I stand in silence and close my eyes to avoid the flounce of bright yellowish haze. Dirty air sweeps over my face and for a few moments my ghost steps outside of my skin to look down on my sins. Soul splintered with fear and the residue of hope, I open my eyes again and force myself to look at her face, porcelain touch to a pastel frame. She turns to me and smiles, a radiant expression on a face that screams with anticipation, screams with the type of delight shown only by the people who know who you truly are.

I freeze and stand in awe of this woman, every movement a curse and my breaths concealed like accidental heart attacks. My muscles are powerless and she puts the gun to her head. “Goodbye,” she says. A beautiful mess of red and black and my lungs give out. Fourteen seconds pass and my heart quivers, skin glued to wet clothes and a dying sun eager to flee and drape my body in shade and regret. Legs give out and I kiss concrete, taste the footsteps of many a wanderer and remember what it was like to travel to lands that weren’t my own. It takes a few moments before I can sit up, a few moments before I wipe the blood off my face, pants and jacket. It’s cold and my bones are hollow pieces of lost pipe, veins and arteries draw the map to my sickness.

I look at her body and try to remember the few minutes before she gave up, but my vision is filled with the sight of grey matter and bits of jawbone. The cold radiance of evening is her tomb and soon enough the sky will collapse to let in a perfect black star.

Deep breaths as I recall what my dead wife used to look like.

#

I swallow a handful of little blue pills and pretend that I’m an angel. Clouds the color of rust circle above in a liquid sky and the tension in my skin starts to dissipate. Time slows to a crawl, and night and day collide. The telephone rings and startles me out of a trance. I won’t pick it up and pretty soon enough of my kin will wonder if I’ve finally killed myself.

A small slice of green light seeps from the kitchen and entices me to get out of bed. The stale noise of my apartment comforts my heart, a filthy type of quiet that can drive a person to live his entire world within a hundred square feet. Bits of sun break through the kitchen window and now I know that it’s daytime. I reach for the bottle of whiskey on the counter and pour a healthy glass. I stare at the amber juice before savoring its rustic flavor.

For the past three months I’ve been dreaming in black and white, adventures in my mind that end with a quick shot of color and the overwhelming feeling that I’m sleeping alone in a king-sized bed. I could toss and turn all night and still believe that Jenna is sleeping next to me, curves draped in a mess of velvet and blankets.

I pick up the knife from the center of the pine kitchen table and bring the blade to the top of my bare legs, let it glide across the skin. The first cut always feels the best, a black orgasm that makes my spine shiver with a timid frost. Blood seeps down my leg and onto the linoleum, red fluid on a perfect floor. I close my eyes and lose consciousness in a river of whisky, pills and mutilation.

#

The sun hides behind a row of vanilla clouds and this might be the first time I’ve been outdoors in two months. I’ve visited Jenna’s grave exactly three times since she died and each trip lasts as long as my heart can take.

I pass the Catholic church and walk through a small gate to the cemetery. I never wanted Jenna to be buried anywhere near a church, but her parents blamed me for her death and I’m sure that everyday her father resists the urge to drive through the front door of my house and drill a screw into my forehead. Calm enters the graveyard and I slowly walk past a mix of Irish names carved into stones. An elderly woman passes by and doesn’t move her eyes. She wears a long brown coat and a naïve expression, oblivious to how our thoughts can wake the dead.

Jenna’s grave sits between those of a boy who died at eleven and a couple that presumably died together. My wife’s stone is shaped like a heart, bits of pink meshed with red orange. She once told me that she wanted to be cremated, but I could never imagine soft skin like hers burnt into a muddle of ashes. I sit on the cool grass, letting a tiny autumn breeze shift my hair in different directions. I want to talk to Jenna but I know her ghost will only cry, her ghost will point to my chest and ask me why I haven’t felt the same pain that she has. The silence is excruciating and I wish that anything around me would make noise, maybe the supple flapping of crows can save my mind from splitting in two while I die on my wife’s grave.

Jenna would say that I was too quiet at the most important moments in our life. It wasn’t that I had nothing to say; my heart had trouble feeding signals to my mouth. Now I don’t know how the blood still pumps throughout my body.

The sun will drop into the horizon soon enough and I’ll wish that I stayed home. I want to tell Jenna that I miss her and that I long for fingers to slide through my hair and put me at ease. I put my head to the ground to see if she’s breathing and I’m greeted by the cold edge of stillness. My eyes are closed and I’m picturing Jenna’s body intertwined with mine, the silhouettes of our figures draped amongst a row of old stones.

A pink tinge of light signals the sun’s nightly death and I don’t want to move. My chest hurts and I can’t remember the last time I cried.

#

Her voice is the siren of a black angel and it takes me a full minute to sit up. She’s standing above me and her pale face is spattered amongst an array of tired stars, a dirty orange moon at the tip of the sky. She’s wearing a tight black blouse with the sleeves cut off, constellations of freckles up and down her arms. She speaks again and I can’t understand the words and I wonder if I died on Jenna’s grave; the entrance to a heaven or hell looks surprisingly like the earth.

“Are you okay?” she says. She kneels next to me and her knees are perfect, red skirt ending just above mid-thigh like the parting of a sensual red sea.

I look around and see that I must have been asleep for hours. Air is thick and purple streaks dance across the night sky. I don’t know who this woman is and part of me is hoping that I’m dead; maybe Jenna’s ghost dyed her hair burgundy and she’s my guide to the underworld. A squirrel scampers by a group of gravestones and I’m convinced that I’m very much alive. I imagine hell’s creatures aren’t tiny and furry.

“Are you okay?” she says again, the pitch of her voice like a child asking for candy. Her hand reaches out to me, fingernails the color of dead leaves. Her touch is anesthetic and I can’t move for a few seconds. I force a deep breath and push her hand away. She brings it to her chest as if heartbroken.

I stand up and look into her eyes, faultless backdrop of blue and green. She’s probably no more than thirty years old and her dimples are pinched, like a timid teenage girl before her prom.

“I’m fine,” I say. I’ve been here too long and I need to go home.

She pulls me by the arm and smiles. “Don’t worry,” she says. “This happened to me a couple times after my husband died. I guess I still wanted to sleep near him.”

I nod and try to focus on the empty feeling in my chest, my heart at home in a Tupperware container. She’s lost someone too. but you could never tell from the way the bangs fall in front of her face, slices of wine-colored paint against virgin canvas.

She looks down at the stone and sighs. “Was she your wife?”

“Yeah. She killed herself and it sometimes it feels like it was a double suicide.”

The woman rubs the sides of her skirt and takes a single step towards me. “I’m Treycey,” she says. “I know what it’s like losing someone so close to you. It’s like one day you woke up and every bit of life passes you by in slow motion.”

My smile is genuine and heart beats to the tune of crickets. “You could say that,” I say.

Treycey extends a hand and I grab it, gently caressing her tiny fingers. I fear that I’ll crush them like a man who doesn’t know his own strength. “How long has your husband been dead? ” She turns away and looks to the distance, past streetlights a mile away. It takes her at least a couple minutes to answer and I remember that it took me weeks before I uttered out loud a single word after Jenna’s death.

“Fourteen months, “she says. Silence creeps between our bodies and nestles between the dying blades of grass below our feet.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Treycey stares at me and my skin feels warm in the soft glow of her eyes. “You look like you could use a hot cup of tea,” she says. “My apartment is only ten minutes from here.”

“Sure. That would be nice,” I say.

Some women are like cats. They can feel the way your heart flutters and know just when to pounce.

#

Treycey’s apartment looks like it was made in the ‘50s and I wouldn’t be surprised if I turned on the television and saw black-and-white episodes of The Twilight Zone. Doilies adorn ceramic lamps and her couch is wrapped in noisy clear plastic. She invites me to sit down, but I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep and never wake up.

“To be honest, I haven’t had anyone over here since Terry died,” she says. “It never felt right to bring someone here, it was like he was painted into the walls and watching my every move.”

She takes me by the hand and sits on the couch. Her ass crinkles into plastic and the noise fills the room. Treycey pats my thigh and frowns. “You’re not going to say much, are you,” she says.

I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I say, I’m never much for conversation.”

I want to pause this scene and analyze what I’m doing here. I’m in the house of a woman I met in a cemetery while visiting my dead wife and she’s making tea for the both of us. Female contact has been lacking for such a long time that I once thought that I’d give up on sex and love and passion and forget that I even exist.

Treycey nods and I know that deep somewhere in her heart that she’s been through the same thing I have. “Tea’s almost ready,” she says. “Follow me into the kitchen.”

Linoleum floors are ripe with offensive brown stripes and her kitchen smells like an Italian bakery. Treycey sets two mugs on the table and aligns them perfectly along cursive patterns of pink threading in the yellow tablecloth. She pours mine first and drops in two cubes of sugar and a splatter of milk from an opaque plastic bottle. I dip the teabag into the hot water and sit for a few minutes repeating the same motion until she pulls her chair next to mine, scraping of wood like a fresh razorblade slithering along a chalkboard.

Treycey takes a sip of her tea and her cheeks are flush with warmth. Red adorns her pale face and only for a second do I realize how beautiful a lonely woman is. She edges closer to me and in a matter of seconds her lips are entwined with mine. She tastes like sugar and hope and kissing her is like cheating on a dead woman.

Treycey’s pussy smells like Halloween morning. I place my hand on her supple strip of brown pubic hair and flick my tongue while she moans. Treycey pulls me by the hair and I’m inside her now, pumping while she wraps her legs around my waist. She’s tight and my cock feels like it’s trapped inside a jar of wet sand. Her face is next to mine and sweat sticks to our skin, sexual residue dripping from our foreheads. She groans and bites down on my shoulder. The pain absolves into pleasure and I know that she’s coming. I finish inside of her and spend a full minute with our bodies stuck together, my weight bearing down on her tired frame.

I fall to her side and she nuzzles into my chest, once burgundy-colored hair now a mess of darkness draped over my skin. Treycey turns to me and points to the stain under my shoulder, smears of fresh blood on her white bed sheets. She walks to the bathroom and returns with a wet washcloth.

“Here,” she says. Her breasts hang as she leans over me. I focus on her nipples and ignore the cold touch of pain. It takes her a few minutes to clean my wound and she tosses the cloth to the side of the bed before lying silently next to me. Neither of us says a word for what feels like hours and before long she swings her legs over the side of the bed and takes small steps to the bathroom, closes and locks the door.

I sit up and try to look at my shoulder to make sure it’s not still bleeding. Treycey’s teeth marks are deep and I’m surprised that there’s not a river of blood trickling down my arm and back. I can hear her crying in the bathroom and I know that I should be doing the same. I wonder if Jenna can see me now and oh if she can I’m sorry for this, sorry for driving her to death and sorry for a life wasted.

Sweat burns the tip of my eyes and I wipe it all away. Treycey’s crying has stopped and I slowly walk to the bathroom door. I knock a few times and call her name, but she doesn’t say anything. The door is locked and sturdy and something tells me that I’ll have to push it in. Few steps back and I barrel into it, door barely opening and splinters of wood cracking and falling to the ground. The bathroom lights are off and I catch myself in the mirror before turning them on. The shower curtain is closed and I see Treycey’s black toenails peeking from underneath. I pull it open and my heart stops beating. Her wrists are slit and maybe she died with a smile on her face. Her arms are crossed and smears of blood dress her whitish breasts, long crimson streaks striking the dark blue of her veins through her skin. Her eyes say that she died in disgust and I imagine that I should feel the same.

I stumble out of the bathroom and pray that my life is a dream.

#

It takes me fifteen minutes to walk to the cemetery from Treycey’s apartment. Someone will find her in due time and a small fraction of my mind hopes that the police will blame me for what’s happened. Prison could be a change of scenery and I’m sure that on a long enough timeline I’ll end up passing away in my sleep.

Bits of carrot-colored light break through the end of the night and soon enough the morning will greet me with its frosty smirk. Before long I’m at Jenna’s grave and on my knees, tears flowing from my eyes like water from a broken bottle. I squish myself into the dirt and lay against the stone, hoping that the sun will save me from the lonely grip of an evening with a woman that wasn’t Jenna.

My face in the ground and hands pulling at the tiny flowers growing around her grave, I apologize and ask her if she’ll forgive me. Ask if it’s my own essence that’s tainted, the one thing that keeps death too close to my heart. Jenna doesn’t respond and there’s a howl beyond the cemetery. I sit up with my back to Jenna’s stone and stare ahead for minutes, looking through the lost spirits walking through the graveyard. I know I could join them at any point and I’m welcome to leave this world with a giant fucking smear of my own blood.

The sun starts to nudge through a coverlet of grey fog and I wonder how I’ll spend my last day alive. I put my ear to the ground again and hear Jenna speaking to me, telling me that it’s time. She tells me that I know what I have to do, I know where I’ll end up and it’s all unfounded graciousness on the part of a vacant soul that’s alone in a world where the dead are more honest and true than the living.

Small steps away from Jenna’s grave. It’ll only be a matter of hours before I can see her again.