The Holygrail is a two-in-one gas-station and rest-stop on the edges of St. Michael's. It doesn’t have the town’s scholarly elegance and Southern charm. It has a dusty worn-out gas fill up service out front but no one ever uses it. Gas is quite useless here. But it makes sense in a psychological schema. Follows the day-to-day logic of the common person in getting from A to B. I suppose it’s a necessary prop in most people’s view of the town. Nowadays, anyways. 

  Next to it, the dreaded bus terminal. Nothing like public transport in the in-between. I can paint the picture for you, if you want. Besides classic cases of ordinary confusion and the odd talk about how the food is somehow tasteless and touch receptors don’t seem to work at all, there are about a dozen foreign languages being shouted over constant noise and mild to extreme cases of spontaneous aggressive outbursts which quickly descend into outright panicked breakdowns. What can you do after days and days of watching people strut around here and slowly fall into the hysterics of revelation. 

  There is no tomorrow. Yesterday’s unreachable. The present is frozen and permanent. Maybe nothing ever happens and we’re just figments of their imaginations. Statistics is an impartial science. So, who knows, it could be.

  Ah, I’m getting Descartian again.

  There are a few rooms above the modest bar and grill so I usually stay there. Not that anyone sleeps, but you can pretend to, if you want. Alexei does. I push the double-doors open and I don’t find the customary clamour inside. I find comfortable dimness and an employee mopping the dark floors. A little classical tune hums from some corner.

  The same cute waitress in a red leather apron greets me every time. When she opens her mouth bubbles float out of it.

    “Oops, my bad.” She bats her lashes.

    “No worries. What’s that?” I point to the pint on her desk. Viscous pink liquid sitting in there like limp jellyfish.

    “Oh, it’s soap. Keeps it all squeaky clean on the inside.” Her hand does a rotational motion over her tummy and mine tightens when the odour reaches me. It’s the kind they use in highway rest-stop washrooms. The kind that smells like my old neighbour’s dog. “What’ll be?”

    “I’m here to see Pete.”

  Her shiny maroon eye melts into radiant, blue luminosity and it scans through a list.

    “Welcome back, philosopher. Table number six. Please don’t forget that we reserve the right to record your conversation for the archives.”

  She doesn’t wind the ticking device for me.

    “Knock yourself out.”

  Pete’s hunched over stacks of paper without looking any bit uncomfortable or distressed. He signs, sorts and stamps. A boy busses the few empty plates from tables abandoned in the imminent rush imposed by bus boardings and city schedules.

    “Hey, Pete,” I say, taking the hands out of my pockets and sitting down across from him in the red-leathered booth.

  His eyes move up from the spreadsheets and his mouth pulls itself into a smile. Pulls is accurate because he reminds himself to do it. He knows it's off-putting otherwise. Scary, even. He carries himself as mechanically as anyone wearing an uncomfortable store-bought costume would. I don’t understand it very well myself. But it doesn’t bother me anymore.

  I don’t care if he blinks or not. 

    “At least you have the decency to show up after-hours. You’re so bad for the traffic.” 

    “Sorry, Pete.”

    “I thought you’d gone." 

  He has the feigned warm and coppery gaze of someone you'd like to befriend. His already sunbathed skin blooms into a battered tan below his rolled up sleeves. There's almost a hint of consternation or affection in his voice. Well done.

  I nod.

    “I was debating it.” I put my hands together on the table. “Have you heard of this girl named Sunny?”

    “Oh, philosopher. I think I’ve heard of at least ten Sunnys today.”

    “No, she’s from the town.”

  Pete shakes his head. 

    “I can’t really go around asking. But from what I gathered something happened to her.”

    “Isn’t she missing?” Calliope asks, leaving the bar to join us. She stretches her back and I wonder if she actually feels tiredness or pain or if it’s just my expectation construct. I expect bar-tenders to have sore backs from moving around and bending in all directions and cleaning up. So, they do. 

    “I wouldn’t say so. There are too many rumours. Nothing concrete to go on.”

    “Have you thought about Michael’s memo?”

  I’d sigh.

    “It’s an unusual case,” Pete insists and hands me the thin file again. I’d flipped through it a few times. I know what it’s about and I know he’s right.

My reluctance is a burden.

    “What is it?”

  Calliope leans sideways to look over the description and the photos when I spread the pages out in front of me. I expect her to smell nice and she does. Her tightly curled hair smells like sweet spices. A ghost of glow on her skin.

    “It’s this boy in the city-“

    “In Honest, Honest??” 

    “Yeah. He’s gradually stopped moving. Stopped functioning. He’s in a sort of coma. Just lies on his back in his room. His parents are desperate and the medium got wind of it.”

    “Never heard of something like this happening here.”

    “Me neither,” says Pete. “And I suppose it’s even stranger that his father’s mood has shifted considerably.”

    “If his son isn’t well, I wouldn’t say it’s out of the ordinary,” I point out. 

    “Apparently, he’s fallen into a deep melancholy. Resembles the first stages the boy went through some time ago, according to the mother. Their home surroundings seem to be influenced by it, as well.”

  Sounds an awful lot like he’s saying it’s spreading. Sounds like a hint of contagion. And sure enough basic emotions like happiness and sadness are contagious. It’s what defines and underlies basic social connections. Empathy strengthens our relationships. And when you elevate this to pathological levels it has a larger, more profound impact. I don’t like any of this.

  Sounds like symptoms of something I wouldn’t want to see take up roots here. What business would anything like that have in the in-between, anyways? What use does energy separated from flesh have for the lowest baseline? What’s the purpose of such depths?

  Pete doesn’t yawn or cough or get bored. He pauses, staring straight ahead at me, waiting for me to make up my slow mind. Deathbed regrets are common. An infinitely small amount of people die completely content. Hauntings aren’t just mainstream ghost culture. It’s an interruption. A void.

  And sometimes voids grow hungry.