2026.

Sevent.een years had passed since Michael Jackson's death in 2009. Time moved differently where he was now. Heaven was not clouds and harps as people imagined, nor was it endless singing from dawn till dusk. It was peace. Real peace. The sort he had spent much of his earthly life searching for. He had his family, old friends, laughter, purpose, and above all, freedom from the noise that had followed him for decades.

Still, every so often, Michael liked to visit.

Not because he was trapped between worlds or burdened by unfinished business. Quite the opposite. He simply enjoyed checking in. Watching over the people he loved. Seeing how the world had changed. Exploring the odd little abilities that came with being a spirit. He wasn't particularly good at haunting. Most people never noticed him. A few sensed a presence. Others felt watched over during difficult moments. But nobody ever actually saw him.

Except for her.

Michael found this just as baffling as she did.

The first time she'd looked directly at him and nearly fallen off her bed, he'd assumed it was a coincidence. The second time, he became suspicious. By the third visit, there was no denying it.

She could see him.

Perfectly.

And apparently that wasn't going to change.

The Michael who stood in her room wasn't the fifty-year-old man the world remembered from 2009. Nor was he the superstar of the Bad or Dangerous eras. Heaven had restored him to the young man he had originally been before fame, insecurity, illness, and years of scrutiny had altered his appearance. He looked ninet.een again. A cloud of dark curls framed his face. His skin was smooth brown. His nose broad and unchanged. The face God had first given him.

Michael himself found the whole thing amusing.

"You know," he said one night while sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed, "I still don't understand why you're the only one who can see me."

His voice carried the familiar softness people remembered, though now it lacked the nervousness that once lingered beneath it.

"Maybe you hit your head."

When her reaction suggested otherwise, he laughed.

"I'm kidding."

Most visits followed the same pattern. Michael simply appeared. Sometimes at midnight. Sometimes at two in the morning. Once at nearly four.

"Don't look at me like that," he'd said after materializing beside her bookshelf. "I don't have a watch anymore."

Hours would pass unnoticed. He talked about everything. Movies. Music. Disney. Strange things he'd discovered while wandering around the modern world.

"The internet's terrifying," he informed her one evening. "Everybody argues about everything now. You can't even like a movie without somebody writing a twelve-page essay about why you're wrong."

What surprised her most wasn't that she was talking to the ghost of Michael Jackson. It was how normal he felt. Funny. Curious. Occasionally mischievous. Always eager to hear other people's stories. Fame seemed utterly irrelevant to him now.

One night, after several hours of conversation, silence settled comfortably between them. Michael wandered over to the window and gazed out at the sleeping city beyond. For a moment he seemed thoughtful.

Then he turned back around with a small smile.

"You know what I've always wondered?"

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms.

"If you could visit any point in history for just one day and come right back, where would you go?"