Beyond Between: A Journey of Breaking Boundaries

The first time I saw her was on my way home from work. She appeared in front of me out of nowhere, a humanoid shape with blond hair and a dress the color of blood. The streetlamp above me illuminated her wispy silhouette as she stood there staring at me.

"What are you?" I asked, my voice hoarse from breathing in all the city smog. "Are you real?"

She approached me like a dreamer approaching a window. Ethereal. As if she was walking on water instead of asphalt.

"I'm a ghost," she said, stopping just short of touching me. "They call me Eva Benson."

"You're not supposed to be here," I said, despite myself. "This is Central Park West." An affluent neighborhood that didn't believe in ghosts. "You're supposed to be lost in the woods somewhere."

Eva shook her head, the ends of her hair wafting like smoke in the breeze. "No," she said softly. "I live right here."

I looked around, suddenly unsettled by our proximity to the road and by how much this girl reminded me of my sister's imaginary friends when she was five years old. "Right here? On the sidewalk?"

"In this apartment building," Eva replied, looking up at it with longing in her eyes. "It used to be mine." She gestured for me to follow her and I did so without thinking about it, curious about where we were headed and why we weren't crossing any streets or sidewalks along the way. "We'll cross there." She pointed to the intersection ahead of us, where the traffic light was stuck on red even though nobody was near it. We walked right through it and emerged on the other side unscathed, as if we had passed through some sort of invisible tunnel. I noticed now that we were standing in front of an apartment building that looked exactly like the one I lived in but was somehow different at the same time: every window was dark except for one on the seventh floor; there were no lights shining from apartment windows anywhere else; and most important of all, there was no sign saying something like 'No Ghosts Allowed'. How could this be? Had I suddenly traveled back in time? Was I dreaming? What kind of weird magic trick was this girl trying to pull on me?

"It used to be mine," Eva repeated as she opened the heavy door and led me inside, where everything looked exactly like it did every night when I came home from work: people eating dinner while watching TV; couples arguing over coupons they'd saved while shopping at Whole Foods; students flipping cards over their shoulders while studying for exams; a couple making love quietly on their couch while everyone else pretended not to notice...but somehow different too: everyone looked more alive than they ever had before (except for me), as if they were here in spirit rather than in body; their life force seemed almost visible to my eyes like beams of light emanating out of them instead of boring old organs pumping blood through their veins...and those beams were all converging into one spot: Eva Benson herself, who stood there smiling contentedly as she watched her former home revolve around her like an orbit or a halo or a crown made out of light.