SPIRITUAL BACKORDERS by Shawn O'Shea

"Hello?"

"Tanner? This is Steve."

"Hey! How the hell have you been? So, what? You only call me once a year now?"

"Yeah. Been busy working."

"How are things?"

"My crew just got a evaluation and got an eighty-five percent quality rating."

"Congratulations!"

"I wanted one-hundred."

"You always were a hard-assed boss! That's whay I quit. I'd rather only deal with you as a hard-assed friend."

"You quit because you're lazy!!"

"Tanner honestly did not know if Steve had insulted or teased him. "Yeah, well, it's in the writer's handbook that we have to be."

"Listen. I have a favor to ask. Shelly, my oldest girl graduates in two weeks and has been chosen valedictorian."

"Awesome! You must be really proud!"

"It means she did better than everybody else in her class, which isn't too difficult considering how lazy kids are today."

"Oh."

Steve continued, solemn and business like, "She just read us her speech."

"How is it?"

"It's okay considering her age. I think it can be better, but I don't think she can do it herself. I want to send her over there so you can help her punch it up a bit. Just correct her mistakes, show her a few little secrets. You know, put a professional polish on it."

"That's fine, but does she want my help? After all, it is her speech."

"Her mother is up with her now trying to get her to stop crying. She ran to her room in tears after I told her I really didn't like it. Told me I never loved her and never approved of anything she ever did. Can you believe it? Kids!"

Tanner believed Shelly was probably right. "No. Can't hardly believe it."

"She has to learn that all through life there are going to be people who are going to want more no matter how much you give them and there is no such thing as good enough. Might as well learn it from her father first."

Tanner was stunned.

"I'll send her over now. Her curfew is ten. I'll extend it to eleven if you think the extra time is needed."

"Fine. Send her over."

"Make sure you are brutally honest with her."

"Um....okay. I will. Somebody is at my door. Send her over and I will talk to you when we are finished. Bye."

Tanner stood there for a moment trying to conceive that man's attitude with his own daughter. He had known Steve since middle-school, and in all that time he never saw the man express any emotion, good or bad, even when his own parents were killed in a violent car crash. But to tell your daughter her valedictorian speech was not good? The man simply must be a void. Just a shell walking around with no soul!

"No soul? Where did that thought come from?" He hurumphed as he walked into the kitchen and threw a slab of two-day old pizza into the microwave. "People are people. Not vehicles for some unseen spirit!" The beeping told him his pizza was finished. He took a bite as he walked to his recliner and said with a full mouth and hot melted cheese dripping down his chin. "Who am I trying to convince? Me?" Tanner finished his pizza.

He awoke to the doorbell, surprised he had dozed off, considering he was not tired when he sat down. As he stood to answer the door, on phrase repeated in his mine, "You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon." All he knew was that someone, something, in his dream he just had said it to him. he was oblivious as to its meaning.

The person ringing the doorbell was a stunningly pretty young girl with glowing yellow-blond hair that looked like a piece of satin flowing like a veil to the middle of he back. What struck him most was how pretty she was even with her pathetic frown and sad, puffy, brown eyes. She was looking at her feet trying to avoid revealing she had been crying.

He decided to be fooled by her charade. "You must be Shelly, Steve's daughter. Actually, from your recent accomplishment, I will probably have to start saying he is Steve, Shelly's father." The comment made her look up and briefly smile.

Good, he thought, Steve hadn't completely destroyed her. "Come on in. My name is Tanner O'Bannon."

The girl came in and sat on the edge of the couch, still with a downward stare. With her right arm outstretched she said, "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. O'Bannon.

Tanner shook his guest's hand and sat in his recliner. With a jerk he kicked up the footrest. "Hey, if you and I are going to collaborate on something you have to get something straight right now!"

Shelly looked up at him with an expression that she knew she had done something wrong and was obediently waiting for him to properly scold her. "What is that, sir?"

Tanner paused when he heard the voice from his dream again, "You are doing the right thing. You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon."

"None of this Mr. O'Bannon crap! Call me Tanner." Another small bud of a smile began to sprout from her mouth. He felt good at having been able to erase her frown. "Now your dad wanted me to teach you some of the secrets about writing. Well, secret number one: make sure you have something to munch on and drink at all times." He indicated his preparedness by lifting up a bottle of people and pointing to a half-empty bag of chips on the coffee table. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes, please."

"That brings us to rule number two:" the little banter, he noticed, started Shelly's smile to bloom further. She untensed and sad back on the couch. "Good writers, the best writers serve themselves and help themselves to anything they want in the kitchen of any other writer's home they happen to be in."

She looked perplexed.

"That means the kitchen is thataway! You're virtually a high school grad-gee-ate now, and, in my bood that means you can officially start your career. Well, start it by following rule number two!"

Shelly giggled as she suddenly understood. She got up and went to the kitchen. She hollered out, "Anything?"

"That's what I said!"

She came back to her new partner with a piece of cold pizza in one hand and an unopened bottle of beer in the other. Tanner jumped up and grabbed the bottle. "Give me that! You can keep that!"

The girl who showed up despondent now let out a loud, boisterous belly laugh. The laughter continued as she went back into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of pop for herself and returned and sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Rule number three:" Tanner said in a pseudo-stern voice, "NEVER scare me like that again!!"

While she ate her pizza, Tanner thought it best to describe his long journalism career, the titles of his five published novels, the two awards he had won, and he felt he should give her a synopsis of the screenplay he had currently been working on.

Although it had not been his intention, he had impressed Shelly with his verbal resume and told him she probably would not ever be as good as him, although she would like to be.

"Who know, you might even end up being better! But for now, your dad said your speech needs a little punching up."

"Yeah. He said it was poorly written and that my comments to my classmates are too childish and immature." sadness started to return.

"What do you think?"

She too the posture and attitude of a proud writer. "I think it is perfect. I think I put a lot of thought and effort into it and that every word I used I chose carefully." Her voice went to a whisper as her eyes descended in shame. "I think my father just doesn't understand what I am trying to say or who I am saying it to. I think he wants me to write something with the attitudes that I am going to present this to the U.N. World Security Council."

"Well, I bet you're right. I bet it's a fantastic speech. However, don't get caught in that trap of saying your work is perfect. I still find things I wish I would have worded differently even after I see a piece published."

"Really?" She was hooked. She wanted to know more. Much more.

"Really. Read me your speech. I want to hear it."

Happy to oblige, Shelly stood, clutching her speech and went to the center of the room. She cleared her throat, glanced at her work and with dignity and poise began to recite.

Tanner was impressed not only with her words, but also by her presentation. She did not need to refer to the papers in her hand nor did she pause or stutter. When she finished, she took her earlier seated position. Apprehensively she asked, "How was it?"

"Incredible!"

She glowed. "Do you really think so? I mean is there anything you would change? Did I make any mistakes?"

"Change? I wouldn't dare! It wouldn't be your speech then. Howdever, if you want me to, I could make a few constructive criticisms on it."

"What? Tell me!" She was truly excited to have a professional writer evaluating her work.

Tanner ended up on the floor facing her. He made his suggestions and she drank them in. He was thrilled when at two or three of his comments she successfully argued her point of view.

The actual rewriting took only an hour. She continued to sit and talk and he enjoyed it as much as she did. He enjoyed it so much that he called Steve and told him they were almost there, but she would probably need the curfew exception. Steve's only comment was, "Whatever it takes to get her to do it right. Tell her not to be late."

Tanner thought what an ass Steve was but quickly put him out of his mind as the girl continued gushing her whole life history to him. She revealed so many things. It was almost as if she had been waiting to have someone actually be interested in what she had to say. She told him how much she really liked school, her favorite teachers, favorite movies, books, music groups. She even told him a secret----that she and her boyfriend were very much in love and were planning to elope to Las Vegas when they turned eighteen.

She also talked about her father in a way that showed Tanner the young girl in front of him was mature beyond her average peers. "I know I'm important to him. But more like an asset than a daughter."

Tanner felt the need to comfort her, "I wouldn't say that----"

"Oh, it's okay. I figured out a long time ago that he doesn't really love me. Me, my mom or my brother and sister. But that's only because he doesn't know how to. I don't know if you noticed, but my dad doesn't know how to feel anything. I feel sorry for him, really. I love him so much and would do anything to let him understand, even just a little, how happy I am. I think my life is perfect. Oops! I shouldn't say that, should I?----Always room for improvement?"

"No, Shelly. I think you can correctly use the word perfect to describe yourself."

When she left she gave him a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek, a hug and kiss like she would give her father if she thought he would feel anything if he did. Somehow Tanner knew that for those few hours he was the emotional surrogate father she had needed her entire life. She spent seventeen years with him in just four hours. This made him feel his own brief sense of perfection. Then the voice came, "You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon."

When the door closed behind Shelly, Tanner had a tingling chill rush through his body. The part of him that always needed concrete explanations told him it was just a breeze from outside.

Not tired, but so emotionally satisfied, he thought he might as well just go to bed and let his first ever perfect day come to a close.

His body instantly surrendered to sleep when he curled up under his fluffy down comforter.

"You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon."

Tanner did not recognize where he was nor did he remember traveling to where there was. He then suddenly realized he also did not remember waking up and starting his day to be able to travel anywhere.

"You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon."

"Where!? Where am I almost, and what is it I'll be aware of!? Come to think of it, who the hell are you!!?"

He noticed a feeling of standing on a moving sidewalk when he heard the voice playfully laugh and repeat, "You're almost here. You'll be fully aware soon."

"But who are you!?

"You. Me. It. All."

Just twelve hours ago, that answer would have set Tanner off in a rage. Now not only did hi understand the answer, he understood that it would not have been the answer that enraged him, it would have been his frustration at not being able to understand. He was feeling odd, although the oddness came from knowing that he was now fully aware, yet he was not sure of what it was he fully aware.

He now saw that his being was not in the familiar solid form he had known for the past thirty-four years, but was fluctuating between the form he knew and many others, some of which were colors, light, shapes and some things even his own imagination could not define. He was also aware even with the voice coming from somewhere around him, he was feeling a sense of oneness, much different from the loneliness he frequently experienced.

But the oneness was made more noticeable when it disappeared and he felt the warmth and joy of something? someone? else.

"Thank you so much for your help. I never had anyone understand me, all of me, the way you did."

"You're welcome." Tanner saw another fluctuating being in front of him. "Who are you?" For a brief second, both being went into forms he recognized; they were him and Shelly sitting cross-legged across from each other. Then, just as quickly, they shifted back to---what he did not know.

Without having to ask, he knew what had happened: while driving home from his place, Shelly's car was struck by another vehicle. He knew she did not die instantly, but the moment she realized she could die, that when her soul realized her body would die, she let go and did so willingly. Did so because she realized she could do something she wished she could do.

"You did this for your father?"

"I did this for the physical vehicle that was the father to my most recent physical manifestation. I know now, as you now do also, the reason Shelly's father and many people like him seem so empty and void of emotion, feeling or caring is because physical containers are easy to create. You are in a time when procreation just happens without thought or concern to its ramifications. It happens so much that there are not enough souls to always fill those containers. Without a should, a human lives, but a being is not present."

Tanner now understood his friend Steve perfectly. He also understood what this being in front of him was planning. "That person who was your father may have been empty, but you still grew to love him."

"And I am going to be the soul of that person so he can experience and know the happiness, and sorrow, his daughter knew."

Tanner repeated what Shelly had said to him, "'I love him so much and would do anything to let him understand, even just a little, how happy I am.' That's what you, Shelly, told me earlier."

"And now I can. And part of that is because you helped fill the last need the being of Shelly needed----acceptance. Acceptance by someone she respected which in turn allowed her to truly accept herself. Her life was truly perfect because of that."

Just as quickly as the other being disappeared in front of him, he heard a high-toned bell. It was his telephone ringing which brought him back to the physical world. The clock he looked at as he uttered a groggy, "Hello?" told him it was two-thirty.

Shelly's mother was on the other end crying hysterically. He could not understand her actual words. He did not have to. "I'll be right over."

As he was driving to Steve's house, he passed and saw the wreck that had ceased from existence the Shelly this part of him knew. That also made him accept he now felt different. He was not sure how different, but good different. About life, people, everything. But he was also sad to sense that as open-minded as he had just become, there was a part of the physical side of his being which blocked the total understanding he had gained.

He began to feel slightly confused about a few things. The biggest of which was why it was Sarah who called and not Steve. He did not know Steve's wife well, but he did know that she could be extremely emotional at times. But Steve----Steve normally took care of things like that. As a matter of fact, he probably would have just let people find out when they read Shelly's obituary.

But then another odd sensation overcame him which stayed with him for the remainder of his drive, a sensation of sadness, loss and sorrow. But it was not those emotions which made him feel odd. After all, a beautiful, talented, intelligent young girl had just died. What was odd was deep down he felt a sense of joy for having met Shell and a sense of gratitude for being able to experience the painful emotions.

Clark, Shelly's brother answered the door when Tanner got to the house. "Hi. I'm Tanner O'Bannon. Your mom called and asked me to come over. Are your parents here?"

Holding back tears he believed teenage boys are not supposed to shed in front of anyone, Clark replied, "The cops came and took my mom to ID my sister. My dad is upstairs."

Tanner followed the staircase to the upper level, again wondering why it was not Steve who went with the police. He had to identify his parents once and did so without breaking down. Surely he could do this easily.

The master bedroom was directly at the top of the stairs. Tanner went in there expecting to find Steve. When he saw he was mistaken he walked back into the hallway. He stood there, thinking. He heard sobbing coming from two doors down on the left. Slowly, one step at a time, he walked toward the sound. The door was ajar. Carefully, as not to disturb the room's occupant, he pushed open the door. What he saw was something non one had ever seen.

Steve was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of what had obviously been the girl's bedroom. He created a nest for himself with all her stuffed animals, her award and several of her trophys. He rocked forward and back holding a framed photograph of Shelly and himself standing next to each other.

Tanner took off his shoes, entered the room and closely mirrored Steve who was crying uncontrollably. When he did, Steve looked at Tanner and just stared into his companion's eyes and continued to sob for several minutes. For a brief moment, Tanner's soul took over and he saw the being he had met in his sleep looking back at him through Steve's eyes. They were saying "Thank you" again. Tanner's own soul was able to answer back "You're welcome" without an audible word being spoken.

Tanner then noticed some papers Steve was clutching between his chest and the photo. Without being asked, Steve held them out, looked at them and said, "This is a rough draft of her speech. I found it in the trash can." He paused for a minute or two. "It is really, really good. I am so proud of her."

"I know." Tanner now started to cry along with Steve as they looked at each other some time more.

Steve managed to force the words, "She was such a happy girl."

"I know." Tanner sobbed harder, hugged his friend and did not let go until they were both finished crying.

The last thing either of them said for several hours was when Steve looked at Tanner to say, "Her life was truly perfect."