"Do you remember yesterday?"
"Why, I believe I do," the spirit said. He peered through the soft haze and blinked. "But is it today or have I missed a day?" The sun, red and blurry through the ocean clouds couldn't be any closer, the spirit thought. I shouldn't even be here. I shouldn't have been reassigned here. "But you're good," his commanding officer had said and he had believed him. It was easier than deciphering lies. "I want to stay here," the spirit had replied. "There is no here for spirits. You can help people find their here's and there's but for you, it is only Time." "Yes, sir," he said and whisked away through red suns and soft hazes to this blurry and confused place. "Is there a chance for me?" the man asked his spirit. "Some days," the haze whispered, "but other times you will be all too well aware of who you are." "Do I have to be?" the young boy said. He wanted a life of playing in sand boxes and chasing scared girls. "It isn't up to you," the spirit said. This was tough work, much tougher than condemning them to their hells. He gave them hope now. "But why?" the old man asked. He had Alzheimer's and memory was melting like a late snow in April. It was inevitable but the spirit couldn't say that. He didn't want to be reassigned to dreams. That left them scratching their heads. And besides, it was difficult to combine mountains and angry winds, and tree that bent down to pluck a men from their lives and lift them to other places. He didn't want to come before an alarm. That was true reality, the spirit thought, the toughest combatant, an enemy that always won. Even a young spirit like him knew that. He soothed the dying man's mind for a moment. "It is better tomorrow, trust me," he spoke to him. "How?" "Please, just dream of yesterday and tomorrow will be here. You can be who you want and it is easier to laugh there. "Is that how I missed a day?" the man asked his spirit as he sat waiting, waiting for whatever it was men wanted beyond food and water. Maybe that was love, he whispered to himself. And the spirit flew into the man and showed him the treasured forest, with the bluest skies and castles atop the greenest and ancient hills, prepared for an attack or the medieval rains. The man smiled. The spirit was demoted the next week. He never saw an awake man again. At least in our Time.