I’d been here before, but that did not make the place familiar. The heat, the red haze, the high-back booths and the bar, all the same, all as mysterious as the last time. An enigma I’d seen before, and was no closer to understanding. No, familiarity was not a feeling that this place engendered. At least this time I wasn’t quite as surprised by the scene, I turned to look, and expected to find underworld denizens muttering to one another in a corner. And I expected her.

I sat down at the bar again, only she hadn’t appeared yet. I sat a while, just looking and not really seeing. I allowed my eyes to drift over surfaces, imagining my gaze was like water, flowing. I could stay here a while, I thought. Wait for a bit. Not that I felt safe here, but it was somewhere I could stop, to see if my shadow would come close enough for me to see him.

I’d felt a bizarre presence for weeks now. One of those feelings that sound all too cliché when written down, until experienced first-hand, and is finally understood. A genuine sense of being tailed, watched, observed and noted. Some obsessive pair of eyes that never left my back, never missed anything, never saw anything but me. I could feel it haunting my days and my nights, and finally, I decided it had to stop. Something had to be done. So I came here. And waited.

My patience paid off before long. He walked in casually, not attempting subtlety. In fact, other than my instantaneous gut feeling it was him, there was no real reason to believe it was him. Little could be said about him at this point, other than he was male, in a man’s overcoat and hat, presumably to keep the rain out. Seemed like it rained every time I came through this place. With the ambience in the bar what it was, I couldn’t see any more clearly than what I’ve already described.

He surprised me by seating himself on the stool directly beside mine. His coat still dripped on the floor, his hat he placed on the bar, to his right. Water pooled on the brim. I was more drawn to his face, though, as that was something familiar. Too familiar. It was my own – or at least a very good imitation of me. His eyes were a little darker, deeper set maybe, or the eyebrows a little more prominent. And his hair and stubble had more grey tone than mine did. But it was a close match. Very close.

We said nothing, he and I. When he looked up at me, I only looked back at him. There were no words that came to me. We just stared. For how long, I couldn’t say, but it may have been quite significant. Something happened to my thoughts, some kind of suspension, because when the Voodoo Lady finally appeared, or, when I finally became aware of her, it was like waking from a trance.

"I bin stan’in heah fo’ ‘most fi’ minutes you know? Wat you be starin at?" she said. I furrowed my brow in reply.

"Dis deh way you talk to e’rybody?" she asked. "Or am I sommin special?" I could hear her, but her words didn’t seem to require a response, until she smacked her hand down on the table with a startling crack. Suddenly I felt I was able to speak, or needed to speak, either way, I spoke.

"Can’t you see him?" I asked.

"See who?"

"The man, sitting here. He looks just like me," I said. "All he does is follow me around, and now, he’s finally here, and he just stares at me."

"Sho’ honey." She paused, taking measure of me. I finally turned to look at her, and was surprised at the gravity of her expression. Her great white eyes bored deeply into mine, looking for something.

"You ain’ crazey are you?" she was confirming with herself more than with me. "No you be seein sommin sho’."

"Yeah," I said. "I see him."

"An all he do is follow you ’round?" she asked.

"And stare at me. Glare at me a little I guess. I don’t know, he looks, not angry exactly. But something close. Impatient maybe."

"Sho’ I see," she said.

She leaned back, resting her hip against the back cupboards, and lit a cigarette from her little wooden box.

"Yeah I see," she said again after taking a drag. I looked between her and the man beside me. He hadn’t moved an inch. I even watched to see if he blinked, and he did, eventually.

"It’s like he’s waiting for something," I said. "Waiting for me to do something maybe."

"Well," she tapped some ash into a tray. "You waitin’ fo’ anytin’ baby?"

"What? Me?"

"Yeah you! Wat you been waitin’ fo’ lately?"

"I don’t know," I replied.

"Well baby, mayhap is you we all waitin’ fo’" she said. "Maybe evin you is waitin fo’ you."

"Me? What about him?"

She smiled, that enormous crescent moon smile that only the darkest humans can command.

"E’rybady’s got a ghost," she said. "Yours ain’ like mine, sho’ but we all gat em."

"What ghosts? A ghost is following me around?"

"Well baby I sho cayn’ see him! So he mus’ be a ghost! Yo’ ghost. One all made up fo’ you especial. Trayn’ tell you summin sho’."

"But he hasn’t said anything! What am I supposed to do with him?"

"You sayin he look like he be waitin fo’ sommin. He’s yo’ ghost, he lookin at’choo. Do I hav’a put a dem pieces all togetha’ fo’ you boy?"

I felt like a child being lectured. I guess I was, in a way. It made sense the way a magic trick makes sense when you learn the trick. Simple, so simple its disappointing.

"Yo’ ghost is jes’ you. He is you. You waitin fo’ y’own self. Wat’choo waitin’ fo’ baby? Wat’choo trayn t’do that you ain’ done yit?"

I knew then. There were dozens of things I wished I’d done, but really, it was the wishing. It was the warring. All the time, I was chastising myself for not doing things, for wasting my time. I fought myself, berated myself mercilessly. Yet I got nowhere. I only spent my energy fruitlessly. In an endless circle of chasing myself. And here I was. I’d finally caught up to myself, finally I was chastising myself for chastising myself.

"How," I asked after a long spell of quiet. "How do I stop the spiral?"

"Das’ yo’ question, not mine. But, I migh’ sejest dah shortest way to get ‘newhere is to start out in dat direction to begin wit."