I’d never been a Trekkie while I was still topside. More of a fantasy and horror girl, myself. But I had a lot of time on my hands and plenty of rage-propelled motivation to slog through the Encyclopedia of Astral Dynamics. Nothing short of my heart stopping could’ve induced me to read it cover to cover, especially since it turned out to be a steaming pile of horseshit.
For starters, I didn’t have a body to ground or return to. Fortunately, I discovered the official AP manual written for and by the unliving, available on indefinite loan from the Ether.
It was mercifully brief.
Step One: Focus.
Seriously, one word.
Forget what they tell you about the eternal peace of not being alive. It’s fucking loud here, what with all the petty blood feuds, poignant reunions, requests for do-overs, and ceaseless yearning.
Step Two: Amass all the energy you can access.
So I might’ve borrowed a teensy bit of juice from some guy who wouldn’t stop bitching about the Mets. To be fair, he didn’t miss it.
Step Three: Visualize your intended destination in vivid detail.
No problem. I could still smell the burnt toast with melted butter and cinnamon sugar my mother ate for breakfast every morning. Creature of habit. Plus, she couldn’t cook for shit.
Step Four: Push.
Again with the monosyllables. But it was pretty self-explanatory. I decided to document my efforts for posterity.
ASTRAL PROJECTION LOG
Stardate: July 23, 2026
Prime Directive
After my stepbrother strangled me because I lost his vape, I hung around Queens to haunt my mom for a while. She couldn’t admit he was a menace. Mom is sentimental. She cries at commercials. When my stepfather died, she started to treat my stepbrother like a mouth-breathing memento of him. Never mind that he was homicidal.
Mom visited my grave with dayglo bodega flowers every Sunday. But she also made a monthly trek to The Island, probably trying to console the psychopath she raised over the indignity of being incarcerated for first-degree murder.
I decided to scare some sense into her.
At first, the most I could manage was a shimmer in the air while Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping from her World’s Best Stepmother coffee mug. All she did was blink.
The first time I actually moved an object was the highlight of my afterlife. It was the picture of my stepbrother in his high school graduation cap and gown. Focusing my entire energy field on his pervy smile made the picture frame scoot forward a few inches until it was tottering on the windowsill, sandwiched between the withered purple orchids and thriving orange-pink moon cactus.
One more laser beam of pure malice aimed at the row of pimples on his jawline was enough to knock it to the floor.
The sound of my mother’s shriek is still reverberating through my incorporeal being like the bassline in “The Chain”…
When it fades, I’ll go back.