The old house stood tall at the end of the long gravel driveway. These past years, however, it seemed more ominous than impressive. It was still somewhat well-kept, not a mark of dereliction to be found on the outside, but it was as if the house was withering. The former home of Mr. and Mrs. Spero, the pride of Oak Hill was now slowly rotting away. 

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The view from the upstairs bedroom, facing out towards the once spectacular garden, would have impressed anyone just 4 years ago, before Mrs. Spero died. Back then there was always something in bloom, even in the winter. And the summer would leave any artist struggling to create something as picturesque. Now, however, it was a sight to make your heart sink. Overwhelmingly grey, the garden looked abandoned and overgrown. With the few patches of green it could muster, the garden looked as though it didn't really believe it could push the grey away. There was an air of defeat about it. 

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 In the early hours of the morning, the only sound came from the wind as it tore across the land, and drove the dark clouds across the sky, hiding what little of the sun that would be peeking over the horizon. Everything was still. Until a scream ripped through the house, loud enough to make the birds on the roof burst into flight.
 In the upstairs bedroom, the scream tore William from his sleep. Startled awake, he tried frantically to get out of the bed. Getting all tangled up in the covers, and nearly choking on them, the old man started coughing violently, and the scream was cut off. Only then did he realize it had come from himself. 

 

Lying back in his bed, panting from the screaming, he tried to calm himself. He'd had a nightmare again. The same as always. The only thing that changed about it was for how long he had to endure it. Closing his eyes, he went over the end of the so familiar nightmare:

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*Sitting on the side of her bed in the hospital, holding her hand. Curtains were drawn around the bed. Just twelve hours ago she'd been fine. The headaches had come first, and then she collapsed, unconscious. He'd rushed her to the hospital. Feeling utterly powerless, he just sat there gripping her hand and hoping she would wake up. But she never did. There were no final words of goodbye. Nothing. She was gone, and he was alone.*

 

He'd lost her that night. After 54 years, he'd become a widower from one moment to the next. In those dreams, he would relive the pain of losing her, and the pain of realization, that he was alone. Sometimes, in the nightmares, she’d wake up for a short while and they would talk before she passed, but he could never remember what was said. He couldn’t decide whether it was better than the other version of the nightmare, either. But the screaming was new. Why had he screamed? He lay there pondering the new addition to the nightmare. 
 

After a while, he slowly got up and out of bed, and went over to the mirror. Clear-blue eyes looked back at him as he took in his reflection. His grey hair was in wild disarray, pointing everywhere, and his glasses, which he once again had forgotten to remove before dozing off, had gone crooked again, bending over the nose making them appear slightly droopy in shape. 

With a sigh, he pulled himself together and started collecting his things; shirt, socks, slippers, cane. All of it placed neatly on his way to the staircase. Downstairs, he went through the hall and the living room, not noticing the naked walls or the lack of furniture. On his way to the kitchen passed his desk, and stopped. The papers for selling the house were still there, his signature neatly placed at the bottom, as was the papers from the Ottoman Retirement Village. He briefly remembered moving out of the house and into the retirement village a couple of weeks ago. He stood there, confused for a moment. *Why am I here?* He wondered. But the answer eluded him, and soon his mind wandered from the question. He left the papers on the desk and went out into the kitchen still muttering to himself. 

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'Assisted Living,' He grumbled, shaking his head in resentment. 

'Sheets should be rumpled, and smell of the person that slept in them. Not of flowers and fabric softener. No one likes to sleep on those newly washed stiff sheets.' He kept muttering to himself as he made his way around the kitchen, fixing himself breakfast. A few slices of stale toast with butter, and a cup of instant coffee he’d found in one of the cupboards. Not exactly his usual breakfast, but he ate what was there. He hadn’t really planned to eat breakfast at the house today. But then again, he didn’t seem to plan at all, anymore. They did that for you at Ottoman. 
 

He finished his breakfast and piled the plate and cup on top of the mass of dirty dishes that took up most of the kitchen table. Unaware of the sound of crunching glass under his slippered feet, he moved out into the hall to put on his coat. He dragged along little bits of broken plates that littered the kitchen floor, but he took no notice. Coat on, he opened the front door, looked back at the emptied hallway, and left the house. 
 

Outside, the rain had started pouring from the dark clouds, carried by a strong wind. The old man walked, pelted by rain and buffeted by wind, down the path towards the garden. He wore no pants under his coat, yet he did not seem to notice this, as well as he didn’t seem to feel the cold wind and rain as he walked. Oblivious, he entered the garden. 
The hedges still reached high enough to conceal a man completely, giving the garden the maze-like appearance they had both loved to get lost in. The trodden path seemed to fit his feet, and he walked for a while there, lost in thought and memories, with no care where his feet took him. 
 

It was a rather large garden, and the path they’d had made within those hedges was long and curved its way throughout the garden. Trees dotted the garden within the labyrinth, the only breaks in the hedge-wall in the garden, with the huge old oak tree in the clearing at the middle, 
 

As he walked, he slowly noticed a gradual change in the garden. The leaves on the hedges got greener, and the path he walked turned a darker and richer brown by the step. Little by little the garden seemed to come alive, and as the old man stepped into the center of the maze, the sight of the clearing where the big old oak tree stood, took his breath away. Bathed in warm sunlight, the clearing was full of vibrant colors. The green leaves on the trees and hedges seemed to glow faintly in the sunlight, and there were flowers in bloom across the grass. Even the bench beneath the old oak tree seemed untouched by time. 

Hardly able to believe his eyes, he entered the clearing slowly. The clearing looked as it had years ago, yet there was something strange about it. As if the clearing was somehow detached from the world, and somehow shut the sounds of the world out, leaving behind a sense of unreal. 
 The bench felt real enough, he thought as he sat down. Shaped perfectly for his behind. This was his seat. He sat a moment and marveled at the clearing. Until a cough came from just beside him that made him look down towards the sound.

A squirrel was sitting next to him on the bench, holding in its hand a clipboard. And as if that wasn’t strange enough, it had a little pen in the other hand. Looking up at him, suddenly spoke:

 ‘Good day to you. Your name, please?’ 

Slightly taken aback, William couldn’t help but feel he should be more surprised. But for some reason, it seemed to fit into the unnatural feel that permeated the place, that something as odd as a talking squirrel would be there. The thing that surprised him the most, actually, was the squirrel’s voice. It was nothing like the squeaky noises you’d assume from its rather diminutive size. It’s a mature voice, and clearly a male. After a moment of hesitation, William cleared his throat. 

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 ‘Spero. William Spero.’ William replied, looking at the squirrel as it flicked through the pages, scanning them swiftly. 

 ‘Aahh, Italian, eh? Don’t get many of you here.’ The squirrel said cheerily, then looked to the clipboard, scanning the pages on it. ‘Hmmm. Doesn’t seem like there’s any Speros today. Spelled S-P-E-R-O, right?’ The squirrel continued, looking up to see William nodding.

 ‘Yes, that’s correct.’ William replied

 ‘Yeah, thought so. It’s not common around here, is it? I’ve only seen it once before. Well, if you…-‘ The squirrel was cut off. ‘You what?!’ William exclaimed, ‘You’ve seen it once before? What do you mean?’ The squirrel looked slightly taken aback by this outburst, but quickly collected itself. 

 ‘Ah, of course, I should have known with you showing up here without a guide. How stupid of me, I’m terribly sorry. This is a Halfway junction, and I’m the administrator of this particular junction. Name’s Egan.’ The squirrel held out his hand and was clearly expecting some sort of reaction to what he had just said. William, however, clearly didn’t follow.

 ‘This is what? A Halfway junction? What? I… What is a Halfway junction? What is this place?’ Egan let William finish his torrent of questions before he reached out to pat his leg gently.

 ‘Easy now. No need to get worked up. It’s quite simple really. This is where you are brought when you die. Your guide locates you and takes you here, or to one of the other junctions, where the administrator makes sure that everything is as it should be. Which it is, most of the time. It’s very rare to have walk-ins in this business.’ William was about to interrupt the squirrel when it raised its hand, forestalling him.

‘The name. You asked me about your name. Well, a few years back we had a woman coming through going by the name Spero. She checked out all right, so I let her in. The name stuck with me though, as I said, sort of unusual around here.’ Egan gave a little shrug, as if he didn’t realize what he had just said, then he turned his head up and looked at William. William was staring at Egan, completely dumbstruck. Finally, Egan seemed to put it together.

 ‘Ooohh, you knew her, didn’t you? A sister maybe? It’s always nice to reunite families. You know, it’s usually the siblings who come to pick people up as guides. That or lovers, but lovers’ been waning these past years. Don’t know what’s happened with that, come to think of it.’ The squirrel continued on, seemingly talking as much to himself as to William. But William was still staring wide-eyed at Egan, trying to understand, to comprehend.

 ‘Not sister, no,’ William said quietly, ‘She was my wife.’ That cut Egan off and brought his head around in an instant. For a moment there was complete silence in the clearing.

 ‘I’m sorry,’ Egan said solemnly, ‘that was crude of me. I am sorry for your loss. I didn’t mean any offense.’ Egan looked away, then back up at William. After a moment William nodded to him. Still too dazed by it all to grasp it, let alone take offense. They sat in silence for a few moments, until the obvious occurred to William.

‘So…I’m dead? That’s why I’m here?’ He looked down at the squirrel, a spark of hope in his eyes.
‘Well, no.’ Egan replied, ‘As I said, you’re not on the list. You’re a walk-in, you’re not supposed to be here at all.’ 

‘So how did I get here? Why am I here?’ William said, exasperated.

‘Frankly, I don’t know. Usually, walk-ins are nutcases who just want to die. They come here, and I send them back. Others are confused, and just happen to come here. You’re only my second walk-in, so I haven’t really got much experience with it, apart from hearsay from the other junctions. But you’re nothing like the other one I had through here. Some weird fella by the name David Robert Jones kept going on about space and Mars and vivid colors. I sent him back once he started singing to me. He’s been here twice, actually. Complete madman,’ Egan shook his head, ‘but you, I don’t know, you don’t seem crazy, but I guess you can never really tell. Anyhow, it’s not your time. Not yet. So you gotta go back. Sorry mate. But we’ll meet again someday.’

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Miss Laura Campbell had made her way through the pouring rain and howling wind from the Ottoman Retirement Village to the old Spero house and was now making her way through the labyrinthine garden for the 7th time in two weeks. She did feel sorry for the old man, he’d been through some tough years, but 7 times was pushing it. It had poured down almost every time he’d disappeared from the Village to go back to his house. He’d been soaked and freezing when she’d found him, but he never seemed to get sick. Resilient old man, she thought, steadying herself a moment against a tree before moving on. 

She entered the withered clearing to find him sitting there, on the same bench as usual. Wearing his coat, pajama pants, and his slippers, completely drenched from the downpour, he looked to be in a whole other world. 
She went over to him, took him gently by the elbow, and helped him up.

‘There, Mr. Spero. Time to get out of this weather, don’t you think?’ He didn’t respond, but he got up and let her steer him out of the clearing. At the entrance to the clearing, he briefly turned to look, before he let her take him away, back to Ottoman.