IGMS Issue 8 by IGMS

Author:IGMS
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hatrack River Enterprises
Published: 2008-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Limbo

by Stephanie Dray

Artwork by Anselmo Alliegro

* * *

She wants me to steal the salt.

Just this afternoon, I let her grab a fistful of mustard packets from McDonald's. That should have been enough for her. But now I'm on a date in a fancy restaurant, and she won't shut up about the salt.

My date's name is Chang. He is a doctor; I'm a medical researcher. We met at a pharmaceutical conference.

Very romantic.

He has boyish dimples. If Peter Pan were Chinese, he'd look like my date.

"Am I boring you, Adrienne?" he asks.

"No, I'm just distracted," I say.

I knew it would come up, but it's something you wait until dessert to mention. We've only had bread and butter. But I gulp down my wine, and murmur, "My DSA won't behave."

"Your what?" He clearly thinks he misheard.

I feign nonchalance. "My DSA . . . my Displaced Spiritual Ancestor."

Cue the tension. It's like I've told him I have the clap. He quietly sips his water, probably praying that his pager will go off.

"Chinese call our spirits Gui," he finally says. He's trying to be gracious.

"Well, mine is Italian and she wants me to steal the salt. Actually, now she's more interested in the pepper-mill."

"Was she a kleptomaniac? Is that how she ended up . . . you know, in Limbo?" He gives me a lopsided smile.

I like that Chang says Limbo instead of Purgatory, and I like his lopsided smile. It gives me hope this date isn't going to end in disaster. "No. It's just -- Big Ma lived through the Depression. She thinks that if the economy collapses, we'll survive by selling stolen condiments on the black market."

Chang laughs. This is a good sign. "Big Ma?"

"She was my great grandmother. Big Ma is her translation."

Chang makes a face before he can stop himself. Most people imagine that when you open your life to a DSA, you'll get an exotic spirit from a thousand years ago -- some beautiful young woman who met tragedy on a lonely road. That was the fantasy.

The reality was that I shared my body with a ninety-four year old woman who spent her girlhood herding goats in the old country. Worse, Big Ma is not a stranger. I knew Big Ma when she was still alive. I still remember her sitting on the porch with her stockings rolled down around those elephantine ankles, drinking from the mini-liquor bottles she always snatched from airliner bars. Her house smelled like salami, and she used to smack my sister and me with her over-stuffed purse to make us behave.

I want to smack her right now because she is calling my date a chink and she wants to know how well-off he is. Ever since Big Ma returned from the dead she's done nothing but nag me to marry a doctor. Now I find one, and she's making racist comments.

"I admire that you're willing to take her on," Chang says. His unmistakable tone is that he thinks I'm crazy. "I couldn't do it. I've got my residency.

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