First time I saw her was at a US bank in northern California. Had on a long, colorful dress, all patchy-like. Different colored sleeves and such. It wasn't really her you know? But it caught my eye as strange she’d put something like that on. She's always doing something like that. Something curious that pops me out of whatever head I’m in and makes me look at her. Didn't go talking to that woman with the colorful dress, sometimes I wish I had, but at this point I know she would've been gone by the time I said hello or excuse me or what have you.

She ain't always like that though, sometimes its got nothing to do with what she's wearing or doing. Another time, we passed each other at a grocery store and I felt her look back at me. Past stripped away, I know nothing, got me good and ready to not be distracted by that inner glow, just a pure, comfortable radiance emanating from just below the diaphragm; then snap, goodbye. That inner glow, it lasts a lifetime, but by the time I’ve turned around to get a good look and see if she’s there, there’s nobody. And you can’t rightly go hunting down a girl what passed you by in the snack isle of a Walmart in the middle of nowhere Midwest. Even though it was that same woman back at the bank in California and you know it down to your very soul.

Thing is, she definitely wasn’t in the same body. Got another look at her - the Walmart gal- one more, and when we made eye contact, that familiar feeling struck like lighting, through us both it looked like actually. Course, she might've been shocked at seeing me again and that’s all was going on in her meat brain. But she was still in there, and I felt it. After that, himmed and hawed around, buying a couple more things just to waste time trying to see her one last time, but after that bolt of lightning, I knew she wasn’t in the area any longer. Felt bad for the woman at the store, if she did think I’d been following her. Anyways…

Then again in Chicago. Years later in fact. I’m walking with my good pal K——, and some disturbance in the air whizzes by. I can see those, disturbances in the ether of life. I seen messages whiz into a phone, flash of a message being sent to my computer, someone sending a heavy text, things like that. Don’t really think this was one of those though, she must’ve thrown something to get a good look at my good side, left side of my face. I wasn’t really in a position of life to be able to encounter her full yet, but I think that was the most present she’d ever been in someone’s body since I felt her glow as we passed, and as soon as I noticed her and turned around to see if I could catch a glimpse of her true form, she was out of there, just a regular person walking down the sidewalk.

Sometimes wonder if she's a witch. Got my spiritual defenses up though, had 'em trained as I was brought up, I've recognized evil auras before. Not anything like her, not at all. Even have had my suspicions that she's trying to cloak her evil with that radiance, but after we met by accident, she left no doubts in my mind of the pureness she has to be; zero percent evil. I was at a party somewhere 'round that Midwest nowhere town; it was a goodbye party since I was leaving and all, wanted one last get together with all the people I love most. So a friend of mine, friend in person course, but mostly in soul, gathered up some of her friends, and rented one of them air b and b's so we could throw down and have a bit of a party. Well, the night got going as they do and after everyone was all good and buzzed and a little coked up, we were all in the conversational portion of feeling good at a party. So I'm sitting with my conversation partner talking about God-knows-what and Snap! she lands right in there.

Now listen, I ain't no lovesick gotta-find-the-one, somebody for everybody, love at first sight, or any other such nonsense believer, and I'm not particularly given to this sex-positive society neither. Granted, I am not denying peoples individual freedoms and its a persons right to do with their body what they please, all's I'm saying is: I don't care to participate in such actions with my body; and that's my right to do with mine. So, when I say she landed there in that woman's body, who I had been conversing with and up to that point hadn't given much more of a hoot about besides being a good conversationalist for our collective headspaces, I know, and you oughtta believe, that it wasn't some sudden lovesick strike of infatuation what happened upon me just then. Besides, I'd gone through that phase in college and knew the signs for a conversation going toward the 'who's place' portion.

So it was suddenly her. Like a snap of the fingers, she was in front of me and boy howdy let me tell you what, the first thing she says to me, the very first thing was this:

"I'm sorry but, I feel like we've met before."

Hoo-boy! As if you hadn't been taunting and teasing my psyche with your astral projection and borderline possession for the past eight years. But I'm inebriated and one cant be too sure about such things. Plus that feeling of recognition, it happens to people, so I've heard, so I can't just come out with an, 'ah-hah! Its you!' and wag my finger at this poor woman I just met. And besides, I'm still not all to clear on how that thing she does works, but probably the woman still has all her faculties about her, seeing as how a full possession without permission would be evil, and she don't come from the evil place as I've established. Of course, also, being in the spirit of complete honesty, I wasn't entirely sure or aware it was her until a little bit further in, and as such my response was something alone these lines:

"You know, yeah I feel like that too. Maybe at J——'s place at some point. Like in passing maybe?"

"Could be, hard to say though, I don't go to her place often."

I don't rightly remember what followed conversation-wise, but I remember there being a cheer from the kitchen with a cry of 'This has happened before!' because other members of the groupmind were recognizing the familiarity of the situation and someone who distracted both her and my attention said something along the lines of, 'I feel like we've done this before,' to which J—— responded with, 'OMG this must be something important, how many times have we done this?' All of this, of course, affirming my suspicions... the suspicions I had afterward, of course.

Part of me wishes I hadn't been so blitzed to talk to her. Directly even! We spoke of the shadow people, intuition, and at one point, where I got real fuzzy, it seemed she was giving me instructions, and I remember I had to concentrate pretty hard to get even a little of what she was saying. I think she did that somewhat on purpose. Wouldn't be as obvious that it was her until after the fact. Could also be that its easier for a projector to persuade an inebriated host who believes most of the same esoteric things anyways so the situation was perfect for a pop in on me. She was saying things like 'you cannot let anybody's opinion affect your life,' and 'do exactly what you know you must no matter what,' along with, 'oh I'm sorry, but like, I have to get this out of the way, I just want you to know that I have a boyfriend,' and Snap! The host kicked her out, and we disintegrated into the pleasantries of recovering from intimate conversation which, even in circumstances without the host body having a boyfriend, would not have led to petty sex or anything more than a close friendship. But when you have been divulging what seems like your heart to what seems like a stranger you met at a party because you were invited last minute by your sometimes-acquaintance J——, things can get a little mixed up, so we must be completely clear with our boundaries.

I understand.

The conversation after that was lackluster. I gave her some acid cos I vibed with her even without her there, we all sat around to play blackjack, and they left at some point while I was babysitting someone who's psychosis was flaring up and needed someone who had been in a similar situation to ground them.

At this point, because of certain alludations I've made as well as story points which are present because, well, that how they happened, it may be that some readers suspect that this italicized her is nothing but a leftover from some drug-fueled college days which resulted in a temporary psychosis. But let me tell you, during that time of my life, there wasn't hide nor hair or even a spectral whisper of her presence anywhere near me. Probably stayed away from me so I wouldn't go on thinking that's all she was, some sort of hallucination I cant let go. But those first few times I recognized that there was someone slipping in and out of my life under the guise of other people, I hadn't even touched alcohol. And like I said, during my wild years, nothing. Maybe a sad whisper every once in a while, finding me passed out. Reminds me of the first time I'd heard her.

Oh yes, I'd heard her and felt her long before I'd seen her, actually recognized her presence as more than some ghost. In high-school, I'd gotten me my first girlfriend, and shortly thereafter, She gave me quite a startle when one night, lying in my bed, I heard them old farmhouse stairs creak like my older brother was coming up em to climb into his bed; when I waited for the light to turn on, it never did.

Go on and do something for me right quick. Close your eyes, and hold your hand close to your face. Now, of course you know something's there cos you're holding your own hand there, I get it, but go along with me for a second and just observe the feeling of the presence you feel between your hand and face. Now take your hand away, and that feeling's gone. Well, I was waiting for the light to turn on, cos surely my brother was the one who came up from the main floor, but instead I felt that presence, that closeness, that warmth, that... inner glow. And right into my ear, without the feeling of breath hitting my head, I heard my name whispered, a woman's voice. I'd thought at first, based on the intonation and such, that it was my mother, then second, that it had to be my brother, because he was the one had been downstairs and who had to make the stairs creak, but when I opened my eyes, there wasn't a soul to be seen. Well, I leapt off that bed and threw on the light, looking around for that darn prankster B——, my brother, but he wasn't in the room, no one was. He wasn't in the hall, he wasn't even in the TV room across the hall, and that whole time I was searching, I was making a racket just by the creak of the floorboards in that old farmhouse, so he couldn't've run away, else I woulda heard his racket.

Later in life, I was able to recognize that glow. Realized it was her that whispered to me. Throughout all my years she's shown up in dreams, popped up in strangers to say some cryptic thing, always leading me somewhere, somehow. She'll stroke a book, make it glow, completely ignore others I've picked up, makes them uninteresting. Got to a point where I was only reading books she pointed out. Only watched shows representative of our dance, our esoteric views and values.

This endless waltz which she controls and guides me on a leash of interest

Unfolds the secrets of a life untold, when shown beguiles some sacred test

And evermore I will endow her with the power to lead me to my final rest

I cannot bear to leave her now for some childish cooked up dream based on societies expectation of how a proper boy should behave when he's all up and grown to get a home and find a wife to settle down and get a life and become some guy standing at the top of his stoop looking down on us driving by like he’s better than the world, back turned to his middle apartment squished between twelve others just like it, each with their own upper floor resident installed and set on a timer to bang bang bang their headboard against the floorboards right when you have sensitive life matters to attend and a back yard just out the window which you can look at but not use, so it of course is the only mangled swamp mass thicket of vegetation amidst your neighbors Zen garden, hammock, fire pit paradise which you’d definitely put the work in to make even better than if only the bottom unit had been available but thank God it wasn’t because who wants to live in the basement of New York where the piss bubbles up to your ankles on a monthly schedule and permeates the air whenever you have company over for the first time when honestly this world to me lacks luster in everything I see except for when I encounter Her.

So I stopped living in that place. The world. I stopped following The Guide (tm). I left it all. My family, my friends, my home. I have nothing left in this material world, none of it matters anyway. Everything I own, I can carry on my back. Every day I go out, I dawn the mask. I become a member of the world.

Where was I when it happened? Prague. Does it even matter? Do locations on this filthy planet full of writhing tubes screaming over properties and possessions and what every other tube is doing besides them really matter? It doesn't. It can't. But you want it. The context, the story, the full picture, the honesty. There it is, honestly; and none of it is nihilism. That's just a fancy word for the tubes to have something to fight about.

Anyways. Prague. Last year. I've read nothing but what glows with her pure light. I've touched zero substances to prepare myself to confront her with a clear mind. She was only ever popping up in a flash and can’t tell it was her til after the distraction happened reminding me to be more aware about everything that’s going on no matter where I’m at since she just might decide to appear directly in front of me one day and I’d probably miss it at this point. So I changed. I am aware of every single moment, so clear in my head so that way when I try talking to her directly like that one time at the party I can hear her leave the person and say:

It doesn't work like that. If you ever try to address me, their conscious attention will be drawn to the moment. I exist outside of that, within the cracks of a persons mind, when they aren't fully paying attention; I can wedge my way in, and talk to you, but as soon as they notice their current surroundings, I'm shut out.

When was that? It doesn't matter. Everything is black and white but what she touches. This world would not exist without our dance. This world would not exist without me. This world is my dream. A dream. Dreams! That's right, I remember now.

Prague. Last year. I was reading about dreams. How to control them, and I figured it out. So as soon as I've stopped my work for the day so I can afford to fuel this mortal shell, I go to my rented bed, and dissolve into the bright ball of consciousness and appear in the room. The round, checkered room. And I wait. I wait, and I observe. And I do not see her, she does not appear. So I create the room my body is in, and from there spread out to the world I have seen, the world I remember, and I create the world. But still she does not appear. But I have seen her in dreams before, so I know she must be here, somewhere. So I fill in the details of the world. The house I grew up in, the house I left, the things I remember, and I remember everything.

But still she does not appear. But I want to see her, I need to see her. So I create myself, from my very earliest memory. I try to remember her. I watch myself, my life play out, and when it is time for that first encounter, she does not appear. Even though this is my memory, my stage, my play of my life, she misses her cue, so I step in for her, to play the part as best I can, and whisper to that half asleep me, lying on my bed, waiting for my brother to turn on the light, I kneel close, and whisper my name.