[ WP ] When people die , they end up in a pub between dimensions before reincarnating in some other world . Your spouse killed you and then commited suicide . You meet in the pub ...

Lacie was there, of course. It had been explained to me on the way over. You die, you hang around for a bit, and then you move on. Soon as they ( they being those weird fluffs of inter-dimensional light who seemed to run the show ) mentioned Lefty's, I knew it. And she was there. In her favourite spot, by the piano. Exactly where I first walked up to her and her friends and looked her in the eye all those years ago. From that moment on my vision narrowed around her and never really expanded beyond the space she occupied. 
 
 Here's the funny thing about death: it crystallises things. Ancient moments in your life are fixed as if they had occurred mere seconds ago. I walked up to her. I was twenty-three. She was wearing those hoop ear-rings. That flaming orange blouse. A look that, all these years later, she never got over. She told me to get lost, at first. The second time she ignored me. The third time she let me hang around. The fourth time we met at Lefty's it was two years later and I was proposing to her. 
 
 That night on our firm hotel bed I held her hand over my tangled mess of scar tissue and told her,'I've got ten years. At best.' She turned to me with that smile that spoke in terms of sex, and said,'Well, I guess we had better make the most of our time, then.' 
 
 And now here we are. Fresh from the thicket. Fresh from the charnel stench of the waking world. She was wearing those hoop earrings. That flaming orange blouse. A hint of rosy cheeks. A tall glass of something deceptively strong. She turned to me and, oh, how could we not? We collapsed into each other. I took a deep whiff of her hair and told her that she should have moved on. I told her that I was worth my own life but I was n't worth hers. I reminded her of our agreement. 
 
 Even saying those words, I knew them to be lies. I knew she could n't see beyond me just as I could never see beyond her. 
 
'We'll be moving on soon,' I told her. 
 
 She looked up at me and smiled,'Well,' she said,'In that case we had better make the most of our time.'
