The Specter
Ayah was meditating, or trying anyway. She felt like she was failing at it. The sense of calm she was supposed to be feeling was more of a fast flickering montage of intrusive thoughts. The guided meditation app mentioned in the first session that this was to be expected, it was even encouraged, as a sign the mind was moving freely and uninhibited. But she couldn’t help but feel that she was doing it wrong. Every time she refocused on the mantra and the rhythm of her breath her mind would wander to the balance of her credit card debt, or the past due LADWP bill she fell behind on during the pandemic, or her car that was leaking oil and needed new brake pads. Not to mention the constant pang of anxiety of being childless at 35 and no prospects of accomplishing her biological imperative anytime soon. Did she even want kids? It always seemed five years off no matter how many five year increments passed. At this point it would be a geriatric pregnancy. Such a disrespectful term. No condition should be labeled geriatric until I get a discount at Denny’s, she thought. She cursed at herself. Then she breathed deeply three times, each time starting low in the belly, like the “guru” at the wellness retreat in Topanga Canyon taught her a few months back, and refocused on her mantra.
The meditation app gave her a mantra. She felt a little uncomfortable with the idea that she was using a boilerplate mantra that everyone else who downloaded the app was also using. Is that egotistical? She wondered. She should feel oneness with her fellow meditators, shouldn’t she? A million strong, each internally whispering the same two syllables, faces underlit by the blue light of their phones on their laps, their headphones coiling up to their ears while some synthesizer oscillates from the void, as played by an ambient musician hired off of Fiverr for $50.
Ayah once tried meditating without the app, thinking that sitting in silence would free her mind of these distractions. But the noises that would filter in from the windows of her second story apartment proved to be greater distractions still. Someone outside vaguely yelling, or the neighbors on one side who took it upon themselves to start building monster mudder trucks during the pandemic, constantly sounding their pneumatic impact wrenches and revving their unmuffled engines. Additionally, a few weeks ago the sound of jackhammers started filling up the neighborhood air, breaking up the pavement of the abandoned parking lot on the other side of the apartment complex. It was the initial stages of a new five-story apartment complex. Ayah remembered receiving the renderings of the proposed project in the mail. It would be one of those vaguely Scandinavian, stacked shipping container monstrosities promising modern amenities, mixed use ground floor community hubs and guaranteed gentrification. It was projected to be built over the next 4 years. So considering the alternative, Ayah resigned herself to headphones, with the wannabe Brian Eno and a charming woman with an English accent telling her that it’s alright to suck at meditating.
Before she could resettle into her meditation again the ambient music started to fade and the charming lady said serenely “now slowly let go of your mantra…” as if the mantra wasn't the last thing on Ayah’s mind, “and return to your surroundings, and when you are ready slowly open your eyes.” When she did, the apartment seemed bright even though the curtains were drawn. Ayah felt the weight of her body on her legs, which were crossed on the couch in the center of the room. “Shit,” she said to herself. She looked at her phone. The app showed a questionnaire, asking her to write a diary entry about how the meditation went. She thumbed it away and mindlessly opened Instagram before again cursing at herself and throwing the phone on the coffee table.
Nirvana would again elude her.
She got up to make some tea. She filled the kettle with questionable LA tap water and put it on its electric base to boil. She looked out the window. She had a nice view of the street. The sun was coming down and the neighborhood seemed lively. Hipsters out for their walks and jogs. The old pensioners at the donut shop across the way were laughing and telling stories in spanish, with their scratchers and black sludge coffee (Ayah tried to drink this coffee once, thinking it would be convenient if the store outside her house would have serviceable coffee and she could feel some virtue in supporting the long standing neighborhood establishment, but what they served there seemed nonpotable, perhaps even radioactive). She opened the kitchen window to let the sound in. Now that the pressure of trying to relax was off, she eased into the sounds of the neighborhood and welcomed them. Snippets of conversations as people passed, cars honking, she realized it could be comforting in the right frame of mind, it was its own form of an ambient soundtrack.
Then imperceptibly something changed, just as she let herself again close her eyes. For in a moment she seemed to drift past the veil of consciousness and into the realm of oneness with all of her surroundings, as if she unbuckled her seat belt to rise from her body. She felt herself drain through the soles of her feet, through the suspended air of her second story apartment, feeling the raised floor as a hollow platform, and her consciousness whipped around the circumference of the building like a barn owl. She felt limitless, could feel the consciousness of others rub up against her own as she expanded to envelope others along the avenue, and just as the ecstasy of totality became overwhelming, she heard a click. The kettle reached a boil and switched itself off. She was back in her body. Woah, she thought, I must have drifted off there for a second. She yawned and stretched, taking up the space of the window and then lazily roused herself to grab the kettle.
It was then, out of the corner of her eye, that she realized she wasn’t alone in the apartment. There was an intruder standing in the kitchen. It was a figure clad in blue, perhaps a mechanics coverall uniform, but she couldn’t bring herself to look. Her hand froze on the handle of the kettle while the hair stood up on her spine. Her mind raced, unbelieving that she didn’t notice someone traipsing through the front door. Did she really forget to lock it? She was certain she did. Someone must have picked the lock and slipped in while she was busy trying to meditate. She cursed herself for attempting spiritual growth, it left her exposed and vulnerable to physical danger. Curse that British woman's sultry voice, curse the ambience. Then she remembered, the water.
Her frozen muscles all of the sudden went into action, swiftly grasping the kettle and lunging it towards the mass to her left, her thumb deftly pressing the catch on the lid, opening it to let the boiling water fly uninhibited towards the assailant. Her eyes followed the projectile toward its target only to find the stream of liquid and vapor pass through the person’s body, which itself rippled like water before stabilizing. As her eyes slowly focused, Ayah realized the man, or being, or thing, wasn’t merely wearing a blue jumpsuit. They were, in fact, blue. Skin, eyes, hair, garments, everything blue and glowing, or slightly shimmering like a reflective strip on a backpack or a construction worker's high visibility jacket. Ayah heard the sound of the water splash on the hardwood floor behind the blue-being and looked up at the presence’s plump face and found it to be serene if not convivial, wholly undisturbed by her attempt to thwart her imminent demise.
“Who, or what, the fuck are you!?” Ayah said, the cadence all over the place reflecting concurrent shock, horror, disbelief and wonderment.
“I was…. summoned” the spectral presence entoned, in a voice that came from within her own head.
