In Which Last Words Are Well Chosen

Every morning that I wake up is another morning that I wonder how I’m going to avoid dying today. It’s routine, like anything else, I suppose, and though some might call it morbid I consider it as practical as, say, writing up a grocery list, or making sure to drop off your laundry.

It’s not an upfront process, is what I guess I’m getting at. I don’t stare at every passerby and wonder which one of them has cholera. I’m not crazy.

But it’s something I think about, nonetheless, something that is always whirring along in the background, occasionally slipping forward but mostly just a quiet hum at the back of the mind.

Funny enough, then, that it had come to the fore in purely theoretical terms as I stepped off of the street at 47^th and Blake, dodging a kid on a bike and walking smackdab into oncoming traffic.

I’d like to say I wasn’t alarmed. I’d like to say that it’s exactly the sort of slipup I’d been waiting for. I’d like to say that I’d kept my cool.

Mostly I felt surprise. Not pain, my body took care of that, mostly. Enough adrenalin to keep me alert and peppy for the whole experience.

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t perceive the gravity of my situation, so when the E.M.T.s finally scraped my broken body off the pavement they didn’t understand what I was saying. “It wasn’t a hit and run,” they said. “We got the guy.”

“No,” I was quiet and coughing. “No, one second. Did you get-” and I coughed again, “Did you get the license plate number?”

And then, you know. Poof. Gone.

Magic.

In Which Carolyn Salvages a Relationship

Louis has been mainlining heroin for a while now, so Carolyn is unsurprised when she finds him lying dead in the front hallway. She kneels down next to him and pulls the needle out of his arm before producing a small mirror from her purse and holding it under his nose. Just making sure.

She nods resolutely to herself and grabs Louis’ body under the armpits, dragging him backwards up the stairs. She undresses him and washes his skin carefully in the bathtub. She puts him in the best clothing he has left, a white shirt and a black pair of jeans (he had hocked his nice suit to pay for, what else, heroin), and props his body up on a chair in the living room.

Carolyn takes a seat across the table from him. Louis’ head lolls to the side.

“Honey?” she says, leaning forward, her arms laying folded in front of her. “We need to talk.”

She pauses, and Louis is quite silent.

“It’s the drugs, Louis. You have to stop. They’re-” and she cuts off, holding back a tear and sniffling. “They’re tearing us apart.”

Louis has nothing to say to this.

“It’s just,” Carolyn says, brokenly. “I’m just, not sure how long I can keep staying quiet. I’m not sure if I can keep this-“ She cuts herself off, and a look of tentative wonder brightens her eyes. She looks up into Louis’ face. It is at once an ashen grey and a pallid, junky yellow. His jaw hangs dumbly open underneath half-closed, unfocused eyes.

A long moment passes, and Carolyn jumps from her chair, crosses the room and wraps her arms around the body in the chair. It slumps, and succumbs bonelessly to gravity. She holds him upright, as best she can, and whispers to him. “You’d really do that? For me?” Despite her efforts, Louis slides off of the chair, and she holds onto him tight.

Carolyn drags Louis to the living room and arranges his body on the couch so he leans ever so slightly, a limp arm draped over her shoulders. She starts the movie with the remote and presses her head contentedly into his chest. As the final credits roll she kisses him gently on the cheek, and whispers “I love you” into his ear.

She stands to turn the lights back on and Louis slides in a slow arc across the couch until he is lying horizontal. Carolyn goes into the garage, retrieves a gas can, and proceeds to douse the first floor of the house in gasoline. She ignites a match, flicks it lightly over her shoulder, and leaves the house through the front door.

Greetings and Salutations

you know what's terrifying? everything.


PRESENTING
"a terrible something"
a fictional autobiography of real events that never happened
to people you met briefly and eventually forgot.


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