Bridge: a shade short story Read Online Free Page A

vice versa. So…I don’t know.
     
    All I know is that if I could live again, I’d want to be a post-Shifter, and I sure as hell wouldn’t ignore ghosts.
     
    K&K: Mickey, less sensitive question this time: does Ocean City, Maryland, hold a special connection to Logan for you?
     
    Mickey: Yeah, to Logan, and to our childhood especially. I think everyone holds a certain place in their minds where they remember being perfectly happy. For me that’s Ocean City, especially the boardwalk.
     
    Logan (to K&K): You got him to talk. Awesome!
     
    K&K: Whew! Logan, in “Bridge” you said, “To become a ghost, your death has to be a surprise. (Boo.) People who thought it’d be easier to be a ghost than to be alive found that out the hard way.”
     
    Since we’re from a world without your kind of ghosts, what were you referring to there?
     
    Logan: I’m too young to remember, but apparently when the world first figured out that ghosts were real, there was a big spike in suicides. Maybe death got less scary once the afterlife was proven, or maybe ghosts were seen as a romantic thing to be. Anyway, no one who killed themselves came back. No one.
     
    It’s really sad. I wish I could understand why someone would want to quit life, but it pisses me off so much. Even when life sucks, it’s better than the alternative.
     
    Mickey: It’s not that simple.
     
    Logan: I know, but it should be. It should be.
     
    K&K: Mickey, how much of a role has religion played in your healing process?
     
    Mickey: Okay, first of all, don’t say “healing process.” That makes it sound like a computer program where you just follow the right steps and you know everything will work, because it works for everyone else. There’s no such thing as a healing process. Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as healing.
     
    Logan: You don’t mean that.
     
    Mickey: How can anyone heal from something like this? You can’t. You can only keep going and keep busy and hope that one day you’ll wake up without feeling stabbed in the throat.
     
    As for religion, I don’t know. I’m sure it helps a lot of people through times like this, otherwise it wouldn’t exist. All it does is heap more guilt on me, for being too stupid to understand how “all things happen for a reason” or how it’s part of some divine plan.
     
    But the Pietà statue I was looking at in the story…there’s something comforting about it, that even someone supposedly so close to God as Mary could feel such human anguish.
     
    Then again, religion didn’t make that statue. Art did. And it’s art that’s healed me the most, especially songs and books. I think that’s true for a lot of introverts: we work out our emotions in other ways besides yakking endlessly about them with friends and family. Sometimes listening to a song—or writing one—is the best way to communicate our feelings and understand them better.
     
    K&K: So for you, listening or reading is a two-way communication, not just a one-way consumption?
     
    Mickey: Absolutely. Not to get too mystical, but I think there’s a thread that connects an artist to his or her audience. When I hear a song or read a book that I can relate to, I feel like there’s a kindred spirit out there. Me and the writer, we get each other.
     
    Sometimes that’s all I need to make me feel less alone. But our society thinks everyone should talk it out. Talk talk talk, all day long.
     
    Logan: I admit, I’m a big fan of talk talk talk, and not just that old Psychedelic Furs album.
     
    Mickey: Which I still say is their best.
     
    Logan: No way, dude. Their sound is so much richer with the saxophone.
     
    Mickey: It’s not richer, it’s carnival-esque. Like most bands, the Furs were better when they were rawer, like on Talk Talk Talk .
     
    Logan: You’re such a purist.
     
    Mickey (slight smirk): You say that like it’s a bad thing.
     
    K&K: Logan, why did you feel the need to make peace with Mickey in order to help