Page 3

Three years back, and counting: An easy call at the time, with none of the usual hysterics involved. But one day, I simply came home knowing I didn’t ever want to wake up the next morning, to have to go to work, and talk to people, and do my job, and act as though nothing were wrong—to see, or know, or worry about anything, ever again. The mere thought of killing myself had become a pure relief, sleep after exhaustion, a sure cure after a long and disgusting illness.

I even had the pills already—for depression, naturally; thank you, Doctor. So I cooked myself a meal elaborate enough to use up everything in my fridge, finally broke open that dusty bottle of good white wine someone had once given me as a graduation present and washed my last, best hope for oblivion down with it, a handful at a time.

When I woke up I had a tube down my throat, and I was in too much pain to even cry about my failure. Dehydration had shrunk my brain to a screaming point, a shaken bag of poison jellyfish. I knew I’d missed my chance, my precious window of opportunity, and that it would never come again. I felt like I’d been lied to. Like I’d lied to myself.

So, with a heavy heart, I resigned myself once more—reluctantly—to the dirty business of living. I walked out the hospital’s front doors, slipped back into my little slot, served out my time. Until last week, when I keeled over while reaching for my notebook at yet one more Professional Development Retreat lecture on stress management in the post-Millennial workplace: Hit the floor like a sack of salt with a needle in my chest, throat narrowing—everything there, then gone, irised inward like some silent movie’s Vaseline-smeared final dissolve. Dead at 29 of irreparable heart failure, without even enough warning to be afraid of what—

—or who, in my case—

—came next.

Am I the injured party here? I hover, watching, inside and out; I can hear people’s thoughts, but that doesn’t mean I can judge their motives. My only real option, at this point, is just what the angels keep telling me it is: Move on, move on, move on. But I’m not ready to do that, yet.

There were five of us in the morgue, after all, but the body snatchers only took two for her to choose from. And of those two . . .

. . . Pat chose me.

* * *

Lyle turns up at one, punctual as ever, while Pat’s still dripping. She opens the door for him, then drops towel and stalks nearly naked back to her room, rooting through her bed’s topmost layers in search of some clean underwear; though he’s obviously seen it all before, neither of them show any interest in extending this bodily intimacy beyond the realm of the purely familial.

Which only makes sense, now I think about it. In Pat’s mind—the only place I’ve ever encountered Lyle, up ’till now—their relationship rarely goes any further than strictly business. He’s her prime “artistic” pimp, shopping the act she and Ray have been working so hard to perfect to a truly high-class clientele: One time only, supposedly. Though by Lyle’s general demeanor, I get the feeling he may already be developing his own ideas about that part.

Pat discards a Pixies concert T with what looks like mold-stains all over the back in favour of her Reg Hartt’s Sex And Violence Cartoon Festival one, and returns to find Lyle grimacing over a cup of coffee that’s been simmering since at least eight.

“Jesus Corpse, Pats. You could clean cars with this shit.”

“Machine’s on a timer, I’m not.” Then, grabbing a comb, bending over, worrying through those last few knots: “Tonight all set up, or what?”

He shrugs. “Or what.” She shoots him a glance, drawing a grin. “Look, I told you it was gonna be one of two places, right? So on we go to Plan B, ‘sall. The rest’s still pretty much as wrote.”

“’Pretty much.’”

“Pretty, baby. Just like you.”

And: Is she? I suppose so. Black hair and deep, dark eyes—a certain eccentric symmetry of line and feature, a clever mind, a blind and ruthless will. Any and all of which would’ve certainly been enough to pull me in, back when I was still alive enough to want pulling.

The angels tell me I’m bound for something better now, though. Some form of love precious far beyond the bodily, indescribable to anyone who hasn’t tasted it at least once before. Which means there’s no earthly way I can possibly know if I want to ’till I’m already there and drinking my fill, already immersed soul-deep in restorative, White Light-infused glory . . .

Convenient, that. As Saturday Night Live’s Church Lady so often used to say.

Oh—and “earthly,” ha; didn’t even catch that one, first time ‘round. Look, angels! The corpse just made a funny.

(I said, look.)

But they don’t.

Pat tops her shirt with a sweater, and starts in filling the many pockets of army pants with all the various Bone Machine performance necessities: Duct tape, soldering wire, extra batteries. Lyle, meanwhile, drifts away to the video rack, where he amuses himself scanning spines.

“This that first tape he sent you?” he demands suddenly, yanking one.

“Who?”

He waggles it, grinning. “Your boyfriend. Ray-mond.”

A shrug. “Pop it and see.”

“Pass.” Which seems to remind him: “So, Patty—realize you two are sorta tight and this comes sorta late, but exactly how much research you actually do on this freak-o before you signed him up for the program?”