Photo © 2012 Markus Spiering
Click here for original image.

A hundred geeks with cameras. Yup, and I was buried smack-dab in the middle of ‘em. Didn’t want to be there. Didn’t mean to be there.

I remember in a high-school science class, we saw a film of an amoeba eating a paramecium. The amoeba’s body flowed around its prey, and after it had the poor bug surrounded, it just, kinda… digested it, right there, just like that. The paramecium squiggled and squirmed, tried valiantly to escape, but too little, too late. And then—poof!—it shimmered and was absorbed into the predator. It was gone.

That was me, that poor, little paramecium. My goofy boyfriend pulled me in before I knew what was going on. And by the time I realized what was going on, I was surrounded, and being digested by an amoeba, and unable to escape.

Chet had begged me to come along. He said I’d enjoy it. For the record, I didn’t. But I was glad he was finally enjoying something. He’s been so bent out of shape since he lost his job last April. Laid off on April the first, if you can get that joke.

We scaled back on our standard of living. That didn’t bug me so much. But what really surprised me was how much it got him down. He stopped doing anything constructive, spent all day watching TV, wasn’t looking for work, said we’d do fine on his unemployment check.

We’ve been surviving on peanut butter and ramen noodles and pasta and frozen burritos. I don’t remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal.

I started by bugging him about his lack of work. He said he wanted a little vacation. I gave him a little vacation, then asked again. He said he was trying, but that nothing was available. I didn’t believe him, not that much. I asked him what job ads he had responded to each day. Most days, he just ignored me. Some days, yelled at me. I told him we could no longer afford cable TV. He convinced his parents to pay the bill.

I thought of getting ahold of a sledgehammer and having an “accident” with the TV set, but then I thought twice: we might need to sell it someday.

He was partially right, of course. There were no jobs in his field. But what bugged me most was that he was letting it get to him. His mind began wasting away to nothing, nothing at all, all day everyday. And as each day continued, he sank lower into the couch, and further into pity party.

I didn’t know how to snap him out of it. But his birthday gift did. One of his old office buddies sent him a digital camera, along with a really cool-looking book about how to take fun pictures about anything at all.

So when he threw himself into the hobby, and the hobby became an obsession, and a obsession became an endeavor, and when he began studying photography and framing and composition and lighting, and posted photo after photo to Flickr, and when he began hanging out with other camera-heads, and started talking about pursuing it professionally… I wanted to object. But not for the reason you might think. I wanted to object, because I was beginning to feel ignored.

But at least he was smiling again, and I had missed his smile. And the TV remained powered-off, except for the weekly exhibitions of his latest photos, which he would force me to watch, no matter how many hours I had worked that day.

Then, when he begged me to come to this big gathering of camera-heads, I gave in. I didn’t want to at first, but he pushed me and pressed me, and then he cuddled up next to me and told me about how much fun it was going to be to get away and that we hadn’t had a vacation in forever and that I needed a break—which was true. And he kissed me, and I melted and said yes. Sigh.

I hated it, didn’t enjoy it at all. There were no other camera-head-significant-others there. The food was okay, but the guest speaker spoke only camera-ese, and told only stupid camera jokes and camera stories. Then those assembled talked all afternoon about gadgets and techniques and awards, and showed each other the contents of their camera cases. Chet even got some business advice, which may or may not have been good advice, but he was enjoying himself, even though I had no idea what anyone was talking about.

“This is my girlfriend, Katy.”

And I smiled and faded into the background, maybe fondled a drink and tried to look interested in what they were saying while pondering the intricacies of the room’s potted flora. Too much, too far, too long. I was out of it. I so wanted to go home.

We started toward the door, walked out into the afternoon sun. I made a move toward the car, but Chet grabbed my hand and pulled me in the opposite direction. I looked up and saw that we were surrounded by a growing crowd, which was closing in around us on all sides. I was trapped, and one of the geeks with a camera was pointing it right at me. The other targets pointed their cameras back at him, but I was defenseless, hair akimbo, probably with a piece of spinach stuck between my teeth… not that it mattered, as no one could see my teeth.

The geek said, “Alright! Ready everybody?! Cheeeezzze!”

And everyone said, “Cheeeezzze!”

“Hold on!” He interrupted them, futzing with his camera. “Okay…”

“Quick!” said Chet. “Somebody fire before he reloads!” And raised his camera and took aim.

And that’s when the geek pulled the trigger.

My soul is weary with sorrow;
strengthen me according to your word. (Psalm 119:28)

Flashlight in hand, I progress slowly down each step, toward the dungeon in which I keep my soul. Repeating drops of condensation drip, drip, drip and echo off the cold, dead walls. The scent of urine and defecation permeates the air, and intermingles with a poison must.

I loathe this place, which reeks of hell and depression.

I approach the cage. My keys rattle against the thick, steel slats, as I wrestle with the heavy padlock.

The noise rouses my soul from her bed on the concrete. She glares at me in terror, her once luminous countenance now merely flickering a dim grey, bruised and mottled from years of abuse and neglect. She slinks into the opposite corner. I swing the gate open, slowly enter the cage, but do not approach her. The horror of a hundred thousand past encounters etches itself into her eyes, as they follow me, tracking me.

I stoop in my corner of the cage. I try not to touch the floor with my knees or hands, but I cannot get down to her eye-level, because she is balled up tight as an armadillo bug, her eyes peeking out from behind emaciated fingers.

“I wanted you to make me popular, powerful,” I explain. “I expected you to do whatever necessary, whatever I demanded. I thought that would bring me fame and fortune, and fame and fortune would bring me happiness.”

My eyes stare as into the void.

“But it didn’t work,” stolid. “And now there’s no one left in the house but you and me. And I’ve all but killed you.”

I rise, not knowing what else I might say. I want to tell her I’m sorry, but I know she cannot believe me. I have worn out any trust she may have ever had for me.

“I’ll leave the door open for you. I hope you decide to rejoin me upstairs.” I begin to leave.

Pausing: “For what it’s worth, I promise never to make demands like that of you again. I promise from now on, we’ll only create what we both desire to create. And I’ll never cage you again or attempt to restrain you.”

No answer. No movement.

I return to my favorite space, in the once-bright reaches of my home, a place formerly full of possibilities and promise. Now, dark except for a single, yellow incandescent lamp.

In the distance, a tentative step falls on my ear. And another. Getting closer now.

And the tiniest tear I feel returning to the corner of my dry eye.

Photo © 2011 Gerald Pereira CC BY 2.0

Something a little different today. I signed up to take part in Tony Noland’s Great April Fool’s Day #FridayFlash Blogswap. Tony paired me up with Danielle La Paglia, who has in gracious silence endured my haphazard attempt at keeping to a deadline.

(Oy. Just be thankful you’re not my publisher.)

Danielle and I both wrote a story around the same prompt. I’m posting hers here, and she’s posting my story over on her blog. Tony gave us the following prompt to inspire our stories: “three free tickets to a movie.”

-TimK

Substitute

by Danielle La Paglia

Sandy fingered the tickets in her coat pocket, sliding their slick backs together as she stared at the house. It had seemed like such a good idea when she’d stopped by the theater two days ago, but the thin slips of paper felt inadequate and meaningless now. What good were three free tickets when they’d lost so much? She thought of putting the car in drive and heading home, but John stepped onto the porch and waived. There was no turning back.

A gust of wind whipped her hair across her face as she stepped from the car. The icy blast beat against her exposed cheeks and sent a flurry of snowflakes into the car before she could slam the door shut. Even the wind knew it was a bad idea.

She ran to the shelter of the porch, hoping to sneak a quick hug from John, a small shot of courage and comfort to push her through. But Maddy shoved the screen door open and ushered her siblings onto the porch. Sorrow hung on them like a heavy cloak, paling their skin, darkening the shadows in their eyes. Even seven-year-old Emily had lost her sparkle. The bright pink smile she used to wear was a soft peach line tugged down at the corners.

Sandy knew she was a poor substitute for the mother they’d lost. She wasn’t trying to replace her. She only hoped to give them a break from the reality that had been forced upon them, even if it was only for a few hours. But seeing their somber expressions, she felt the sting of her mistake. Only time would make it better, not her, not this. She wanted to run, make a hasty retreat and leave them to what was left of their broken family, but John spoke.

“You girls behave and try to have a good time.” He hugged each one in turn then Maddy hustled them down the steps. “Thank you,” he said and squeezed Sandy’s hand. They’d been dating nearly a year and, despite the three-year-old divorce settlement, it was still hard on the girls. Sandy gave a weak smile then jogged to the car.

They rode in near silence to the theater. Each of Sandy’s attempts at conversation were shut down with a one-word answer or a half-hearted nod. Resigned to their silence, she turned on the radio and let the music try to warm the stale atmosphere instead.

As they stepped into the lobby, Emily and Sarah’s faces brightened. At seven and nine, they were amazed at the beauty of the grand theater, pointing to heavy velvet curtains held back with gold ropes and the scrolling wood ornaments decorating the walls. Then they lifted their faces in wonder at the elaborately painted ceiling. The knot in Sandy’s stomach loosened until her eyes met Maddy’s. The fourteen-year-old’s face was set in a cold stare. It took all of Sandy’s strength to stand her ground and force a smile.

An usher finally led them to their seats where they once again sat in silence with only the occasional whisper from the little ones pointing out some new discovery. The house lights eventually dimmed and a hush fell over the audience. The first bars of music filled the room. The curtain rose, and the ballerinas took the stage.

Emily and Sarah were spellbound. Their eyes glued to the dancers—children twirled across the stage, tin soldiers came to life, and a sugar plum fairy enchanted them all. The glow in their eyes raised a lump in Sandy’s throat. She’d done the right thing. And as the saying went, two out of three wasn’t bad.

Emily and Sarah’s giggles and high-pitched chatter filled the car on the ride home, a warm contrast to the start of their journey. When they pulled into the driveway, the wind had died, leaving a peaceful blanket of snow across the yard and roof top. The younger girls clutched their shiny red nutcrackers and hugged Sandy goodbye. Again Maddy ushered them through the door as John and Sandy stood on the porch.

“Thank you for this. Their smiles…” His voice cracked; tears glistened in his eyes.

“You’re welcome.” He kissed her cheek then followed the girls inside. She was almost to the car when the screen door slammed behind her. She spun to find Maddy jogging down the steps.

“Sandy?” Her face was softer, her eyes wider, more innocent somehow.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” Maddy gave a soft smile then ran back into the house.

Sandy stood beside her car letting the words of a child warm her. Today wasn’t a substitute, but it had been a welcome reprieve, and that was more than enough for her.

Original photo © 2009 sflovestory CC BY 2.0

Head down in the middle of her solid mahogany desk, eyelids blocking the mid-morning sun from the searing pain behind the bridge of her nose, the expanse of her office morphed into a loosely packed suburb of rich greens and blues. A month of late-night facts and figures melted into the insanity of random imagination. Her Starbucks dark-roast tasted like Kahlúa. The bottle of store-brand ibuprofen became a mailman in sexy shorts, delivering packages of happiness.

“We finally made it!” she bragged.

He wrapped strong hands around the back of her shoulders and her aching neck muscles, and firmly massaged. “Mmm,” she groaned, and stretched and relaxed her neck.

“I’ll pick up the kids and meet you at six?” he said.

She nodded, laid back on her mahogany deckchair, closed her eyes again, and sipped her Kahlúa. A long, deep sigh.

Then thunder boomed from the overcast sky.

“What the hell do I pay you for?!” The voice pierced through her brain.

“Ssh,” she mumbled to the intruder, with his doughnut gut, hulking shoulders, and close-cropped greying hair. “Inside voices, please, Bart.”

“Hey, you do the wine, you pay the time.” His voice remained as loud as before.

“I’m not hung over, and that doesn’t even make sense,” she said.

“Right!” The thunder felt like it was getting closer. “Look, I don’t care what you do on your own time, just don’t let it affect your work performance.”

Breathe deeply. Jackass. “What do you want, Bart?”

“We need to move Project Limerick up another month. I need an updated schedule by five this afternoon.” He smirked.

“Half my staff is out with the flu,” she said. “And I don’t even know what we can trim to do it a month faster.”

“We aren’t trimming anything. You’ll just have to rearrange the schedule and work faster.” He turned to leave.

“In what universe?” Pang! A burst of pain shot through her left eyeball, and she squinted.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t care what you do in your free time, but when it starts interfering with your job performance, I begin to get concerned. You can sleep at home, not at work, or you can find a job that doesn’t interfere so much with your personal life. Got it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m leaving at five, so get that schedule to me.” He slammed the door on his way out.

A tear appeared at the corner of her left eye. She sniffled.

When was the last time I had “free time”? Anger. She couldn’t remember.

Nausea tunneled through her torso.

When was the last time I had a personal life? She remembered the last boyfriend she had lost. He was nice. Not every man is a jackass.

That thought consumed her last bit of emotional energy.

Now on automatic, she walked through through the cubicle passageway toward the exit. Bart stood in an employee’s cube-office, and she took just enough time to shoot him a “Fuck you!” on her way past.

She slumbered for over 18 hours, and dreamed sweet dreams.

The next morning, over craigslist and coffee, the company CEO called her. He said most of the department had walked out the previous afternoon, inspired by her act of defiance. Her fault.

Then he said, “So Bart’s not with the company anymore. Can you take his job? At least for a little while?”

Photo © 2007 Randal Cooper CC BY-SA 2.0

Mark, timid little creature, he stammered through, asked me to “dinner or something, sometime.” I smiled and told him I’d love to, because he’s cute and sweet, and he plays a beautiful guitar. He’ll never dominate the top of the heap, but you always know where you stand with him, and you can trust him always to be faithful and to do the right thing. Mark, it turns out, is also a great kisser, which I knew he was going to be. And deeply passionate. Sigh.

Tony, on the other hand, he lives the life of the stereotypical alpha male. Six feet, 190 pounds, works out at the gym every day and benches 350. Top dog in his world, and he knows it. So when asked me to drinks, he already knew I’d say yes. You could see it in his eyes. He strolled by while I was halfway through my run on the treadmill, stopped for a minute and admired me— I wanted him to take me right then and there.

Then there’s Sean. Everyone else thinks he’s stuck up, but he makes me laugh. I stare through his glasses, and I can see mathematical formulas projected from his eye-lenses. And then he opens his mouth, and tries to explain them. He literally has no idea that no one can understand a thing he says. But he patiently answers—or tries to—every question I ask, explaining complex theorems in great detail. I’m no rocket scientist—though as Sean would quickly point out, this has nothing to do with rocket science. I could hardly care less how to find large prime numbers or whether the Goldbach Conjecture can be proved. Sean never asked me out. I asked him. And that meant I could ping him to see how he would react. Lots o’ fun! Like I said, he makes me laugh.

And then the three found out about each other.

Now, you’d think by now that I’d have a fair amount of experience with my lovers finding out about each other. And you would be wrong. Most of my boyfriends move on long before they see enough to suspect anything out of the ordinary, and I have become very good at appearing “too busy for a real relationship,” as one of those past boyfriends put it. That hurt, I’ll admit. But it’s better that he believe me a busy, high-powered executive, rather than a merely adventurous, high-powered executive—in other words, the truth.

Boyfriends quickly learn to expect not to see or talk to me at work. It’s better that way. The office is off-limits to personal issues. Sue, my assistant, has developed dodging into a fine art. More than once, she’s covered for my private life, because she thinks it’s strictly my own business what I do with it, and because she feels important when she’s indispensable, and probably because she enjoys having a little dirt on me, too. All told, we have an effective relationship.

Office. Home. The gym. The supermarket where I buy groceries. The bar I hang out at sometimes. My favorite coffee shop. Each is a separate world unto itself, and ne’er shall any of them overlap. That’s how I keep the compartments of my life separate, and organized. And it keeps me out of trouble.

So, you’re wondering now, how did this all blow up in my face? Well, it wasn’t anything I did, at least, and there was no way I could have prevented it. I mean, what are the chances that a starving artist, a jock, and an egghead would all accidentally meet each other?

Seriously, you’ll get a kick out of this.

It all started at a chocolate shop. Yes, a chocolate shop. It seems, Mark and Tony ran into each other both buying the same sports-car-shaped novelty sweets for Valentine’s Day, each for his own girlfriend, who drives a red Camaro. Apparently, that coincidence wasn’t bad enough; they had to start sharing— Who ever thought it? What guys “share” stories of their love lives with each other?

Of course, both quickly realized that they were dating the same woman. Tony threatened Mark, which was probably not the way to chase Mark away. I mean, just think about this for a moment: you don’t scare away a passionate artist by threatening him. Stupid idiots, the lot of them. As if that weren’t bad enough, Tony naturally obsessed over his suspicions, hired a private dick, who had no trouble discovering Sean.

The first I heard of any of this was when the lot of them barged into my office at work, all three of them together, despite Sue’s warnings that I was meeting with an important investor.

After summing up the situation, Tony ordered me to tell the other two to “jack off.” I felt a little flush and wanted to rip his shirt off, breathed deeply to calm my nerves. Mark apologized for the loss of his Valentine’s gift to me, but informed me that he was in love with me, and that threats meant nothing to him. I mean, I love him, too. But this is the exact situation I was trying to avoid. Sean looked like he was going to cry, but agreed that I should choose, and warned Tony that he had already contacted his lawyer.

Men are too much to handle sometimes.

Sue still stood in the doorway, panicked. I thanked her, so she wouldn’t have to witness any more of this travesty. Then I sat the other three down and explained to them in my most professional tone that each of them was special to me, and while I was sorry that they “found out this way,” they were being unfair in asking me to choose one over another. I told them I hadn’t lied to any of them, that really felt strongly about each of them, and that I wanted to continue to see all of them. I had heard of multilateral romances of that sort. Maybe it could work. I was going to find out.

“But if you really can’t handle that,” I admitted, “I guess it just can’t work out between us. I’m sorry.”

Whereupon all three of them stood and, without another word, walked out the door and left my life forever.

Good thing I have a liquor cabinet in my office.

Photo © 2010 rawryder CC BY-ND 2.0)

He smiled over his Sunday morning oatmeal, plain and steaming, his grapefruit cut into halves. Smiled with his eyes. Gotta remember, always with the eyes.

“That’s your problem,” pointing at his wife’s sausage and pancakes, drenched with syrup.

“And that’s yours!” She pointed back, at his grapefruit, her well-rounded face slinging condemnation.

“It wouldn’t hurt you to get up off your ass once in a while, either, and exercise.” He suddenly realized he was no longer smiling. Remember, always with the eyes.

He had read that people who smile with their eyes live longer. Seriously. Researchers at Wayne State University in Michigan studied photographs of baseball players from the 1950′s. Those who were smiling with their eyes in the photos lived an average of 7 years longer than those who were not smiling at all.

A week later, he eyed her toast, golden brown and delicious. Of its own accord, his hand reached out and snarfed a slice.

“Be careful,” she said. “That has butter on it!”

He knew she was mocking him, but he couldn’t help but chuckle. He stopped, staring at it, debating whether to put it down or to put it in his mouth.

“You’re too much!” She interrupted his thoughts.

He focused on her headlight-blue eyes, which were beaming astonishment at him. He grinned at her and shoved the dripping shingle into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

Gack! He choked. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

The following month, she slept poorly. He made her breakfast, between shudders of disgust, just the way she liked it. He brought her a tray in bed. Then he leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

“What’s that for?” Surprise.

“What’s what for?” he asked.

She motioned at the tray. “Breakfast,” she said. “And you haven’t kissed me like that in… forever.”

“What? I can’t kiss my own wife?!”

A pause.

He stared at the tray of what might be loosely termed food, grinned sardonicism. “I still don’t know how you can eat that.”

“See!?” As if to prove her point. “That’s what I’m talking about. You can kiss my fat ass!”

His face fell. “I just want you stick around. Because I’ll miss you when you die.”

After a year, they were carving smiles on each others’ whole-wheat bagels and feeding each other bites of egg-white omelet with onion and green pepper.

Sundays passed. The weekend of his big promotion at work. The months after the big layoff. The war. The great blizzard and other winters. Lazy weekends reclining under the summer sunrise. The colors of the autumns, the freshnesses of springtime.

She sat shiva with their daughter and sons, friends and family, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Onto a bagel slice, she carved two eyes and a grin.

“I already miss his smile,” her daughter’s voice said sadly.

Crows’ feet around her eyes, the old woman hugged and kissed her little girl. “I know. But it’s still here,”—resting her palm on the younger woman’s heart—”and will never die.”

Quiet, pretty, young, she rarely smiles, even when serving customers their coffee and muffins. Each morning, I make it a point to grin long and broad, with “please” and “thanks.” But in return I rarely receive more than a rote, “Café Americano, two sixty-five.”

Then, at about 10 o’clock, she takes a break, to sit and stare. The sun peeks around the edge of a cloud overhead, now gleaming through her tender blue eyes and warming her luxurious, dark hair. Her face softens, and my heart melts, and I wonder what she thinks about.

At that moment, she raises her hand to her chin, and the sleeve of her black uniform slides down enough to reveal pieces of blue and red scribbled into her arm.

“What’s your tattoo?” I ask.

I myself have never mustered the will and courage to subject myself to the tattooist’s needle.

A frown etches its way across her face. “Nothing,” she mutters, her eyes still transfixed on the outside scene.

I shrug my eyebrows, as if to shrug off the hurt I feel. I return to the joyful fantasy of my book– Or rather, I am just about to return to it, when the girl silently unbuttons her sleeve, rolls it up, holds out her wrist, revealing a half a butterfly, its intricate wings painted in dazzling blue. The half-butterfly sits on the stem of a rose blossom, deep green and red.

“Wow,” I say. “That’s really beautiful.” Then, “Why only half a butterfly?”

“The other half– flew away,” she says, returns to her window view, her frown now more pronounced than ever.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Not your fault,” she mumbles.

I try pull my eyes from hers. And fail.

I imagine her smiling, laughing, bonding with friends, close to her loved ones. Her desolate sadness stabs through my gut.

I could argue with her. True, it’s not my fault that her best friend died, or moved away, or whatever happened. But I can still feel sorry. I’m allowed to feel sorry, not just with pity, but out of human kindness. In some societies, the community would rally around, sit, mourn with her. How can I sit here next to her and feel nothing? Or worse, feel only discomfort and dread, wanting only to escape from her presence, back into the safety of my novel.

But arguing with would accomplish nothing.

She sees me staring, I’m sure. If I were she, if our positions were reversed, I’d notice her staring. I’d wonder what kind of kook she was. I’d worry what kind of mess I’d gotten myself into.

“I hope,” I squeak– I swallow. “I hope that you can hang out with some friends after your shift, at least.”

She grunts.

“I wish there were something I could do,” I admit.

She glares at me. “Well, there isn’t. Haley was the only real friend I had. And now she’s gone. She was the only one who knew how to love everyone as they were. There will never be another person like her, ever. So don’t even try!”

She runs to the ladies room, and I can feel numerous pairs of eyes throwing glances in our direction.

I gulp down the rest of my now-tepid coffee, place the cup and saucer in the dish-return. Carrying my book, I stroll toward the exit, already having decided to return tomorrow morning to see how she’s getting along.

I’m staring at her animated features from across a half-eaten slab of flounder and a mostly-empty glass of Chardonnay. She drones on. Still pretty as when I first met her, but I wonder if I were to choke on an errant bone if it would give me an excuse…

No such luck.

You wouldn’t think it possible that any one person could know this much about Magnum, P.I. Much to my surprise, you would be wrong. I bet she could recite every word of the script of every episode by heart. Apparently, she maintains her own very complete “Nitpicker’s Guide to Magnum, P.I.” site on the web. I say “apparently,” because I haven’t seen it myself. Probably only two or three people in the universe have. I chuckle at the thought. I guess the chuckle is well-timed, because she doesn’t seem offended.

Rather, she nods enthusiastically. “Really!” Her eyebrows shoot up, eyes wide. “No kidding!”

“But what bugs me most,” she says, “is how he always lets people walk all over him.”

I’m not as expert as she is, but I recall Magnum as a hard-boiled, Vietnam vet, an ’80′s TV private-eye, fearless and shrewd, the sort of guy who could whoop ass in a bar-fight but knows better than to get into one. Don’t let any of that give pause to her tirade. I guess the good-looking, sensitive, Hawaiian-surf image works even in the 21′st century.

Or maybe it’s Tom Selleck’s mustache. He’s wearing a goatee nowadays, isn’t he? I reach up and stroke my fingers around my own mustache and goatee, wondering whether it has anything to do with why she’s on a date with me.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Don’t you think that he would have been less interesting a character, if they had written him without those faults?”

She stares at me, puzzled, as if I had just proposed that water was a dry liquid. “I suppose you’re right,” she says. “That certainly wouldn’t feel right.” Her face falls.

Oh yeah. A dream date. Or a nightmare. And stuck in it for another hour, because of the Chardonnay.

We eat in silence for several minutes, listening to the din of conversations we aren’t having, interrupted by the occasional clatter of a glass or plate from a dinner we aren’t enjoying. I happen to glance across the table. Her head hangs low; a clump of her hair is painting tiny, abstract lines onto her green beans. I smile without thinking. Something about her endears her to me. Sometimes we don’t understand why we fall for the ones we love.

“Jeanette?” I say.

She lifts her head. “Yeah?”

I reach across the table and push the wayward strands behind her shoulder. “Will you share my favorite dessert with me, if I share your favorite episode with you?”

Something tells me she has them all on DVD.

Photo © 2007 Rachel Cobcroft CC 2.0 BY NC SA

“We’re both dead,” he says, “long dead. But that doesn’t mean we can’t grow alive again!”

She can hardly believe what she’s hearing, of course. A fellow zombie, wanting to be human? Aspiring to be like them? If she didn’t know any better, she would think he was still one of them. But his pallor, his fetor, his unkempt appearance, his bulging eyes, his expressionless countenance, even the moan in his voice, all point to the sophistication that characterize their kind.

How? she wonders, Again human? One cannot undo death, cannot un-lose one’s innocence.

“No,” she says. “They want. We good.”

He shakes his head at her. “You have it all wrong. They don’t strive to be like us, and we don’t fulfill their wishes. They just want to be accepted, to be included.”

“We give them!” she shoots back.

“We give them neither acceptance nor inclusion. Don’t you see? We are the ones who have lost our souls.”

He presses on, and she hears his voice quickening, and wonders how he can talk so fast. “We tell ourselves that we’re better than them, but we only believe it because we hear it all the time. We don’t hold their answers; they hold ours.”

She stares at him a moment, processing his words, almost too much for her. He’s wrong. He’s sacrificing everything she’s worked for, everything she is. She considers destroying him, like the humans sometimes do. Has a zombie ever destroyed one of his own kind?

“You used to be human,” he says. “Have you forgotten already? Don’t you remember what it was like to think, to feel, what it was like to live? What it was like to love?”

She wonders: is that why he’s doing this, betraying their kind, out of some misguided love? Indeed, love was a powerful emotion.

He reaches his hand out and caresses her face. “I remember how you used to be filled with life, how you used to smile at me. How long has it been since we smiled?” And the corner of his lip inches up, stiffly, just a little.

Clearly he is not a full zombie. He is still somehow part human. “You, human,” she says, and she moves to grab him, to attack him as she would a human.

But he does not try to escape. Instead he says, “You can no longer hurt me, my sweet. You can no longer destroy me. I have journeyed to death, and I am on my way back. I’ve met those who have returned to life, and they’ve shown me the way. It all starts up here,”—he points at his head—”in the mind, and here,”—he puts his hand to his chest—”in the heart. None of us has really lost the ability to live; we’ve just forgotten how. All you need to do is to accept it.”

He gazes longingly into her eyes, a stare she just barely remembers. She used to be human, an existence she shed a lifetime ago, an existence that embarrasses her, that she wishes she could forget. His gaze bores into her long-forgotten soul, and she wants to lash out at him, to destroy him. But she also longs for it, for his affection.

She takes his hand in hers and brings it to her lips. She has forgotten how to kiss, but the feeling of his skin against hers reminds of all she has forgotten. She looks to him for a reaction.

“It’s okay,” he says. “You’re allowed to feel. You’re allowed to live. Don’t ever let them tell you otherwise, never again. Join us, and I’ll show you how.”

She never imagined that this would be the defining moment of her life.

Born Abigail Little, she had grown up with platinum blonde hair and deep brown eyes. As a teenager, she obsessed about her appearance and social behavior. She was smart and pretty, funny and good-natured. She was the girl every boy wanted to kiss and every other girl wanted to be.

As an adult, she married and mothered. Crow’s feet etched their way around her eyes, and though still potentially attractive, looks mattered progressively less to her. She bought nice clothes for her children; sweats and sneakers for herself. Her hair became frizzy and wiry. She put all her energy into her family, all her time into her home.

When the kids were old enough for school, she took a job as groundskeeper at a local amusement park. She was always cleaning up someone else’s mess, but she didn’t mind. In fact, it was an honor, for she knew the story of the broken window. It has been said a building can be vacant for years without becoming dilapidated, until even a single window gets broken; and then the whole building will become uninhabitable within days. Abigail knew that just one piece of trash, and her entire world would begin to disintegrate.

It was this passion she threw into her work. As a result, she was late one day. She was late picking up the kids from their after-school program. She got bawled out. Actually, the woman was very nice to this overworked mother. But Abigail couldn’t see it any other way. She had failed her duty.

It was then she realized, she was being controlled by circumstances. She had lost the excitement, her passion for life, her passion for her own life. She lived for everyone else, where she had once lived for herself.

The next day, she blew off work. She got in the car and drove across the state. Then she walked into the First Bank of Everytown, U.S.A., she walked up to a teller, pulled out her gun, and demanded they fill the satchel with cash.