“Tell me the last thing you remember.”

“Umm… let me see… I remember a light. There was a bright light… and I went towards it.”

“Oh, okay, good…”

“That’s good?”

“Well, that’s something… What do you remember before that?”

“Before the light?”

“Yes. Before you went towards that light?”

Elizabeth ran her hands through her hair as she tried to recollect what came before the light. Or at least she tried to. She screamed, “I have no hair!”

“Yeah, so…”

She screamed again, “I don’t have any hands! Wait, I don’t have anything! I… I…”

“Well,” Jacob explained, “That’s not entirely true…”

“The hell, Jacob! I’m not here! I have no body!”

“Ah, okay, no body… but you’re still here.”

“What do you see? You’re looking at me. What are you seeing?”

“I mean…” he stalled.

“Jacob… what do you see?”

“Like… a cloud.”

The cloud that was Elizabeth slumped against the corner. Or at least slumped as much as a glowing cloud of motes could slump. “Well, shit,” she said. “How did this happen? I woke up this morning as a normal, breathing woman and now… cloud.”

“Uh, as point of fact…”

“Oh, Jesus, what?”

“You didn’t wake up this morning.”

“Excuse me?”

“This morning – I mean, time works a lot differently on this side. More fluid. But technically this morning you were… uh, we were… dead.”

“Oh shit, that wasn’t a dream?”

“Oh! You remember then?”

“I… I remember you and I trying to figure out how we died… like some detective dream.”

“Okay! That’s good. That wasn’t a dream!”

“But we died? We figured that out?”

“Do you remember when you were alive?”

Elizabeth thought hard. “I… no,” she said finally. “I don’t remember.”

“Okay… but you know who I am?”

“Jacob,” the cloud that was Elizabeth started slowly like she was speaking to a child, “I think we’ve established you’re Jakob.”

“…And,” he coaxed her on, “I am what to you?”

“You’re my… well, I guess soulmate would be an apt word.”

“Heh,” he laughed, “Yeah, I guess that’s incontrovertible at this point…”

“We died?”

“Together. We died, yeah.”

“It was cold…”

“So you are remembering?”

“It’s like a dream within a dream – fragments of fragments.”

Jacob nodded. “First big snowfall of the year. You put a pot roast in the oven,” He smiled at the memory. Then he sighed and frowned. “We took a nap and didn’t wake up.”

“Oh, yeah. Huh… we solved that?”

“We did. Finally. It was…”

“Squirrels!” the cloud said excitedly.

“Yes! Yes, it was squirrels! They built a nest in the stove exhaust. Backed up the carbon monoxide, no windows open because it was cold out…”

“Fucking landlord… I told him I heard something in that pipe,” Elizabeth shook her head. Or she would have if she had a head to shake. As it was, some of the motes in the cloud kind of shook.

“You said that when you were, well, a ghost.”

“So, what am I now?”

“You’re, uh, you went into the light?”

“There was a light…” she said, remembering. “And, yes, I was encouraged to go towards the light.”

“By who?”

“The Ghost Whisperer.”

“There was a ghost whisperer? Who? I don’t remember anyone…”

“No, Jennifer Love Hewitt, the Ghost Whisperer!”

“Like the show?”

“Yeah… I love that show…”

“Wait, what the fuck? How…”

“Okay, I remember… You were asleep…”

“Ghosts don’t sleep.”

“You weren’t there, okay?” she said frustrated by his interruption. “We weren’t together… I don’t know where you were. I think I thought you were…. Asleep.”

“Time is funny…”

“Yes, you mentioned that,” she snapped. “You weren’t there and I was scared. Being alone sucks and being alone and dead is, like, scarier. So, I turned to my comfort media…”

“You watched Ghost Whisperer reruns?”

The cloud seemed to settle a little. Elizabeth sighed, “I just love how Melinda brings comfort to all those spirits… And then I guess I realized I’m one of those spirits… And you weren’t here…”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“I was scared!” she yelled. “There was a light. I took Melinda’s advice for myself. I went towards the light.”

“But you’re still here.”

“I’m… I’m still here, I guess.”

“…A ghost of a ghost…”

“Is that like back in the day when you’d copy a tape onto another tape but that copy was never as good as the first?”

Jacob stared at the cloud. “Sure looks like it from here.” He sighed. “I mean… I don’t know what this means. We solved our death. I figured if we both died at the same time and we were, you know, earthbound spirits…”

“Ghosts.”

“Ghosts, then that would be the reason, right? That’s like the big mystery, right? Husband and wife, Jacob and Elizabeth, died mysteriously… until they figured it out! I mean, shit, you got a light! You went toward the fucking light!”

“And here I am…” the cloud expanded in a motion that made Jacob realize it was supposed to be an approximation of a shrug.

“Here you are. And me too,” he shrugged in return. “No light for me though.”

“But you still see me,” she said.

“I see your cloud.”

“Okay…” the cloud said excitedly, “hear me out…”

“I’m listening…”

“You’re a ghost…”

“Established.”

“Right, but you’re haunting our house…”

Jakob looked around at the little cottage they had rented on the edge of the woods, though he knew it was… dimmer than it was when they were alive, like looking at it through vellum. “Yeah, I… we are haunting our house.”

“Ah!” she said. “That’s the thing: I can’t see the house at all anymore. I mean, I could, I did – that’s how I watched the Ghost Whisperer. But now… there’s you and just gray…”

“No couch? No TV? No walls?”

“No shitty carpet that smells like wet dog. No stove that killed us, no, Jacob, nothing. Gray.”

“Wow…”

“That means I’m now haunting you.”

“The fuck?”

“Right? Crazy! But it makes sense!”

“I mean, I guess it does… but why?”

“Well, if we were hypothetically here to solve the mystery of our death…”

“Which we did.”

“Yes, which we did – and then I was able to cross over.”

“But I wasn’t…”

“Exactly. And, really, I didn’t either. Well, I did, but only to haunt you…”

“My head hurts…”

“Don’t you see?”

“Clearly I don’t…”

“You’ve still got some unfinished business to take care of…”

“Apparently.”

“Right, and you’re my unfinished business.”

“And I’m a ghost….”

“I’m a ghost haunting a ghost. I’m two steps removed from the living!”

“Huh,” Jacob said. “Okay… that makes some sense. But what do we do now?”

“By Jove, Watson, we go forth to solve your mystery!”

“But what’s my mystery?”

“That’s the first mystery!”

“First mystery?”

“Yeah, like a mystery inside a mystery. Or a enigma with a mysteriously crispy crust!”

“Elizabeth?”

“Yes, Jacob?”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“Me too. Until some approximation of death do we part.”