In those first dark days after my son died, as I lay in bed crying myself to sleep, praying for a chance to see him just one more time, I realized I was looking at myself. I was literally standing next to my bed, looking at myself laying there, motionless.
“Daddy?”
His voice was soft and weak, as he looked up at me. Forgetting everything else, I hugged him.
“But Daddy, does this mean you’re dead, too?”
“I don’t really know, and right now, I don’t care. I’m so glad to see you again.”
We had a wonderful night together, but when my alarm clock went off in the morning, I woke up, in my body. I thought it had been a wonderful dream.
That night, desperate, I tried again. It worked, and I’ve left my body every night since, to spend time with my little boy.
It is such a blessing that I can have this ‘life’ with him, and live my normal life during the day, though people look at me with such sadness when I slip up and talk about him in the present tense.
I usually spend every second wandering the world with him, playing on playgrounds, or in the children’s museum, or at the zoo, until my alarm goes off and I’m ripped away from him and I’m back in the living world.
This morning, we were still together when the sun came up. In my day life, I had been traveling for work, and I left my body sleeping at a cute, retro hotel called the Hermetian Heritage. I thought my alarm must have failed to go off, and I didn’t know what would happen if my body was found, so I rushed back.
I didn’t even reach the room; as soon as I entered the lobby, I saw him – me – standing at the front desk, talking to the clerk. It was the first time I was ever aware of my body moving around without me, and I was in a strange place, around people I had never met, traveling for business; my body could get me into a lot of trouble. Beyond that, my body was moving around without me controlling it; would I be able to get back in? Did this ever happen while I was in my body? I’m not sure I would know if somebody else was controlling me; I certainly wouldn’t have thought someone else was controlling my body right now if I hadn’t seen it myself. How long had this been going on?
I had to get the situation under control, so I watched my body talking to the clerk, until the clerk handed me -him- a newspaper and I -he- went to a bench in the lobby and sat down with the newspaper spread in front of my face. I marched over and sat down so I could talk to my self.
“What do you want?”, he blurted as I sat next to him, while glaring sideways at me from behind the paper.
“I’d like to discuss a reunion,”
Bohler Books 
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