I said, youre probably famished. Ill get something sent up to you, okay? Billy looked at her and nodded. Let me give you a hint young man. This is a public hospital, and the Staff does not have time to mess around with people who think they are something special. The nerve, running away the way you did! Any wonder your poor mother passed away like that!
She walked away, leaving Billy staring open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the vacant doorway. Told you to kill her. Mum gone too. It was getting a little clearer now, slowly, as the story unfolded and he managed to put the pieces together. Nobody had really asked him where hed been yet, except the cops. They must simply assume that hed hid somewhere for four years. The probable reality was that nobody knew, nobody, but Billy should have. Perhaps the guys on the other side had some idea. He moved on and went home.
Chapter Nine
Transits, Home, Jen, and Tony
Moving On Billy called it. The term described shifting between the parallels or from one location to another within the same parallel. People, normal people have this conception that ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them, can appear wherever they want to. Well, whatever you think they are, they can do that. But there are limitations. They cant decide that Tahiti looks good and just go there! They must have some history at the location first, in Life, then they can return whenever they want, if they want. Hence the commonly known haunted house scenario. Most of them did exactly that for the first couple of years, (return that is, not haunt, a debateable difference) until things change so much that it begins to hurt. Survivors in Life, the widow, the widower, the girlfriend, boyfriend, whoever, always found someone else eventually. These transitory beings, transits, would usually give up after that, and after days, months or even years would finally pass on to wherever.
The Transits were the ones Billy saw moving into and out of Life as they checked up on their Reality. As soon as that was gone, so were they. Which helps explain why Billy was always so composed at such a young age. He needed to keep his feet on the ground, metaphorically speaking, but what he knew, what he alone saw and experienced granted a boy maturity beyond anything Life could give. He opened his front gate and walked slowly toward the front door, the front fence, garden and the outside of the house had been completely refurbished. He looked around in wonder.
Who is it? was the response to his tentative knock.
Billy didnt recognise the voice and moved on into the house so he could see. The inside had also changed considerably. New paint, furniture, his Dads chair and TV were gone. His room was now a nursery; colourful mobiles hung from the ceiling and gaily painted animals and letters of the alphabet splashed over the walls. He returned and stood beside the woman as she opened the front door, and was greeted by nobody, of course. She peered around, up and down the street and then closed the door.
Damn kids! she muttered.
She walked back to the renovated kitchen where Billy had interrupted her cake making. He watched as she hummed to herself and resumed beating the mixture. It felt comfortable and Billy thought he might stay awhile but then shook his head.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he admonished.
The woman stopped beating and frowned. She looked around the kitchen, shook her head herself, and continued beating again. Her humming was softer, more restrained.
Billy looked around the house one more time then went to Tonys place. There was no mistaking that Tony still lived there. His room had not changed but his drum kit was bigger and more expensive, as was his sound equipment. Billy sat down at the messy desk and wrote a note, then took a deep breath for his next visit. This was going to be the difficult one. He went to Jens.
He sat on her bed and looked around the room. Very little had changed but enough to know Jen wasnt there anymore. Her photos were still there on the wall and the mirror of her dresser, exactly as he remembered them. He saw one of them together at the tennis courts as well. She was so beautiful. He quietly opened a few drawers of her dresser. They were empty. Her wardrobe was empty. Everything was completely empty. The room was like a shell, a facade. It didnt feel like she had just moved out of home or anything simple like that. Billy thought that she would have taken the photos, and her parents wouldnt have left her room looking like a mausoleum. Something felt wrong, even smelt wrong. He took one of the smaller photos from the mirror.
He could smell that cake cooking back at home, his old home, and remembered how hungry he was. His note for Tony, if he got it in time, would see them catch up before the weekend was out. Billy went to his other favourite place, the tennis courts, or more precisely, the clubhouse.
It wasnt small anymore. It had more than doubled in size, and there was six courts now all green concrete with permanent painted lines. A lingering aroma of food remained and Billy assumed that hed just missed the ladies morning comp. The smell reminded him again of his hunger. Thats the trouble with Life, you have to maintain it or die, or at the very least suffer in some way. There was a fridge and a freezer and a proper kitchen in there no less so he helped myself as well as he could. A frozen steak out of the freezer was soon sizzling on a hot plate. Some left over salad from the fridge went straight into his mouth. He ate the steak half raw and still part frozen in the centre, slapped between two slices of bread warmed over the cooking steak. The juices ran through the bread and made it fall apart but he didnt care. It was a feast, and he made an appropriate mess eating it!
Billys ability to move in and out of Life used to give his Mum and Dad the heebee jeebees thats for sure! His Mum would be pushing the stroller along only to find her toddler, Billy, gone less than two minutes after shed strapped him in there! They got used to it eventually, but he remembered the looks of confusion they used to get from hospitals and doctors, counsellors and psychiatrists, as his Mum tried to explain that their baby could disappear and reappear at will! Of course Billy never did it in front of anyone else nobody would understand!
Before jumping to any conclusions, Billy is not dead. He hasnt died, been killed, or anything like that. He was just born to it, and whatever or however it happened, not even the guys Over There can tell him why. They look to him with a reverence, naturally, because he is alive, and they are not. To Billy, it is all perfectly natural.
Chapter Ten
The Reunion
He checked his watch. It was almost time to meet Tony if hed got the message. His watch always read the right time. Reality time that is, but it didnt work at all on the other side. Billy never questions it its just normal. He went to the all nighter in Ballina, a service station, the only one in town that was open all night. Guess that didnt need explaining?
When he arrived he mingled into a recently arrived group from a tour bus, a young kid the only one to notice him. It rarely happened, where he appeared in somebodys focus, and when it did, such is Life, most assume he had always been there! Kids, though, kids are different. They are still questioning Life and normalcy. It wasnt normal for Billy to have materialised like that right before his eyes. The kid tugged at his mothers sleeve and she gave Billy a quick cursory glance. There was a busload of people and she hadnt seen them all on their short leg down from Brisbane. She pulled her kid away sharply and Billy felt sorry for him shed probably take him around the corner and give him a belt across the backside now, for lying. Sorry kid!