"What cannot be said will be wept."
- Sappho

If anyone was going to become a ghost when they died, it was Adam. Gus had never met anybody who talked about ghosts so much. Adam had grown up in what he described as a "haunted house" and told stories all the time about the apparitions he used to see.

There was the kind old woman who tucked him into bed at night, the little boy who ran through the hallway, a bloody woman in a green dress and then, of course, the Shadow People.

"The Shadow People were scariest, 'cause the others were just people who died. I never knew what the Shadow People were," he told Gus.

According to his description, the Shadow People were deep black human-shaped silhouettes that moved like a regular person. Only they had no face, no eyes, no discernible features whatsoever. They peeked around corners or stood silently in dark rooms, disappearing when the lights were flipped on and reappearing when they went off.

"Even though they don't got eyes, you know they watchin' you. You feel it. All the time," Adam had said, the fear still obvious in his eyes.

Gus had never really believed in any of it. He thought Adam was just a good storyteller. He was a brilliant writer, after all, and wrote countless stories about the paranormal in that notebook of his. Gus figured he had probably just dreamed about all the ghosts and stuff.

Still, Gus could not discount the things that kept happening to him. It had started in the car ride to the Wiggins's house three days after Adam's death, when he'd heard someone whisper in his ear and felt their breath move his hair.

Then there was the time he'd seen Adam in his tent that horrible night he never allowed himself to remember fully.

And now, there was the invisible hand on his shoulder that yanked him back just as the man grabbed Strawberry's arm. Gus glanced behind him to see whoever had grabbed him, but no one was nearby. The dead man's body was still on the sidewalk, and people were digging through his pockets while a hysterical woman screamed and slapped at them.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!" the man shouted again.

"She was with me," Gus said firmly, finding his voice. He was terrified of this man who seemed like a giant compared to him, but he tried to keep his voice steady and his eyes hard.

Strawberry groaned. "Gus no," she said under her breath.

"Wit' you? What she want wit' yo scrawny white ass?" the man asked skeptically, looking him up and down.

"We was smokin' some crystal and lost track of time. It's my fault."

"Well dis hoe right here belong to me. She talks to a guy when I let her talk to a guy," he said.

"I talked first. Plus, we didn't do nothin' but smoke. You think she'd like a guy like me? It's like you said, I'm scrawny. Let her go, please," Gus said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt.

The man released Strawberry and shoved her away. "You got a lot of work to catch up on," he said harshly.

Strawberry nodded, staring down at the filthy concrete. "I'm sorry."

"Go make my money," the man said, and he turned and walked away.

Strawberry breathed a sigh of relief, and Gus gently touched her lower back. She spun around and glared at him.

"If dat ever happens again, you don't say NOTHIN'! He could kill you! You understand me?" she shouted.

"I won't stand there and let him hurt you," Gus said.

Strawberry's voice lowered. "Yes you will. You will 'cause I axin' you to. Got it?"

Gus didn't respond because he couldn't agree to such a thing. Once he found someone he considered family, he was fiercely loyal and would fight to the death for them like a runt wolf, knowing he didn't stand a chance but going for it anyway.

In the distance, sirens were wailing, on their way to collect the body of the dead man on the sidewalk. Gus didn't look at him, not wanting to risk another flashback. He hadn't planned on remembering Adam's name tonight, having shoved it so far down, but every now and then things bobbed to the surface of his mind's deep sea, like Styrofoam cups filled with sadness.

"I gotta go to work," Strawberry said, calmed down now.

"Be careful," Gus said, and she gave him a small, sad smile.

When she was gone, Gus looked around again for whoever had touched him, but no one was there.

**********

For Gus, Skid Row was a candy shop of drugs. There were lots of new things he'd never tried. Some he didn't like. Others he did. As a general rule, he didn't turn down anything unless it was an opiate or a benzo. He still stuck by his opinion that falling asleep was a boring high and not something to waste money on. Plus, he'd tried heroin once and spent the night puking.

That was why he was skeptical of Ketamine.

"It won't put you to sleep. It makes you feel all dreamy and floaty."

Gus was sitting outside his tent one night waiting for Strawberry to come back. He'd started talking to a man named Kareem, one of his neighbors, who was offering Gus a free hit of the drug, hoping he'd like it and start buying.

"I don't like that slow shit," Gus replied. "I like to feel alive."

"You like PCP? LSD? Angel Dust?"

"Yeah. Those are pretty fun."

"Well this Special K right here'll open your mind to another world," Kareem said.

Another world. That's why Gus did drugs in the first place, always trying to get out of this world and into a better one. There had to be a better one somewhere. He had always believed that, always searched for it.

Gus gave in. "Alright."

He snorted the powder and waited to feel something. Minutes passed, and his eyelids grew heavy.

"See? Told you it'd make me sleepy," he said.

He looked over at Kareem, but Kareem was no longer there. In his place sat a little boy, staring at him with wide brown eyes.

"Who are you?" Gus asked, surprised.

"Me," said the child.

"Me?"

"Yes. That's right."

Gus looked around, but everyone was just talking and laughing and arguing like usual. No one seemed to notice the boy.

"What's your name?" Gus asked him.

"I'm Me."

"Look, kid, I think you should go find your parents."

"I don't have parents."

"So you're alone out here?"

The kid couldn't have been older than five, and he was clean and dressed in a white t-shirt and new jeans. He definitely didn't look like someone who belonged on Skid Row. There were a few kids down here, but they were dirty with snot running out of their noses and always toddling around barefoot in nothing but swollen diapers, crying for their parents who were nowhere to be found.

"Come with me," the child said.

He offered his small white hand, and to his own surprise, Gus took it. They started walking down the sidewalk. Gus looked back and saw himself still sitting in the chair. He had slipped out of his body somehow.

"Wait. Am I dead?" he asked the boy.

"No."

"So how can I be here and there?"

"We're splitting time. Come with me. I have to show you something. Jump, Gus!" the child said.

"Why?" Gus asked.

"Just jump!"

Gus jumped, but his feet never hit the ground again. Instead they were floating, floating up, far above Skid Row. The night air was fresh and cool. Gone was the stench below them. It was like swimming through stars. Gus had never seen anything so beautiful in his life. Galaxies were spun like delicate spider webs all around them. The warmth from the moon felt like fresh bath water. The child did front flips and back flips in space, and Gus did too. They were both laughing. For what seemed like a long time, they glided like this through the stars. The stars, Gus realized, were delightfully warm, tiny things like Christmas lights when he brushed against them.

"We have to go down," the boy said finally.

He grabbed Gus's hand and began pulling him to earth. Down, down, down... but not to Skid Row. Instead they landed in front of a small, quiet house on a small, quiet street. Somehow Gus knew that this was his house, his mother's house, before he'd been put into foster care. As soon as his feet touched the earth, he ran for the front door. Though the windows had been lit up from the outside, it was dark inside. The only sound was a baby crying and screaming. Gus knew he had to help the baby for some reason, so he followed the cries to a little room at the end of a small, suffocating hallway.

In the room was a white crib, but it was empty. Now the cries were coming from behind him. Gus turned in the opposite direction to chase them down. But they were in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the bedroom. Everywhere he looked, he heard the cries but couldn't find their source.

"Where are you?" Gus asked the darkness frantically.

A light came on in the kitchen, and Gus ran to it. At the stove stood a woman in a white nightgown. Though she was turned away from him, Gus knew instantly that this was his mother. She had long, dark hair and was humming a lullaby. Gus threw his arms around her from behind.

"Mom!" he said happily. "I found you! It's me, Gus! I'm sixteen now! Please take me back! I wanna be with you! I'll be good this time!"

The woman turned around, and Gus realized with horror that she had no face. In its place was a black void surrounded by hair. He released her and jumped back. It was one of Adam's Shadow People. They were real.

"Get away!" he shouted.

But the Shadow Woman with no face began to glide across the kitchen floor towards him. The baby was screaming again. Gus ran for the door, but it wasn't there anymore. Neither was the little boy. He felt the presence of the woman behind him, her cold emptiness crawling into his body and erasing him from the inside out.

Gus suddenly found himself back on Skid Row, back in his chair. He felt completely sedated and could barely open his eyes, let alone move. There was the sense that he could shed his heavy body at any time and leave it here like a parked car. He tried it just to make sure, and with ease he slipped from his skin and saw himself once more sitting in the chair.

He walked the streets, looking for something he couldn't name. No one saw him. In fact, people moved through him like he was made of mist.

"Where is she?" he asked everyone he saw, though they couldn't answer.

Then an old man with a white beard looked at him and said, "She doesn't exist."

"Mom!" he called into the night.

"She doesn't exist," the man said again.

"Is she dead?" Gus asked.

"She isn't anywhere, because she doesn't exist."

Gus was starting to cry with frustration.

"I just saw her!" he yelled, tears running down his cheeks. "MOM!"

"She doesn't exist."

"SHUT UP!" Gus screamed, and he ran at the man, who suddenly became a swarm of flies, like the flies that had tormented Adam before he died.

She did exist. He remembered that house, that woman, that crib... and those screams.