The liquid sky opens above and my eyes burn with bright blue light. A chill slithers throughout my legs and into my heart and I wonder if I’m finally dead. I wonder if my blood has finally decided to pump the other way. I still hear her voice in my head, so I must be alive. If this was heaven, every bit of her would be erased from my memory. Kley kneels down next to me and pokes me in the chest.

“Get up,” he says. “We have an appointment in twenty minutes.”

Legs move first and I try to stand up. I shake off the small bits of dirt from my jacket and look around. It could be early evening and the outside of the motel room is hazy. My eyes blur and I don’t want to know what’s in store for tonight. My hands are shaking and I don’t know why. Kley pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. He offers me one but I shake my head.

“Come on,” he says. “They’re good for you.”

The sun is beginning its descent overhead and I wish I could follow it to wherever it’s going. Kley leans against the motel room door, his black hair standing out against the vomit-colored paint. One hand is in his leather jacket pocket, probably holding onto a knife. Or gun. Neither would surprise me. I finger the dirty plastic of my hospital bracelet and take a deep breath, as Kley finishes his smoke and heads into the room. The door slams shut behind me and suddenly I yearn for what’s left of the daylight.

Kley removes his jacket and tosses it on the armchair next to the bathroom door. His black duffel bag is open on the bed and the room’s faint light reflects off one of his scalpels. The television is off, but the room is far from silent. I hear her voice resonating through my skull. Through my lungs, chest, intestines. It travels down into my legs and tears me down.

Kley walks into the bathroom and closes the door behind him. I can hear him talking to himself. I sit on the bed and stare at the blank television screen. My reflection is haggard and blurry. I haven’t shaved in weeks and the stubble is starting to cover the scar on my cheek. Nothing will ever hide the scar on my heart.

Kley flushes the toilet and walks out of the bathroom. He has a sick smile on his face, like he just fucked someone’s sister and wants to brag about it in detail.

“He’ll be here in a few minutes,” he says.

I nod and lay back on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, I see a series of yellow and beige stains. One eye closed, my finger traces their outlines.

“It might be a long night,” Kley says.

I hear a car pull up outside of the room and my eyes lose track of the ceiling stains.

“Get up,” Kley says.

His smile is gone and his soul floats out of the room. The man knocks at the door and it startles me. For a moment, I want to run into the bathroom and lock the door. I want to turn the faucet on in the bathtub and wait for it to fill up. Wait for it to engulf me. When you’ve already died once, it’s hard to follow that up in style. It’s hard to take that plunge again and make it look better than it did before. Kley opens the door and the man stands there, embarrassed.

“Can we make this quick,” he says. “My wife will notice I’m gone if I’m not home in a few hours.”

Kley’s smile returns and he motions for the man to come into the room. He winks at me, as he closes the door. “We’re going to have a blast,” he says.

The man looks uncomfortable. He’s dressed in loose-fitting blue jeans and an untucked button-down dress shirt. He’s no older than forty, but is fidgeting like a toddler at the doctor’s office. He slips off his wedding ring and places it on top of the television.

“Don’t let me forget that,” he says. “My wife would be pissed.”

The final ray of light from the outside world shines in and circles around the ring. I blink my eyes and darkness begins to fill the room. The man is a bit overweight, but has a handsome face. He has a strong frame and probably played football in high school. His deep brown eyes are already apologetic.

“Where are you guys from,” he says, his voice twinkling with lost echoes.

Kley shakes his head and I look down.

“We’re better off not discussing who we are,” Kley says. “This is about you, not us.”

“I’m sorry,” the man replies.

He stands up and looks out the window. I wonder if he misses the sunlight, too.

I cross my legs and try to act a bit more relaxed. This is my second week working with Kley, but I know I’ll never be entirely comfortable with what we do. When people say that they’re uncomfortable in their own skin, it usually means that they’d rather be dead. They’d rather be an obituary, a memory, even ashes in a fucking bronze tin. They’d rather be anything than a walking pile of flesh and bones and lies. Kley reaches into his open duffel bag and pulls out a twelve-inch blade with a polished pine base. It looks sturdy and I can see the joy in his eyes, as he wipes the knife down with the crumpled bed sheets. The man squirms as Kley does this. His eyes begin to water over. He looks excited and scared.

“Sit over here,” Kley says.

The man sits on the edge of the bed, next to me. I get up and immediately feel nauseous. I don’t want to be anywhere near this waste of skin.

“My wife loves me,” he says. “She’ll be so disappointed.”

“We’re all disappointed in ourselves at one point or another,” Kley says.

That sick smile is in full gleam. I’ll never get used to this. I’ll never walk out of this room after this without my heart in my throat.

“Which one?” Kley twirls his fingers in the dank motel air.

The man looks down at his hands, holds them out in front of him. He wiggles his fingers and plays with the dust floating in the room. He puts his right hand down and under his thigh, then does the same with his left. “Let’s get rid of the left one,” he says.

Kley nods and I’m now sick.

“Sit back and don’t squirm,” Kley says.

The man nods and rolls up his sleeves and reveals arms so hairy that his daughter could probably braid them into little curls. Kley takes the man’s left arm and slaps it lightly. I know what he’s thinking in his head: the more blood, the better. I open the duffel bag and pull out the large wooden cutting board. The stains of the past are gone. As much as a maverick as he is, Kley likes our work to be as organized and as clean as possible.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” the man says. He pulls out his wallet and hands me a wad of cash. Crisp, tough bills, fresh from the ATM or the bank or the man’s safe behind the faux Van Gogh painting in the master bedroom of his house. I count it quickly. Eight hundred dollars. He’s paid in full.

“Put your arm on this,” Kley says.

He’s already put on his latex gloves. The man puts his left hand on the cutting board, the edge of the wood touching as far as up his elbow. Kley nods to me and I turn on the television, putting the volume up so loud that the man’s eyes squint. In just a moment the theme from “Three’s Company” will fill the room, but the resulting scene will be far from humorous.

“Hold still,” Kley says.

The first swipe connects and the man recoils, the veins in his neck pulsating and trying to bust through his skin. Kley takes another swing and blood squirts on both of their faces. Kley’s gloves are already crimson and he’s only ten seconds into the process. He continues to cut, holds down the man’s arm at the elbow as he slices the hand off at the wrist. This is the fourteenth time I’ve seen this in front of me and my reaction is still the same. I clench my fists and think of my wife. I think of our son. I wonder how he’s doing. Wonder if he misses his father.

Tears fill the man’s eyes and the screaming begins. His voice is almost as loud as the ones on the old television set in front of us. He continues to scream as Kley digs in, now almost through the bone. When he finishes, he picks up the hand and tosses it on the ground. It lands with a small thud that I can surprisingly hear amongst the man’s crying and chaos. Kley wipes his brow and looks at me. He nods and gives me a thumbs up. I shake my head and look away. The man is on the ground, grasping the spot where his hand was once connected.

“Beautiful, ain’t it,” Kley says.

I pick up the wedding ring from the top of the television and kneel down next to the man, who’s now telling himself that he’s sorry. He looks up at me, tears dripping down his cheeks, and says that he’s sorry for everything he’s done. I place the ring on his chest, force a smile and stand up. Kley walks into the bathroom and turns on the faucet after tossing the bloodied gloves in the wastebasket. I grab the cutting board and knife and wrap them in the bed sheets. They’re tossed into a black heavy duty trash bag and left near the door. Kley walks out of the bathroom, looking clean, slicked back hair as dark as pine tar. He picks up the phone on the nightstand near the bed and dials the front desk.

“There’s been an accident in room 129,” he says.

The man has now propped himself up against the wall near the television. I walk over to him and stare directly into his eyes.

“Thank you,” he says.

I nod and turn to Kley, who has everything packed up and ready to go. I pick up my black messenger bag and toss it over my shoulder. Kley picks up the trash bag and his duffel bag and slings both over the same shoulder.

“See you around, buddy,” Kley says to the man.

We leave behind the smell of sweat, blood and apathy and walk into the parking lot. Kley unlocks the doors to the van and I jump in. I kick away the empty beer bottles on the floor when I sit down. He pulls a cell phone out of the center console and scrolls through the calls. He sighs and looks at me, icy blue eyes freezing a hole in my face. We have to be in Hartford by tomorrow afternoon, he says.

I nod and take a deep breath. He starts the engine and leaves the motel parking lot. After ten minutes on the road, he pulls over to a gas station.

“I need smokes,” he says.

After he leaves, I notice a blonde woman and her young son sitting in an SUV across the parking lot. She’s leaning over, kissing the boy on the forehead, probably telling him that she loves him. Probably telling the child that he makes her smile, that he is the light of her life. I wonder what my own son is doing right now. There’s nobody there to tell him how special he is, tell him how much of an angel he’s become.

My hospital bracelet dangles from my wrist and I wrap my fingers over it. It’s dirty, but I’ll never remove it. I pull out the paper in my inside jacket pocket and unfold it. The handwritten note from wife still smells like her, a faint touch of mulberry and autumn. It still has a small tinge of her perfume buried deep behind the fibers and ink. Holding it to my nose, I inhale and close my eyes. The last line is something that I wrote in black pen last week, under her purple cursive writing. “I’ll love you forever. I’ll love you even after the sky explodes, even after the world is cold and black and dead.”

It was the last thing she said to me before I killed her.