Ever since the solar eclipse you've been inhabited by a walk-in soul named Gary and that's why you no longer have the same desires that you once had or thought you had. Apparently it was an agreement that you made with Gary in the in-between, meaning the space and time between lifetimes, though the in-between has no actual linear space-time-ness.

You learn all this from your new friend Martine, the online psychic/medium/intuitive that you meet at the VFW on route 99 near the last traffic light in town where you've been drinking and playing pool since your break-up with Lizzie.

Lizzie walked out last month after you brought home a rescue iguana from the shelter, thinking it might strengthen your bond. You'd been feeling that drift, and so a lizard, why not? But Lizzie blew a gasket and packed her things and moved in with her brother Ted and sister-in-law Margo and even though deep down you felt that she was looking for an excuse to leave, you needed to prove it to yourself one way or another.

Martine informs you that this was also an agreement made between lifetimes and that Lizzie and Gary would have been incompatible anyway. There are many agreements, webs and webs of them, intricately woven, stretching across realms, and they are all part of a bigger picture that the human brain could never come close to understanding. Just know that we are all part of the same lava.

You don't really believe any of this but Martine is entertaining enough and enjoys talking and you're happy to have her fill the air as you admire the paper-airplane tattoo diving into her cleavage, and you like how it feels not to have to say anything in return.

The music they play at the VFW is the same gen-x stuff your parents used to jam to on family trips. It's both comforting and distracting, like being in a familiar but entirely different dimension all at once. There's also almost no chance of running into Lizzie or any of your mutuals at the VFW except for Griff, the bartender, who works with Lizzie at Trader Joe's, but he's ASD and pretty self-involved and has no idea what's happening outside of whatever is going on in his head.

You feel talkative tonight and ask Martine if you should officially change your name to Gary, like on your driver's license or whatever, but she says that's not necessary. She tells you just to acknowledge Gary and recognize that they are now a part of you. You ask Martine if Gary is gender fluid and she says respectfully she feels Gary is giving strong G-Flip energy. You're not sure who G-Flip is but you roll with it.

Eight cocktails in, Ted comes to get you. Lizzie's in the emergency room and she needs to see you. You steady yourself on the bar and for some reason grab a big handful of peanuts to go, stuffing them in the pocket of your army jacket. Before you leave, Martine whispers something unintelligible in your ear and you just nod rather than ask her what it was she said.

In the truck Ted explains that Lizzie cut most of her hair off and is threatening to kill herself so now they're going to have to do a fifty-one-fifty like they did last year when she took some bad molly she got from this grad student named Huber that she was fucking. You never met Huber but Lizzie talked about his crooked cock more than you wanted to hear about it which was never.

When you get to the hospital they've already sedated Lizzie and are about admit her to the psych ward, just waiting for Ted's signature. Before they wheel her upstairs, she looks at you, not remembering why she wanted to see you but with tears filling her eyes and says, "You must've been so worried." You're still pretty drunk and not sure how to respond or why you're even here. Her hair looks crazy like it got chopped up by a weed whacker and as they roll Lizzie down the hallway, she waves slowly at you and Ted and Margo until the gurney turns a corner where you imagine she doesn't stop waving for some time.

Ted drops Margo off before taking you home and for some reason gets their giant schnauzer, Mukbang, and has him sit in the front cab in your place. When you say goodbye to Margo she hugs you super hard and you notice that she has let her cardigan fall open and doesn't have anything on underneath. You think about what Gary would do and suddenly he puts one hand inside her sweater and cups her breast, something you would never have done. You wait for all hell to break loose but she just looks up at Gary and smiles and kisses him lightly on the cheek and says goodnight.

You hop in the back of Ted's pickup and he and Mukbang drive you home, unaware that Gary just felt up his wife. You remember the peanuts in your pocket and you start eating them, like you knew this moment would come. Like it was all part of some plan.

The air is crisp and night-blooming jasmine finds its way to your nose, pinching it with sweetness. Gary is digging this moment, you can feel it. Looking up at the night sky, moving swiftly down turnpike, like you're on a spaceship, you and Gary, tossing peanut shells overboard, letting them cascade down onto the earth, whose inhabitants are all part of the same molten lava, bubbling and hardening, spilling across each other and reforming over and over again, so much so that there's no reason to fear any volcano. So much so that there's no one that doesn't belong.


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