Father Labby went to bed feeling worn down in a way that had nothing to do with work. His body felt heavy, his thoughts scattered, and a faint nausea sat low in his gut. He lay on the bed and let sleep take him without resistance.

Three hours disappeared. No dream. No image. Nothing.

Maria touched his shoulder, waking him abruptly. The moment his eyes opened, the sick feeling in his gut surged, deep and unmistakable. His awareness rose above the body, hovering in a thin layer of consciousness that didn’t belong to the physical world. His limbs felt weighted, his chest thick, and the room reached him directly, without the usual filter of senses.

He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, trying to gather himself. Thirty minutes passed before he could stand. Maria watched him quietly, unsure what to make of the strange, fixed smile on his face. It wasn’t joy or amusement. It simply existed, unmoving.

They went to the car, and she drove them to the restaurant. He sat beside her, feeling everything without looking. The movement of the car. The tone of her worry. The world outside. All of it passed through him like a wave.

Inside the restaurant, the in‑between state sharpened. His smile grew stronger, almost as if something inside him recognized the scene. He felt the room as if he were standing above it, watching a play unfold. Everyone seemed to be performing their part with too much seriousness, too much attachment to their lines. The quiet argument at the corner table. The tired server wiping down a counter. The restless child shifting in his seat. Maria’s concern.

And then he understood.

It was all a spectacle.

A gentle, almost innocent game.

People playing their roles with full conviction, unaware that the divinity inside them was the one truly watching. His smile deepened, not out of mockery, but out of compassion. He felt tenderness for the seriousness of it all, the way each person carried their script as if it were the whole world.

The sick heaviness in his gut made sense now. The body had become impure. Too much internet. Too much social media. Too many heavy‑metal crowds whose energy clung to him long after he left. Too many heavy meat meals weighing down the body and clouding the senses. The in‑between made him feel every bit of it.

Maria insisted he try some chicken. He couldn’t. The smell alone turned his stomach. He asked for a light vegetable dish instead, something simple enough that the body could accept. Even then, he ate slowly, as if each bite had to pass through the strange state he was still caught in.

He knew he needed purification. Less digital noise. Cleaner food. Less chaotic company. More silence. More discipline. More holiness. He decided to recite the prayer “Our Father” that night. As he did so with his eyes closed, he saw Jesus smiling understandingly and compassionately; loving.

But after this, another truth rose with the same clarity.

Those very places—the loud ones, the chaotic ones, the people carrying storms inside them—were exactly where he was needed. Not because they were good for him, but because something in him could stand there and absorb what others couldn’t.

Later, when they returned home, he watched a movie. The images pulled him slowly back into the body. His smile softened. His senses settled. The wave receded.

He was himself again.

But the experience stayed with him. A reminder that the in‑between is real, and that sometimes the soul steps out of the body to show what the body has been carrying all along.