Penni Jones - Suicide Souls

“I’m Naomi.” She holds out her hand, a reflex from her days of living. I go through the motions of handshaking. It’s surprisingly soothing to feel the temperature adjustment in my palm. I bet it would have been nice to touch her skin. She looks like the type of girl who took good care of her skin.

“Naomi here has broken the grief watch record. She’s going to help you out.”

“You mean I’m going to help you both out.” Naomi tilts her head and smirks at Edgar.

“Yes. Apparently, Naomi excels at making people cry.” Edgar returns her smirk.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she says.

“The problem is, Luke, that you have been dead for a decade,” Edgar says.

My mouth drops open like it’s waiting to receive a communion wafer.

“Though people might be sad about your passing, it’s unlikely to be to the point of crying.” Edgar clasps his hands together and says, “The exception should be your father, but apparently he’s dead inside.”

“Wait, wait. Ten years? I’ve been at this for ten years?” At times it has felt like a month, then other times one hundred years. But right now, a decade seems unfathomable. I was only alive for two decades.

“Yes. Tick tock.” Edgar points at his wrist where a useless watch sits. “You will both be erased if you don’t get this done quickly.”

“Naomi will disappear, too?”

“Such bullshit,” Naomi says. She smiles and says, “Hey, did you know that God hates jazz?”

“Why are you smiling?” Edgar asks.

“Because it’s funny,” she says.

She’s right, and it makes her more attractive.

“We need a plan.” Edgar places his hands flat on the table. “How are you two going to make his dad grieve?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried everything.” Haven’t I? I’ve hung around, casting my sad aura all over the place, smelling up the joint with patchouli and Pantene. Such a douchey combination. Even I know that.

“There are some emergency tactics that you don’t know about.” Edgar leans forward and gives me the information he should have told me ten years ago.

Fucking Edgar. He could have rushed things along for Luke and didn’t. Now we’re all in peril and my second chance is delayed. Fucking Edgar. Apparently, it’s best if we figure things out for ourselves. Something about ingrained lessons, blah, blah. But surely, he could have given the poor guy some hints.

So now I’m here with Luke. What’s weird is that if we had both lived, we would be the same age. But he still looks like a kid. His hair is to his shoulders, and he’s tall with a lanky gait that would have changed in a year or two if he had just held on. He’s wearing a Tom Waits T-shirt with those baggy shorts that go below the knees. And, of course, suede skater shoes. It’s quite the flashback for me. It was around his age that I decided to never return to my hometown. My parents had moved across the state for my dad’s job, and I denounced everyone I went to high school with. Including Ruthie Mae. I never wanted to step foot in the farm town again. I don’t know why I assigned it as the root of my problems. Maybe it was an easy scapegoat.

“Can I ask you something?” He tilts his head sideways, looking like a puppy in need of a haircut.

“Sure. Not like I have anywhere to be.” We’re camped out in the living room of the shit-box house his parents live in. The same place where he grew up.

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“Like what?” I know what he means, I just want him to say it. To have the nerve to tell me I look like a slut, then maybe he can move this shit along.

“Like a barefoot stripper?” It’s a question instead of a firm statement of fact, but I’ll take it.

“The night I died, I went to a party with my best friend, Eliza.” It feels good to talk about this out loud after being mostly in isolation for a year. “I was sad, so she talked me into wearing this attention-grabbing dress, so guys would notice me and maybe I would take one home and I’d be too busy fucking to be sad. Fortunately, I took off the horrible shoes before I laid down to kick up daisies.”

“I guess your friend’s plan didn’t work out.” Luke tucks his hair behind his ears, and I know it doesn’t feel the way it felt when he was alive. Nothing does.

“No. And now I’m stuck in this until I get my new body.”

One of my favorite possessions when I was alive was a mink and leather coat that I bought from a hospice shop, a thrift store filled with stuff from dead people’s homes. I waited until the coat dropped from $300 to $100. Even $100 was a stretch, but I knew it was worth it. This beautiful coat once dearly loved by a 1960s housewife. She probably smoked skinny cigarettes and wore rubber gloves when she scrubbed the toilet. And then she was dead, and her coat was mine.

I wonder if it went to another thrift store. And some twenty-something is wearing it in a bar right now. Maybe it’s getting beer spilled on it by some asshole trying to get in the girl’s pants. Or maybe it’s still hanging where I left it, forgotten. I should have been wearing it when I died. That way I could curl it around my body now like a cocoon made from dead animals. Sure, it wouldn’t feel the same, but it would still be comforting.

We’re waiting for his dad to get home from work. His mom has passed through the room a couple of times, always humming some old hymn to herself.

“For what it’s worth, I think you look pretty,” he says and looks away.

“Thanks. That’s really sweet.” No one has told me that in a very long time. Even the night I wore this dress to the party I was told I was “hot” or “sexy.” Not “pretty.”

“I’ve been on my own a long time.” He tucks his hair behind his ears again.

“I know.” I put my hand on his shoulder. The temperature shift makes him jump a little, but he relaxes quickly.

“I’m not trying to be a pervert or anything, but I wish I had paid more attention the last time I had sex.” He doesn’t look at me. “I wish I had committed every touch and every kiss to memory. There just wasn’t any way to know that it would be last time”

“But maybe it wasn’t. That’s why we have to get this done. So we can move on to our new bodies and try again.”

Luke smiles a smile that looks almost like a frown. The smile of doubt. I’m familiar with it because I’ve done it so many times myself.

Naomi’s hand feels warm on my shoulder, almost like a ball of light. I had been alone so long that I forgot what touch felt like. Not that it felt like this when I was alive, but it’s close enough.

“How do you think we’ll find vapid bodies?” she asks as she removes her hand from my shoulder.

I want to beg, “No. Please touch me. I need it.” But I don’t. She doesn’t seem the type who finds desperation attractive.

“I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve been too busy trying to make my dad cry.”

“What do you think about when you’re waiting around for him, then?” She narrows her eyes like she’s trying to work out a puzzle.

“I try to remember song lyrics, passages from books.”

“Look, I understand losing hope. That’s how I got here in the first place. But you have to think about the future or you’re not going to have one.”

“Why do you want one so bad? Life sucks, Naomi. How have you already forgotten?”

She shrugs and says, “I guess I just want to give it one more shot. I failed. I failed at life and failed myself and I think maybe I can figure it out this time. Do you think Oblivion will be better?”