Do not stand by my grave, i am not there

BY TONY DEL DEGAN

Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.



“Daddy?”
    A cart was pushed across the linoleum.
    “Daddy, we all love you okay? Me and Liza and mum–and you’re gonna see her really soon.”
    There was another woman beside her. Pajamas under a black peacoat. Her hair was disheveled and her mascara had run and ran again. A ball of wet tissues spun amidst her restless fingers. “I love you, Dad,” she added.
    The nurse approached the bedside. In his hand was a needle. 
    “Hold on, please.”
    He stopped–adjusted his latex gloves. “When you’re ready. Tell me. No rush.”
    The two women looked back at the lying husk–the face half-hidden behind a plastic mask. A tube carried air. They could hear it in the quiet. And beeping. Car horns outside, and sirens. Footsteps in the hall. Fluorescents cast light through the doorway. They were watching too. 
    One of the women–Liza, in the pajamas–reached out to touch the wrinkled forehead, right above the ventilator mask. “Daddy.”
    Someone in the corridor walked past the door, shouting. The nurse left the man's bedside, walked to the door and grabbed the metal knob. He pushed gently–cut off some of the light, and a lot of the noise. Dust flew into his eye; he rubbed at it and blinked. The motion squeezed the plunger some. Morphine ran down his glove. “Shit.”
    “Thank you for being there. For us, and my kids. Your grandkids. They love you too.” The woman brushed hair off the man’s forehead. “They couldn’t be here… they were scared. I… I didn’t want them to see you like this. But I want you to know that they care. Mike, too. He’s watching them at home, but he was cry-”
    “-Lily!” The woman in pajamas–her stare was empty. “He knows, okay? Why would he think… He doesn’t.”
    “I’m just saying, alright! … It’s important to me that it’s clear.”
    Reebok sneakers squeaked. The nurse went back to his rolling tray. He looked down at the needle’s glass body–the metal spear. Thinner than a hair in the half-light. He tapped the plunger. Dew formed on the tip.
    “You won’t be in any more pain, alright, Daddy?” She wept. “I know you’re tired. You can sleep, okay? Just go to sleep.”
    “Go to sleep, Dad. I love you.” She dabbed her eyes with the wet mess of tissue.
    He sat down on a stool, rolled over. “You’re ready?”
    The women nodded–wouldn’t look at him. 
    “You’re sure?”
    Silence.
    His latex fingers pulled the skin taught. The needle broke through, slid into flesh. He depressed the plunger with his thumb. He could almost feel the morphine shooting out the buried tip, flowing into the vein, mixing with the blood. “Alright, Mister Tennon. Time to rest.” 
    Snap! Red plastic. A faded label: ON/OFF. The ventilator went quiet. No more air in the tube. He reached down to pull the mask off, kept his forearm hovering above the patient’s open mouth. Nothing. The nose. Nothing. 
    “He must’ve gone minutes ago. I can still feel some warmth.” He touched his arm to flesh. “No breath.”
    The women were quiet, sobbing shadows.
    He looked at the older one–Lily. “It’s done now.”
    “He passed when we told him it was time,” she said. “When I told him to sleep.”
    “Yes, I think so. It’s possible.” He set the empty needle down. “I’m sure he heard everything you said.” He glanced at the man’s eyes. Empty. Nothing. 
#
“Andy!”
    The nurse stopped, turned around. “Doctor?”
    His white coat was flapping–leather heels snapped against the floor. The doctor slowed, came to a stop. He spoke through heavy breath. “Room three-o’-seven. Got another one for you.”
    Andy, the nurse, said: “Uh.. my shift’s over. Can Melissa?”
    “No, your shift is not over, and no, Melissa is busy.”
    “It’s… six-thirty.”
    “It’s six-twenty.”
    Silence.
    A smack on his shoulder. “Come on, bud. Earn that paycheque. People are crying and people are dying. Not gonna leave ‘em like that.” He fished a pen out of his white coat. “I’ve got an achilles in twenty minutes. Gonna shit and grab a coffee so I don’t fall asleep.”
    He left.
    Andy turned, forced open the swinging bathroom door. It reeked of urinal cake and sewage. He went over to the sink. Water dribbled out of the faucet. Calcium had grown from out of the spout–in the ridges of the metal drain cover. He turned the knob. The dribble stopped. One of the janitors had decapitated the soap dispenser. Its clear plastic head lay below on the ledge of the sink. Congealed, pink gunk was splattered down the wall; the nozzle was encrusted with it. 
    Humming. From one of the stalls.
    The nurse looked in the mirror, saw the closed door.
    “I keep drinking malted milk, tryna’ drive my blues away.”
    Something in the voice made his chest seize. He turned the knob. Water squeezed out onto the porcelain. It swirled around, and around, then filtered into the drain. 
    “Malted milk, malted milk, keeps rushin' to my head.”
    He shut it off. “You’ve got a nice voice. Who’s in there?”
    “And I have a funny, funny feeling, and I'm talkin' all out of my- …Well thank you, son. I’m not a singer.”
    The nurse talked into the mirror–to the reflection of the stall. “I’d say you are.”
    “Mighty kind. I’m just here to do my business.”
    A pause. “Is that Leroy in there?”
    “No, no. This ain’t Leroy. I’m not from here, you see?”
    “Where, then?”
    “Oh, that’s alright. What are you doing in the shitter, son? Tell me. Standing at the sink like that.”
    The nurse shifted his gaze. He faced down his reflection. “I, uh… I guess I’m just freshening up.”
    “For what?”
    “I’ve gotta pull the plug on someone.”
    A sound from the stall, reverberated on the tiles: a groan. “That’s your job here?”
    “I’m a nurse, but we have to do it when we’re called on.”
    Silence.
    “Baby, fix me one more drink, and hug your daddy one more time.”
    The nurse frowned. “You, uh… Visiting someone?”
    “Yessir, I am.”
    “Who?”
    “A very sick man.”
    Silence. 
    “Keep on stirring my malted milk mama, until I change my mind.”
    The metal of the knob was cold. He turned it. Stream of water. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded tissue. A pill rolled out into his palm, shaped like a baseplate from a pitch. A large “A” was molded on one side. He opened his mouth, felt the hard pill on his tongue. The water filled his cupped hands, then washed the little thing down.
    “My door knob keeps on turning, must be spooks around my bed.”
    He lifted his hand, looked at its reflection. It shook. 
    “What’s the time, son?” The voice crept out from the melody. 
    “Oh, uh… I guess it’s…” He checked his watch, his reflected eye stared back above the clicking hands. “Six-forty-five.” A sigh. He shut off the water. “I’ve gotta get this over with if I wanna go home. Nice talking to you.”
    “I have a warm, old feeling, and the hair rising on my head.” A pause… that turned into dead silence. 
    Andy had his hand on the door. He took it off, crouched down. Slowly. He saw clear through under every stall–saw every trunk of every toilet planted in the tile. But no shoes. No legs. The door swung open and he slipped out, letting it go behind him. 
#
He shook the outstretched hand. “Andy Kemper.”
    “Pleasure. Sit down.”
    The chair was thinly cushioned. He straightened his jacket. 
    “I’m Doctor Ellis. Gary Ellis, alright? You came highly recommended. Went to UVA, School of Nursing… I know some of the professors there.”
    “Oh, fantastic. Do you know Harry?”
    “Yeah, Harry Santiago. I know him. Know Karen Singh… Osian Molina did some talks there, I know him too.”
    Andy’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow. Okay.”
    “Yeah. I could get you a job at his place up in Roanoke someday.” His eyes lifted. “If you do well here.”
    Silence.
    “Tell me about yourself.”
    Andy reached for his tie knot. It was straight, but he fiddled anyway. “I was born in Richmond, moved up to Charlottesville for school… I’ve always wanted to get into medicine and nursing. Helping people is… my mother always instilled that in me. A desire to protect life. I really love my mother, you know… A lot. She’s my rock.”
    “What is she? What does she do?”
    “Oh, she’s a cardiologist.”
    A pen started scribbling. “Oh, okay.” A pause. “Your father?”
    “He left when I was ten.”
    Scribbling. “Sorry.”
    “No, it’s okay. He was a deadbeat.”
    A frown. “How were your grades?”
    “Uh, very good. Yeah, very good. Top of the class.”
    “A’s, B’s?”
    “Mostly A’s.” He looked around the room. Three degrees were hung behind the desk, above the doctor’s head. Traffic shuffled along below behind aluminum blinds. The room smelled of antiseptic and printer ink. 
    “So HR brought you on here, I’m just going over their notes to me.” His blue eyes walked the printed type. “What do you hope you can learn here? What do you… what’s your plan for the future?”
    Andy fiddled with a button on his jacket. His foot was tapping the floor. “Just… absorb everything I possibly can, I guess… Um.” –the doctor’s eyes snapped up– “Make new professional connections, work in the field… just start somewhere. That’s what mum told me.”
    The HR paper returned to the desk. “At your age, that’s really all you can do, isn’t it?”
    Andy blinked.
    “We deal with a lot of brutality here. I’m sure you expected that?”
    “Of course.”
    “As we speak, someone is now dead.” He paused. “And now. And now. Three families are crying somewhere in this building. Three nurses are standing in three rooms, each with a corpse and maybe an inconsolable child–a son, or daughter. A wife or a husband. School can teach you about which tube goes where and what artery plugs into what organ, but you can’t teach a kid how to keep his soul from slowly crumbling away. We’re like soldiers, alright? A nurse can get attached to their patients. Some become friends. One day you walk into that room and your friend might have gone in the night. What then?”
    “I…”
    “The body is taken away, the sheets are replaced, and the next patient gets tucked in. Now you’re giving apple juice and pudding to a completely different guy.” The pen started again. Then stopped. “Sometimes you pull the plug yourself. Doctor gives the order, and the nurse executes. In some cases, the family might not want you to do it. Sometimes they do. When they don’t, it makes everything worse for everyone involved, alright?”
    “I understand.”
    “No you don’t. Not yet, you don’t.” He shuffled papers around on his desk. “I just need to know if you’re ready to learn. Fast, and unpleasantly.”
    Andy rubbed his hands together. His palms were sweating. “I… Yes, Doctor.”
    “Ha! You’ve got that bit right already.”
#
The door was half open. He pushed. The lights were on inside, illuminating three people who turned in unison to face him. There was nothing friendly in their eyes. “Hi.” He pulled the door half-closed. “I’m Andy Kemper.”
    Silence.
    The man went first. “Bill.” He spoke his own name like he was cursing. “Angela. Lorraine.” His eyes tracked the nurse as he gathered his equipment. “You’re the one who’s gonna take our baby away.”
    The nurse looked over his shoulder. A web of clear tubes had been stuck into the infant like it was a pincushion. It looked malnourished–frail. One of the women clutched its tiny hand, and it must have been the mother. “Doctor Ellis did his examination, I was told. He do-”
    “-He left half an hour ago. We’ve had to sit here with our baby breathing through a straw for half a fucking hour before you showed up.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    A scoff. “Fucking sorry, he says.”
    They all went quiet.
    Andy pulled a clean syringe and found the morphine. The needle sucked at it–thirsty. A flick. He tested the plunger. Liquid glass trickled down his glove. Now he gathered everything, set it all on the rolling tray–brought it over to the bed.
    “Don’t you fucking touch my boy.”
    “Lorraine!”
    “He’s gonna kill him, Bill!”
    “Shut up, woman! Shut up! He’s gone, alright!”
    She started to cry. The other woman embraced her. 
    “I… I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
    The man looked up. He was heavyset, with a baseball cap. Buccaneers. “What? Really? How can we be ready?”
    “I…”
    “Do you have kids, boy?”
    “No, sir.”
    “What are you, nineteen?”
    “Twenty-seven.”
    “Well, one day you’ll grow up and understand.” He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index. “You don’t give a shit what you’re doing, huh? You fucking robots come in here every couple hours and poke buttons and change tubes, then when someone needs to die, you pump ‘em full and pull the plug. Take the body out and put another one in.”
    “That’s not fair, sir.”
    “You know what’s not fair?” He didn’t finish.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I’ll take a sorry from God. I don’t care what you feel like.”
    The second woman was glaring. When he met her gaze, she seemed to snarl. “What do they pay you? Huh?”
    “I… not a lot, ma’am.”
    “Well that’s already too much.”
    Silence. It seemed like hours. He looked at the clock. Seven-thirty-five.
    “I need to do this.”
    They didn’t answer.
    He took a step.
    “NO!”
    “LORRAINE! SHUT IT!”
    The woman started to rock back and forth. “Not my baby. Not my baby. Not my baby.”
    Andy looked down at the child. There was nothing in its expression. The eyes were closed–its breathing was hoarse. He took hold of the arm, pulled the skin taught. The woman wailed and fell out of her chair. 
    The needle broke the skin, slid into the muscle. He could feel the liquid pulsing as it left the tip, finding its way into the bloodstream.
    They’d put a ventilator on the kid, too. He gently pried the mask off. When he felt for breath with his forearm, he sensed it on his arm hair. It was fading. The eyes… empty already. Nothing. He stood, put the needle in its disposal bin, and turned to the man. He’d hoped he would turn and face him, but he didn’t. “He’ll be gone soon. Someone will come check on you, or you can let the receptionist know when you leave.”
    Silence.
    He left to the sound of sobbing.
#
“It’s been theorized that the human mind is conscious for a time after death. Something about neurons firing still, or some kind of activity appearing in scans once a person has passed…”
    “Yes, well that’s not been proven yet. Some colleagues of mine a few years ago were toying around with… I think it was a rat’s brain. At risk of sounding graphic, they decapitated the poor thing, and had all sorts of sensors attached to its head. Supposedly, and I emphasize that strongly, they picked up activity for–I believe it was three minutes. Nothing remotely relating to conscious thought, and in any case, it was indeed a rat and not a man.”
    “I also heard of something involving a dog head, or a cat head, or-”
    “-Oh, God. That’s… The Russians in the forties managed to decapitate a dog, and then simulate a circulatory and respiratory system that seemed to bring life back to the head in some capacity. Yes, I saw the film.”
    “And that would mean that the brain functions still if you reintroduce… well, a body with its systems intact.”
    “And you believe the film is real?”
    “Do you, Doctor?”
    “I do not. Damage would have been done to the brain once the blood was drained from the body, and putting any trust in a film shot in the forties–and by Russians–is a dubious thing. They claimed the dog lived for years–there is no proof of that. In the film, it seems to live for maybe a minute or two.”
    “But then that would prove my point.”
    “Would it?”
    “The brain is conscious for a few minutes after death.”
    “Hmm, well, I guess I’ll have to do some experiments myself. But definitely not on dogs.”
    “Yes, that’s right. That’s all the time we have. Please thank my special guest, Doctor Osian Molina from Cardinal Medicine, right here in the state of Virgin-”
#
He shut the radio off.
    Rain crackled against the windshield. Vague shapes of cars rushed past left and right, images muddied by the rivulets running down the windows. The vibrations of the tires tried to lull him asleep. He checked the clock on the dash. Eight-thirty. 
A red light. He reached up to run his hand across his face. A glance out the window. The silhouette of another driver was only just visible. He couldn’t see any features–just shadow. There might have been smoke from a dark cigarette. It created a swirling void.
Something shifted in the back seat. 
Green light.
He couldn’t turn around. He ignored the sound as he stepped on the gas. 
Hot breath on his neck. 
“Hello?” A quick glance over his shoulder. Nothing. He checked the rear-view mirror. 
“Early this mornin' when you knocked upon my door.”
He almost veered into the oncoming lane. A head and shoulders were visible against the backdrop of the rear windshield. Shadow. No face. It was sitting right behind him. 
“And I said ‘hello Satan,’ I believe it's time to go.”
He caught his breath. “What the fuck? How did you get in here?”
“Oh, son. You gotta keep them eyes on the road, don’t ya?” Something like a snicker. “Always gotta keep them eyes forward. There’s spooks out at night.”
“Excuse me?”
“How was your last job, son?”
“Get the fuck out of my car.”
Silence.
“It was a child.”
“Me and the Devil was walkin' side by side.” 
The car smelled of rotten meat. It wasn’t coming from the air vents. 
The shadow said, “Your doctor told you things when you first met him. Did you learn, son?”
A moment passed. “I feel empty.”
“Then I guess he was right about you. Wasn’t prepared for what was comin’. Broken too easy.”
“When… I unplug someone…” He paused. “The ones that die immediately, or the ones that were already dead… Their eyes change. They turn into… wax dolls–or husks. My… my mind doesn’t see them as a person anymore. They’re not. They’re a thing.”
“And I'm going to beat my woman until I get satisfied.”
“I don’t see… people as…” He trailed off. 
Some lifted truck sped past over the limit. Water splashed up onto the windshield.
“I don’t have friends, really. Maybe I’m sociopathic.”
“You’ve got me, son. I’ll be here whenever you need me. Don’t you worry.”
Andy didn’t smile. 
“Have you pulled the plug on someone and regretted it?”
“I regret every one.”
“Well that’s a shit way of looking at it. You’re ending a man’s suffering.”
He spun the wheel–did a ‘U’ turn. “But what if that man wants to fight? Maybe he’s in pain, but he wants to try and get through somehow; we can’t tell ‘cause he’s in a coma, and then we cut it short.”
“You may bury my body down by the highway side-... But the doc made his call. Are you doubting his education?”
    “I don’t know. I think people can be wrong.”
    “O-o-o-oh, now look here. So my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride.”
    More hot breath on his neck. It was almost scalding, like kettle steam. Then… nothing. He checked the mirror again; the shadow was gone. The back wiper flipped back and forth, peeling droplets away from the glass. Ahead, a car was stopped on the side of the road, hazard lights blinking. Metal was wrinkled like paper. Webs ran through glass. 
    Blood had mixed with the rain atop the asphalt. Droplets pelted the disemboweled corpse of a doe. The car had torn its stomach and spilled its life across the highway. Red and blue lights flashed in the water trailing down the nurse’s windshield. He turned away and kept driving.
#
“I heard about your mother.”
    Andy’s eyes flicked up. Wide. “Oh.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “...Thank you.”
    The pen went to scribbling. “Are you planning anything?”
    “Um….”
    The pen stopped. “Are you alright?”
    Silence.
    “It’s hard to plan celebrations alone, I know. An eightieth birthday is a big one. It’s shit your dad’s not in the picture to help out. You have any aunts… uncles?”
    A pause. “No.”
    “Damn. Well… Shouldn’t waste the occasion. I hope you can spend some quality time with her.”
    Silence.
    The pen stopped. Doctor Ellis fit it into a cramped pen holder. “How are things going here? Are you learning lots? Making those connections?”
    “Yeah… yeah, I am.”
    “Good. I like to hear that. The patients seem to like you, you’re efficient, you’re effective. A lot of the other nurses really get shaken up when they get asked to pull someone. You don’t. Maybe we should do a check up on you.” A laugh. “It’s a necessary thing, though–I’m sure you get that by now. Can’t keep patients here forever… getting pumped with drugs and getting cut up for months on end. Even if the families don’t get that, alright? We’re all fragile. Humans are like glass. You can harden it and make it stronger, but it’s still gonna break if you drop it.”
    “Yes, Doctor.” The nurse’s attention drifted. There was a framed poem on the wall above the degrees. He’d read it tens of times over by now–while sitting in this chair. 
#
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep.
#
It was a small clipping from Clare Harner. Sunlight had faded the printed letters.
“That’s my favorite.”
Andy looked down at the doctor. “Oh… sorry.”
“They read the full thing at my mother’s funeral.” Ellis spun in his chair to look up at the frame. “I like to think that when a person dies, something leaves them that becomes a part of nature. Like a soul, maybe. I know it’s not true, of course, but it helps to comfort the mind.” He spun back, shuffled some papers around. “What do you think?”
“When we die, we’re gone. The body shuts down–the brain dies.”
“Spoken like a man of science.” He tilted his head, looked hard at the nurse. “Does that make it easier?”
“Sorry?”
“When you’re working.”
The nurse fiddled with the bottom lining of his scrub top. “No… No, I guess it makes it harder.”
#
The receptionist was gone.
    Nurses and doctors mulled about the halls, some sprinting with clipboards, others talking. Andy leaned against the counter. A plastic brochure holder sat off to the side. The text on the topmost one was bolded: Have you checked your eyes? A smiling woman was peering over the lower stack of brochures. He reached over to straighten the holder. The phone started to ring–a little light blinked.
    “Shit.” The receptionist rushed around the counter, just returning from the bathroom. She wrenched on the rolling chair, sat, and snatched the phone. “Santiago Molina Center. This is the ICU front desk–Linda speaking.” She tapped a pen against her notepad as she listened. 
    “Andy!”
    The nurse looked over. “Doctor?”
    “Taking a breather?” Ellis came over, leaned on the counter next to him. “You’ve been doing great lately, alright? Honestly.”
    Snap! The pen struck the counter between them. Linda frowned and motioned to the phone at her ear.
    Ellis took the nurse by the shoulder and they left the receptionist to her call. “We had a guy come in yesterday. Accident on the highway, apparently. Had a fractured ribcage and some broken bones in his arms. Fucking ugly shit.”
    “Sounds like it.”
    “Surgeries are tough. One wrong cut and the guy–or gal–starts bleeding where they shouldn’t be. Brain stuff is worse, obviously. I’m glad I’m just watching sometimes and not holding the knife.” He straightened his jacket. “But listen, alright? I’ve got another job for you. An old girl with Alzheimers. She had a stroke, and she’s deteriorating rapidly. Won’t eat, won’t sleep, the whole thing, alright? Her heart’s slowing down every day–poor girl. She’s getting violent, too, so hopefully she’s asleep when you get in. If not, you can give her some Temazepam and Morphine. If you end up needing help, you can call for someone.”
    “So… Is her family in there?”
    “No. Her husband died a while back, apparently. She lived alone for years–no kids, no nothing. A neighbor called to report loud sounds and things being thrown around in the house. They brought her here. It’s a shit case.”
    The nurse felt his heartbeat in his skull. 
    “So take out the I.V., shut off the monitor, all that. Give her something to help her sleep. You know the drill. She might be getting moved to hospice at that point if she holds on.” He smiled. “All clear?”
    “Yes, Doctor.”
    A smack on the shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear.”
#
He knocked. No answer.
    The hinges needed oiling. Or maybe they were screaming. Inside, the lights were shut off, but morning sunlight filtered through the blinds. The whole room smelled of rot. Someone had plugged a Febreze into the wall socket, beside the plug for the television.
    She was sitting up in bed. The sun kept him from discerning much detail from her face, apart from the obvious smile. “Come in.”
    He felt his heart thumping.
    Gray strands of hair hung down over a wrinkled face–unwashed. Her eyelids has nearly shrunken up into the sockets. 
    He stayed by the door. “I’m Andy Kemper.”
    Silence.
    “Is there no one here with you?”
    “No. Th-th-th-th-the-e-e-e-the.” Sound flowed unformed from between crackling lips.
    Someone had left a pile of bloody rags on the counter opposite the bed. Unsanitary. Above it, a wad of flies had collected on the ceiling. They flew between the rags, the ceiling, and the woman in the bed. Where they went when they got to her, he couldn’t see. 
    The nurse entered gradually, retrieved what he needed from around the room: gloves, the rolling tray, the needle, the morphine. He felt snaps and pops under his sneakers. Buzzing. “You should lie down.”
    She didn’t.
    Wherever he went, he felt her eyes. 
    “Th-th-th-th-th-th-th. Y o u r m o t h e r Th-th-th-th.”
    He stopped.
    The smell was almost overpowering standing so close. It was like fried meat. He was sure her skin was only a suit–that it wasn’t connected to muscle anymore.
    “What did you say?”
    Something came from deep inside her chest. A sound he’d never heard, and one he never wanted to hear again. Like every organ had ruptured and turned to liquid–and started to boil. She tried to grab at him, but he easily stepped aside. 
    “Ma’am. Will you stop?” He filled the syringe.
    “Y O U R M O T H E R.”
    The woman’s thin hair was whipping violently as she thrashed forward and back. It was a violent motion–he thought she was trying to snap her own spine. Pink discharge ran down the sides of her mouth, then it came from her eyes. The bed rocked. Maggots shook loose from between the mattress and bedsheets; they fell to the ground and writhed. The motion wrung urine out of the bed–letting it drip and pool beneath. 
    The nurse watched. He didn’t move.
    “My door knob keeps on turnin', it must be spooks around my bed.”
    It came from the bathroom. He turned, saw a face floating in the shadowy doorframe. He recognized that face. 
    “Kill the bitch.”
    She continued to wail. 
    “Kill the bitch, son. Kill the bitch and she’ll shut the fuck up. This is it, Andy boy. This is the one.”
    The woman rocked forward hard and lost her balance. She went over the foot of the bed and landed head-first. There was no more wailing after that. 
    Andy looked back at the bathroom. The face was gone. He set the needle down, backed away from the bed. Her body was mangled and twisted. Flies crawled out from the openings in the rotting, blue hospital gown. The eyes were staring at him, and he knew then that she could still see him. The thing that always left was still there. 
#
The lock jangled, then snapped. He opened the door and went in. Streetlamp overshine painted strange shapes across his apartment furniture. Eagerly, he flicked the light switch, took off his coat, and pulled a brown paper bag from its inner pocket. It was wet, but thankfully hadn’t broken through.
    Off came his shoes, then he slid them into their place neatly. He set the bag on the counter and opened the fridge. Tomorrow, he would have to go shopping. There was just enough applesauce. He pried one free from the cardboard and found a spoon. 
    The kitchen radio fizzled stubbornly–came to life.


    “Eyes are the window to the soul.”
    “Do you believe in a soul?”
    “I do. As a… as an empath I deal with the soul everyday… right? Why is it that I can see spirits and communicate with the beyond? Well the soul leaves us when we die and goes somewhere else. I was gifted, fortunately, with the ability to… tap into that other side and talk with peoples’ souls.”
    “When you look into someone’s eyes, can… I mean, can you see anything there? That’s special?”
    “Well… you know, I’d say what I just said: the eyes are the window. I don’t know if I can read your mind, really, or communicate with your soul when it’s in your body–when it’s in your body, then… like, just talking to you is communicating with your soul.”
    “Right.”
    “I think… something special… That’s hard. I see auras around people.”
    “Like white light and that sort of thing?”
    “Essentially. If someone has bad intentions, or if their soul is corrupted, then I can see that darkness, and vice versa.”
    “You believe in God?”
    “I do. God gave me this gift. I don’t know why, but he did. I thank him every day for it.”
#
Her room was shut, but the flies still slipped under the door.
    When he opened it, he felt her warmth. The smell. It used to smell like fried meat, but now it just smelled like her. How she used to smell. “Hi, Mom.” He set the paper bag down on the rolling tray. There were tools there–bloody, but they were her tools. Beside the bed was a heart rate monitor. The sound was shut off, but the screen displayed a constant line. “Work wasn’t great, but I got something for you.” 
    Silence.
    “It’ll help us communicate better, I think.” He picked up the bag and opened it. With a gentle shake, two eyeballs rolled out onto the tray. He picked one up, looked into the pupil. It was still there. It hadn’t left. “These are the ones, Mom. Okay? I… I finally found them.”
    Silence.
    “We can pluck those old ones out and put these new ones in. But after your dinner, alright? You have to eat this time. Don’t just keep it in your mouth.” He peeled open the apple sauce and dug the spoon inside. “I love you.”
    Silence, just like always. 

                                                                   💀💀💀

Tony Del Degan is an author and screenwriter from Calgary, Canada. When he was a young boy, he was introduced to the world of fiction through films like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and was immediately captured by the desire to create imaginative worlds and stories of his own. Since elementary school, when he started creating books for the class library out of folded printer paper, his dream has never dimmed.
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