“Mr. Nichols.”

“Weston, you don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“I’ve just found out the love of my life, and I, are stuck in purgatory, nothing can shock me now.”

“So, what is it you want to talk about?”

Weston eyed the elder up and down. He was unable to believe Mr. Nichols did not have a clue about why screamed in the streets in the middle of the night.

“Who are you?” Weston asked.

“I think you already know, for every one of you beings, there’s one of us.”

Here Mr. Nichols did not disappoint Weston as he answered precisely the way the drifting spirit expected.

“So, you are an angel?”

Mr. Nichols smiled, straightened up his posture, and placed his hands behind his back, “a keeper, we watch over you.”

“Wait a minute, you watched over me, and I died.”

Mr. Nichol’s face became grave, “oh, it was part of the plan, I can’t go against that. Your time had come in that lifetime.”

Weston scratched the back of his head, “wait if you’re my keeper, that meansㅡ.”

Mr. Nichols sighed as he knew where Weston’s question was heading, “yes, Ms. Brentwood has hers.”

“Who? ㅡ.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask,” a small voice said from the shadows interrupting Weston’s discussion.

Weston was shocked to discover who the voice belonged to, “you’re the little girl; you kissed me.”

The little girl crossed her arms, “I’m way older than you are.”

“Hey, listen, don’t play Miss Wisdom with me, you messed up, you didn’t do your job right, Tilda killed herself,” Weston accused.

Mr. Nichols sighed in front of the scene, a routine between the writer and Tilda’s protector. The older man let them bicker for a few minutes before attempting to establish the truth.

“No, the principle of free will is something we can’t transgress, even if your actions sadden us. We watch and guide, we can muster up a little gust of wind to make your head turn. We can hide your keys when you are drunk, but we can’t stop you from searching for them and taking your car. We can make you miss your bus so that you meet the love of your life, but we can’t stop you from taking the tube. Free will, the greatest gift to humanity, and our overload of work.”

“So you are telling me you just watched Tilda go to hell?”

“This is purgatory; it has nothing to do; hell is 106 666 floors below, besides you watched too,” the little girl returned.

“What do you mean by you watched too?”

The little girl played with the end of her braid, “you refused to go across because you didn’t want to leave your grieving lover, so you hung around and drove Tilda up the wall.”

As Tilda’s keeper spoke, images came to Weston’s mind. He saw himself in bed with weeping Tilda; he followed her as she took pills with alcohol, he watched as Theresa yelled at her to go to rehab.

The man was there, unable to leave Tilda, Weston remained attached to her like an anchor. Tilda felt her lover’s presence around her; the aura was so strong the singer could not accept his death. Weston was everywhere for Tilda, who stayed in his apartment. The woman would spend her time talking to herself, Weston would answer, but Tilda could not hear.

“I’m with you.”

If only Tilda heard, she was not alone, Weston would never abandon her even after death.

Weston saw Tilda fall on the stage of Royal Albert Hall, and finally, he watched her bleed to death in her bath. Weston screamed and tried to grasp Tilda as her spirit was chained and towed into darkness.

The little girl shook her head in disapproval, she too witnessed Tilda’s fall as she spent her days telling the man to crossover, “I told you, your presence would drive her bonkers, anyway it’s not the reason she’s here.”

“Whatㅡwhat’s the reason?”

“Tilda Brentwood killed someone.”

Weston was livid; if he were alive, the man would have sworn his lifeline shortened in one go with the little girl’s statement, “wait a minute; I’ve never seen that. Tilda never killed,” Weston turned to face Mr. Nichols, “Tilda isn’t a murdererㅡ.”

Once more, Mr. Nichols was the bearer of the hard-knock fact, “yet Ms. Brentwood, by taking her life, she took River Dean Edー.”

“Who the hell is that?” Weston said in shock without thinking.

“Please, mind your language, Weston.”

“Sorry.”

Mr. Nichols pursued, “eight months after your death, if and only if Ms. Brentwood would have accepted the loss, she would haveㅡ.”

“Oh, my, please don’t tell meㅡ,” Weston said, placing his hands in front of his face as a beautiful thought with a cruel conclusion came to mind.

“She would have given birth to a little boy. Having a very persistent granny, the boy, your son, would have been called River Dean in reference to River Phoenix and James Dean.”

“You have a funny mother, Weston,” Tilda’s keeper said before letting Mr. Nichols finish.

“Your parents would have moved to London to help Tilda raise him; River would have grown up with the love and support of his family to finally becomeㅡ, anyway, none of that happened.

“So you are telling me, Tilda is here because she killed our child when she took her life.”

The two keepers remained silent.

“ㅡWait, if what you are saying is correct, then why I’m I here?”

“Free will, you’re probably here for the same reasons you refused to go across. You came by yourself, Weston, we don’t know what deal you made to access this. Of course, we are present wherever you decide to go. We keepers are hostages of your decisions no matter how ridiculous your choices are.”

Weston started to pace as though he was in his bedroom. The man weighed and pondered on every possibility to finally stop and say, “okay, okay, how do we get out?”

“You can leave when you want.”

“And Tilda?”

“You know what the problem with you beings is? You don’t trust the plan, okay, so most of you don’t believe us or anything else, fair enough. But sometimes, just sometimes put your faith in something other than yourselves. The most prominent threats to humans are your minds, and the impossibility to accurately asses, but also the failure to accept a fact. Tilda refused to accept a simple reality, which was your death.”

Weston’s face went blank.

“It’s too deep, Phaneul, look at him, his brain is shutting down,” Tilda’s keeper said while she eyed Weston up and down.

Weston sneered at the little girl before turning his gaze back on Mr.Nichols, “Tilda told me I crossed a red light, I would never jail walk,” Weston said, shaking his head.

Another vision entered Weston’s mind; there was a little girl with a red cloak and a beret skipping in the middle of the pedestrian walk holding a red balloon, Weston saw himself run only to see there was no one there, but it was too late.

“Youㅡyou killed me,” Weston said, walking up to the little girl and poking her in the chest.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I did not.”

“Yes, you did; I saw you.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t your mind playing tricks?” The little girl said with a sly grin that sent shivers up Weston’s spine.

Seeing the confusion, Mr. Nichols decided to enlighten Weston again, “when people are about to die, there are a few things which happen to them. First, they glow, people will say things like they look good, or bright, whatever.”

The detail was right when Weston started to date Tilda. The remarks were frequent. Weston associated them with his newly found happiness and love.

“Secondly, when death is imminent, you see us and things linked to other levels of consciousness.”

Weston had met both Tilda’s keeper and Mr. Nichols before his death.

“So I was going to die when I met Tilda, I was eight weeks away from my death. Whyㅡwhy did I meet her if I was going to die?”

“That’s how the plan was, and it was your free will to take a cab with Ms. Brentwood.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Eh, can you leave that name alone, because it’s cringe-worthy said that way,” Tilda’s keeper said.

Westons’s eyes switched from one keeper to the other, “please, tell me how to help her.”

“You haven’t been listening or what, ACCEPTANCE. A-C-C-E-P-T, gosh, I’m tired, and I can’t even be tired,” the little girl said.

“Hey, Mr. Nichols, are you people allowed to scream at me like this? Aren’t you supposed to be kind, peace and love and everything? This kid has a mean temper.”

Sariel threw her beret to the floor in anger, revealing the sparkling halo on her head, “I am not a kid.”

Weston placed his hands on his eyes, ” I think I’ve gone blind.”

“Sariel, put that beret back on your head,” Mr. Nichols said as he replaced his hat, not wanting to cause more havoc.

“Weston, you can open your eyes now, listen, all I can say to you is Tilda has to let go of you and the memories,” Mr. Nichols said, trying to give as many hints as possible.

As if in a trance, Weston turned and left.

“Hey, hey, Weston, gosh, he didn’t even say thank you,” Tilda’s keeper complained, estimating that she and Mr. Nichols helped Weston much.

“Sariel.”

“What?” the girl replied.

“Do you know how many times they found each other?”

“No, I don’t keep the count.”

“44 525 times, all mirrors combined.”

“How many misses?”

“10 987 mostly due to premature deaths and colliding elements.”

“I hate colliding elements, lucky this time he ditched that Susanna. Tilda’s lives without him are dull; I sometimes wish those lives ended quicker.”

Mr. Nichols smiled, “at least he didn’t marry his colliding element like his brother did.”

“That’s the problem with colliding elements instead of patiently waiting for their love, they come and squat other people’s soulmates and ruin the plan. It’s amazing though whether they be man and woman, woman and woman, man and man, on different continents they find each other,” Sariel said.

“It’s because they are authentic, and their sole existence is to find that missing half. Weston and Tilda live a life where their subconscious continually searches for the other. They are not even aware that their love never dies.”

“But aren’t they all authentic?” Sariel, the little girl asked.

“Yes, but many fail or give up on searching for their true love, and so they spend lives missing the half which would make them whole.”

“Hope this time is the right one, and Weston and Tilda understand the meaning of this. I feel like I’ve been watching re-runs for the last 47 years. Anyway, I’ve got to go, Phanuel, see you next time, maybe.”

Phanuel stood looking at the starry sky, “you are right; they are ever so fascinating,” the old man said before wandering off too.