer’s practical joke, or perhaps a prototype for a new torture device. Sometimes three of us would cram back there. And ‘cause it was my mom’s car that meant that I had to be in the middle. In Western Washington you always dress in layers, multiple layers, so that you’re prepared for the preconscious changes in weather. So, there I would be bundled up enough to satisfy even my doting mother, crammed in the tiny backseat. We would finally all get settled in and Mom would start the car and go about a half block before I would start to freak out. I’m not really claustrophobic. Or if I am, then it’s only under very specific circumstances. Nevertheless, I would start freaking out and would absolutely have to get my coat off. It didn’t mater that we were only going to be in the car for 5 minutes. I would simply have an overwhelming need to get out of my coat, something about being both hot and confined at once. To this day, even on cold days I can’t drive with my coat on because I know I won’t be able to get it off after I’ve started.


The heat in the room was definitely increasing. I had immediately taken off my long coat and then my sweater. Sweat was gathering on the back of my neck so I tied my long hair up and out of the way too. The heat had a dual affect on me: first and foremost it exacerbated my need to go pee, sitting backseat to that was the drowsy affect. It must be late by now, I thought. It had been close to 10pm when I finally decided to vacate my table. Now I judged, it must be near midnight, at least. I began wondering how long I had been unconscious. Could it have been longer than I thought? Might it already be the next day? This was not an idea that I much relished. At any rate, I was definitely drowsy, with that particular ache behind the eyes that comes from lack of sleep. A wee little nap didn’t seem such a bad idea to me. People have all kinds of weird ways that they deal with stress. Mine has always been sleep.

So, I slowly laid my head down on my wadded up coat, mindful to keep the aching knot on my temple from hitting anything, and drifted off to sleep. I dreamed of small shinning objects swept up into deep chiasms and then into rivers. Rivers of all kinds, rushing, rushing, rushing past; the great thunder of their passing deafening, deafening until I didn’t hear anything at all, deafening unto a great void of silence. I woke having to go pee more than ever.


Dreams are funny things. For instance I once dreamt that I had found a lost toothbrush. The next morning I woke up and found it right where I dreamt it would be.