The White Oak Read Free Page B

drawn like parking-lot dividers on the flat surface. Inside the lines, the blue lights dart back and forth like fireflies trapped in a jar. They bump up against the edges of their designated spaces but are unable to leave them.
    The transparent creatures look like gas flames but are the size of people. As they shift shape, human features appear, then pass away like shadows. It’s as though the vaporous bodies are unable to sustain a real identity for more than a few seconds. The color of the flames flickers on and off as well. Sometimes their light glows fluorescent blue, but most of the time they are pale white and colorless, like everything else in this landscape.
    As I walk past the parking spaces, I notice that each one has a different pattern, a maze, etched into the ground. The flames trace them over and over. Their movements are choppy as they dance around the objects that litter their cells. They buzz and crackle, muttering to themselves as they follow their well-worn circuits. Some argue, others weep, but most are silent, staring out across the ashy plain as they submit to their routine. A dreary mood hangs over the place, infusing everything with a sense of loneliness and futility. I try to push the desperate feelings away, but there is no way to keep them out. They seep into me like the chill in the air or the dampness in my dress. “Stay calm,” I whisper, trying to tamp down the nervous energy that is flickering inside me.
    The jittery ghosts are temporarily released from their routine when I pass by. My presence seems to liberate them from the compulsory tracing of their labyrinths, and this delights them. I avoid stepping in their chalk-lined spaces, but they seem eager for me to do so. I stop for a moment in front of a cell crammed with junk: two wrecked cars, a massive television, and eight broken computers. The ghost in this cell tends to the rubbish. I see him glowing under the hood of a car, zipping through the engine block and out the tailpipe.
    “What are you doing?” I say to him, not expecting a response.
    “My job doing,” he mumbles. It’s hard to make out his words because his voice is full of air. I watch him for a few minutes. He illuminates a computer screen with electric blue light when his ghostly body enters the machine to tinker with its dead circuits. He seems determined to bring the discarded stuff back to life.
    “What is your job?” I ask, moving closer to watch him work and accidentally stepping into his cell. As soon as I’ve crossed the boundary, the flame’s whole life passes through me like a seamless memory. He was a repairman with a wife, five kids, and an all-consuming fear of losing his job. The objects in his parking space look different now; they glow with urgency. Everything needs to be fixed. The computer he is working on has a big crack in its eggshell-white casing. It should be replaced, but that’s impossible here. He can’t get new parts; he has to repair what he has, with what he has. I feel what he is feeling—anxiety over the conditions of his work, and the lack of resources, the impossibility of restoring these items without tools or parts, and the futility of it all. Once these things are fixed, there will be no one to use them.
    My presence in the cell has freed the specter and entrapped me. He cautiously steps out of the cell, returns, and then leaves again, inching closer to a nearby cell that’s filled with tools. The farther he goes, the more imprisoned I become. When he returns triumphantly, with a plastic repair kit, I am released for a moment, but before I can escape, he flies off again, leaving me rooted to the floor.
    I’m thirsty, hungry, wounded, and cold, still wet from the river and shivering in my summer dress. The flickering blue spirit looks so much like a flame that I get an idea. “Hello,” I call out loudly, hoping to get his attention. He is exercising his new freedom, zipping out of his cell, stealing a part from a neighbor,