Chapter 11

Heavily concerned about Tom and very distracted by the noises and activities going on in the operating room, I suggested we adjourn to the roof. Actually, I just went there. I had a feeling the others would follow. They did.

The cool breeze up there was refreshing. I could almost feel my hair moving from the air flowing over it. I wondered about that and lifted a hand to brush it back in place like I'd done thousands of times before. I imagined my hair blowing in the breeze and as my hand passed over it I got the sensation it was real.

"I see you're starting to get a little imagination going there," said Marilyn. "That's good." I felt the two other girls there agree with her. Then I got the distinct feeling there was someone else I didn't expect standing up there with us on the hospital's roof.

Stacey had joined us. I gave her a blank look and asked, "How?"

"They just started my transplant and as soon as the kidney touched me, I felt that I was needed here. We are connected now you know," she said.

There was a collective searching for anything regarding Tom and it was only Stacey, the most psychic of my friends, who came up with something. "I don't think he's nearby," came through for all of us to hear. "I distinctly feel he's OK but he's far away,"

"So now what?" I thought.

Marilyn said, "How about a Scavenger Hunt?"

She got back four instant expressions of "What?"

"Or would you rather call it a Witch Hunt? You know, years ago we would have been called witches," Marilyn said and then added. "I know just were we might begin our hunt!"

My immediate thought was how could we really do any searching. As for me, I'd tried but I couldn't lift a feather yet. I had a long way to go before I'd be able to turn a page of a book. No way could I pull out a desk or file drawer so I could rifle through it. How could I read through a folder of documents I thought, even one sitting on a desk let alone one that was inside a drawer. As I mulled over all that, a very firm, "Dufas!" shot through my mind.

"Yes, Tammy," I said in a rather exasperated voice. "What did I miss this time?"

"Look Dufas, and I do use that with affection for your stupidity, but you are so lame," she told me as the laughter of the entire crew spun up to a crescendo.

Then she explained that one of my first accomplishments as a Spirit was she caught me looking at her "Cooter!" as she called it.

Well, I turned crimson from my toenails to my nose. The rest of the group only made it worse when they chimed in, "Me too!!!" Although Valerie's statement was more like, "Really?" I admitted I'd searched out under their respective coverings and done a little exploring in that area. That's something guys always think about.

"I even trimmed my muff because I thought the hospital staff would appreciate it," Tammy continued. "I just didn't expect Perverino here to be stripping off my layers and doing an eyeball examination of me ... Down There!"

I finally said, "I got it."

Amid more laughter as I was the brunt of all of their jokes when Stacey said, "And I gave it to him!"

There was a round of 'Ooo's' and 'Ahhh's' as the girls lamented the indoctrination Stacey had given me in the ways of Spirit Sex!

"Hey!" I said rather loudly. "I understand now!"

"Right," Marilyn said. "We can all read a book from cover to cover without ever opening it up OR turning a page. Although it's a little tough reading upside down or decoding the mirror images you get reading through a page and catching the print from the rear. It can toughen things up a bit," she added.

I got the crew laughing again as I thought about how I'd figured out about stripping away clothing. Reese Witherspoon had been in a movie I'd seen called, 'Just Like Heaven.' It was a story about a woman who was comatose and her Spirit went on to contact a live person played by Mark Ruffalo. They work to find out who she is because the Spirit isn't sure of anything and doesn't know why she's wandering. Together they try to resolve her situation.

Anyway, in one scene, Reese stands in front of a door. She leans over, lets her head pass through the door and peeks inside. Her intention is to get a view of a female intruder who just got naked in an attempt to seduce Mark. In another one, she is walking through walls. As a new Spirit, I just figured it was worth a try. I'd perfected a few simple techniques, including the 'See Through Sheet' routine and they seemed to work. That gave me the confidence to try other things.

"Well that was fun tripping down Memory Lane with you Will," Marilyn said rather sarcastically. "Enough! I think for now, we should zip over to the ninth floor of Randolph Industries and see what we can find."

"Yeah, the Executive Bastion of Randolph Industries," Tammy said. "Sounds like a great idea." She must have been reading my mind again, or perhaps still, because as I thought that, she said it.

I've often wondered where writers got a lot of their ideas for Science Fiction stories. As we all vaporized on the hospital roof and rematerialized in Randolph Industries ninth floor conference room I had to assume, one writer must have had some very intimate experiences with his Spirit. "If only in life it was so easy," I thought.

Stacey was right there with, "It takes practice. Lots of practice and great confidence in your Spirit but it is possible. Although, in the beginning it's best to start out easy. There is an Order of Monks in a very secluded part of Tibet that have been concentrating on developing that skill.

"They haven't really gotten it perfected to a hundred percent success rate though. The downside," she continued cautiously, "Is beginners with big egos face instant death if they don't make it all the way through to the other side. Well, their Spirit does but they don't."

I thought, "Rumors about monks doing things like that was Urban Legend stuff. Legends which claimed bones were found imbedded in trees, walls and the like, giving the impression someone had gotten partway through and then became stuck, permanently."