“I don’t get it.”

I sighed heavily, but avoided rolling my eyes by simply closing them. We’d been at this for three hours already.

Oh, I’m sorry. You expect people to just accept that you can do things that science has always told them is impossible?

Well, no, but—

Should they believe the world is nothing but a terrarium kept by aliens, too?

Some people do, I thought, feeling contrary.

Yeah, and they’d believe you too. Only nutters would right off. You need a demonstration.

And how the hell am I supposed to do that?

I had no idea.

Feeling like Cassandra, I pushed my glasses up to my forehead and pinched the bridge of my nose. I had a headache coming on.

“Have you ever heard of astral projection?” I tried for a new direction.

“The New Age nonsense?”

Well, at least we were on the right path.

“Yes. Tell me what you’ve heard about it.”

I settled my glasses back on my face and found suspicious eyes narrowed at me. Yup, thought I was mad and was debating how he could safely get the men in the white coats to come get me.

“Well,” he cleared his throat. “That’s the thing where you can throw your brain or whatever to other places and see what’s going on there.”

Close enough. I fought to keep my face neutral.

“Sort of. The idea is more that you have another plane of consciousness, and a self that resides there. This is the plane and self that dreams. Understand?”

My over simplified explanation garnered a grunt. I took it as a positive sign and kept going.

“Well, for some people,”—for you—“some people can, while dreaming, guide their actions in this other plane, other level, of consciousness. Have you heard of lucid dreaming?”

His eyes fluttered slightly and he sat back just a bit. Ah ha, we were getting somewhere.

“Where you realize you’re dreaming, so you direct your actions in the dream?”

“Yes. That’s a level of astral projection. Sort of.” I completely removed my glasses and pressed the heels of my palms hard against my eyes. Forget coming on, I had a headache. I took a deep breath and kept going. “Guiding your dreams is the first step, sort of Projection with training wheels, as it were. You are inhabiting your,” I scrambled for a word, failed, “other self,” I concluded lamely. “Inhabiting and directing.”

“So...I have multiple people inside of me?” He looked down at himself, and I could see the thought as clearly as if it had appeared in a scallop-edged bubble above his head: That explains the beer gut. I saw his fingers twitch like he was about to poke at it, disturb the person living there, but thought better of it.

He returned his gaze to mine.

“Sort of, but not really.” I sat back, grasping for examples. “You know how you are almost a different person with different people? You’re one Frank while out with your college friends, another at work, another with your parents, another with me—“

He held up a hand, cutting me off. He got it.

“Okay. So. Those are sometimes very different Franks, but they’re all still you, right? Still aspects of you.”

He nodded. Okay, we were getting somewhere.

“Right. So that’s what it’s like. Your Astral self is still you, it’s an aspect of you. But it’s an aspect you aren’t totally aware of.” I was explaining this badly.

I sighed heavily, letting my head fall forward into my hands, elbows propped on knees. I sighed again. God, I wish I could just go back and un-tell him.

“Projection doesn’t happen the way the New Age books would have you believe,” I said, head still in my hands. I was sure my voice was muffled, but maybe he could still hear me. “It’s not something that everyone can do, not even something most people can do, and not everyone can do it the same. And even the people who can do it, they can’t be taught to do it in a way that they can’t just...do.”

I bit back a groan. This was the worst explanation ever.

“I mean, it’s a little like being able to fold your tongue.” I sat up, rolling the edges of my tongue up to touch in demonstration. “You’re either born with it or not. And there are a few ways of doing it, but just because you can do one doesn’t mean you can do another.” I thought of a friend who could make his tongue seem to ripple like the edge of a large sea shell, a trick I couldn’t do no matter how I tried. “And you can’t learn it.”

“Like perfect pitch.”

I looked up, almost having forgotten the man could speak. At my look, he went on.

“Some people are born with perfect pitch. Some can’t carry a tune in a peach basket. There are stages in between, and some of those can be developed over time, but usually only to a point. But perfect pitch, either you have it or you don’t. You can’t really learn it.”

Of course he would come up with a better explanation than I did. I repressed a sigh.

“Yes.”

He made a noncommittal, male noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t say anything else. I took this as an invitation to go on.

“Right, so...” Now what?

“So the ability to astral project is genetic?”

I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe. Maybe not. No one in my family can do it that I know of, but I never asked. Or maybe they could but never developed the skill. Or thought they were dreaming. Or just never talked about it for fear of sounding insane.”

Like I sound right now.

I sighed again.

“And it’s not astral projection, not really. That’s just...” I trailed off. Just what?

“Like calling a car a horseless carriage for sake of comparison purposes?”

I wanted to kiss him.

“Exactly.”

He grunted again, but said nothing more, so I went on.

I talked long into the night, going over the complexities and details I wasn’t sure even I understood, but Frank listened, sometimes responding in grunts, sometimes not responding at all.

By the time the sun was starting to peek above the trees in the back yard, I didn’t think I could say anything more.

“So,” he said, voice horse. I looked up at him, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. I doubted I looked any better. “What now?”

That was a good question. What now?