When You Die / When You’re Dead

 

When You Die

        
        Dear Wife,

        When you die, you’ll be so incredibly thin.
        It happens that way, I know. Your liver stops working. Your body is a sin. Mine’s nothing now. It takes only a strong wind to lift me from my chair.
        Like that gust of a woman you call your mother. She picked me up from the kitchen table where I rested, carried me over to the couch.
        I could have killed her for that.
        If my body would have let me.
        You see, honey, when you die, your mouth won’t take in what it needs. All the nourishment your body wants will be replaced by drugs the FCA is still only considering.
        I said to your mother, Sue, what are you doing? Put me down.
        She looked at me, a crumpled body in her arms, said, Oh Daniel, I’m moving you somewhere more comfortable. Now be quiet and let me do it.
        When you die, you’re so insulted. Everything stings, in-laws, needles, warm smiles and hellos.
        I know. It happens.
        Your parents, friends, family, foes, all of them visit, treat you like you’re nothing more than your worst fears, a sniveling child, groping for help, tugging at the coat of anyone near, asking, Please, make me safe for years and years.
        But you won’t have that. Not even months.
        Sue? Are you here? Someone? What time is it?
        On the couch, after your mother left, I cried because no one was home.
        Not our daughter.
        Sara? Honey?
        Not our son.
        Jason? Please, what time is it?
        An empty house sounds the same as a six-foot-deep hole. It scares you, the walls, the lack of people. You hear dirt being thrown on the roof, footsteps walking away in the rain. It makes you crave company.
        You’ll understand when the time comes, how you surround yourself with hugs and hellos, offers of medical marijuana and talk of the weather.
        My kids, your kids, they’re mad because of the visits. It’s not fair, they say, all these people want to see you.
        Learn to share.
        When you’re two feet in grave, up to the shins, you notice your friends come to say goodbye. They never say it, not to you. So it’s, See you soon. Stick in there. It’s a light clasp on the back, a call if you need anything hug.
        Can I give you a hug?
        And while they visit, while you say, Yeah, go ahead, hug me like there’s no tomorrow—your friends begin to think it’s rude too, that they’re taking you away from what’s important. Because time with anyone who is not your family is time you can’t hold your daughter against your weak chest.
        So when you die, your friends won’t be there.
        Not one.
        But you’re not alone. Not yet.
        Near death, still holding on, you whimper while your better half cries. Those tears are martyr holy water. They’re hate drop by drop. And though they pain you at first, you watch them roll, fall off her cheek, the neighbors’ nervous laugh, the parade through the kitchen, the talk as if you can’t hear them.
        You’re so strong to be doing all this, they say.
        But not to you.
        They don’t even whisper when you die.
        I know.
        And when you cough in the warmest weather like winter’s around the corner and your sides are thin metal ribs rusting away, you’ll be so close, so incredibly angry at the comments your neighbors make, even if you never hear them, because those are the comments that wake you in the night, make you glare at the person asleep next to you, think—Keep breathing, champ.
        In bed you stare at the ceiling, afraid to close your eyes. You think, This could be the last time I’m awake. So you never sleep until it’s over. Not until someone shuts your eyes. When you die, you’re too afraid it’ll be the last time you see anything at all, so you never close them.
        Never.
        Instead you stand in the doorway of your daughter’s room, stare at Sara like she’s a holy ghost underneath a white linen shroud, her purity blanketed, protected, until a thief in the night, who you won’t be there to stop, lies, steals it away along with her panties.
        When you gulp air like a fish dying on the beach, there’s another reason your eyes stay wide-open. Because if you can’t watch from Heaven, you know you won’t see a thing.
        And besides, with your imagination, if you shut them—the attorney fees, car accidents, Jason’s fistfight, Sara’s wedding, your better half in bed with the neighbor.
        Either way, closed, opened, when you die, you’ll be as quiet as a…
        Spouse.
        Parent.
        Friend.
        100 dollars won’t even save you from the cancer you contract from the sun. Because your death doesn’t believe in materialism. It’s the quiet, simple things in life it takes from you, like your children sleeping and strawberry ice cream.
        It’s soundless when you die. I know. You won’t make a squeak, not across Jason’s floorboards after you kiss him goodnight, not when you shut Sara’s door—because when it happens, you go to it without a word. You sit in your family room and you don’t watch TV. There in the dark, you think, what kind of mess is this? Shouldn’t I end it, go back upstairs, tell the person sharing my bed I can’t?
        And without the lights on, really, it’s like your eyes are closed anyway. Seems like there’s nothing left to do. And that’s how you do it.
        That’s the secret.
        When you die, you do nothing at all. When the lungs quit, the heart no longer measures time. When nothing counts, nothing happens. You don’t live.
        You die.
 

+     +     +

 

When You’re Dead

        
        Dear Daniel,

        When you’re dead, I’ll come into your house, collect your things in a burlap sack, and tell your wife you never loved her. I won’t even jimmy the window because—you know why. She leaves it open, undoes the lock—just for me.
        Gail loves me, Daniel.
        Every Sunday night.
        While you attend midnight vigils, grasp at life like it’s an old lover, and plan whether you ought to let your brother speak at your service, I’m waiting in the woods, behind the pine trees creeping on the edge of your little piece of property.
        I’m there watching for Gail’s signal, a bathroom light, on and off again.
        Because when it’s over, when you’re dead, buried beneath a drooping sycamore, inside an expensive wine wood box lined with cheap ruffled silk—there is no vigil for you to attend, Daniel.
        There’s nothing.
        Nothing left.
        Nothing except.
        The biggest ceremony of all.
        Your funeral—is my birthday. That wondrous occasion will be preceded by a viewing that will go long into the night, and I won’t be there.
        Neither will Gail. She’ll leave early, excuse herself because of the sadness and come home to your house where I’ll be waiting. I’ll take her grief, wrap it up in my alive arms and help her with a jar of peaches. I’ll twist the lid right off, something you could never do. She’ll cry, say, “Do you think it’s wrong? Am I awful?”
        She’ll cry because of you—but more so because of the children. “What’ll they do?” she’ll ask me. “Do you think they’ll look to me now to be the good one? The one with all the answers?”
        I’ll hold her tight for you, look her hard in her soft wet eyes.
        “He was a saint to them, you know,” she’ll say, “Christ, I can’t do this.”
        I’ll let her cry. All night. Against my chest.
        She wants to get on with her life, Daniel—as terrible as that is.
        So, I’ll tell her, “That’s not wrong, Love, to want to live.”
        That’s true, isn’t it, Daniel? It’s not really that terrible is it? To want that?
        And do you know, Daniel, what I’ll be putting in my burlap sack while she continues to cry, standing there in your bedroom?
        You do, don’t you?
        Memories. The ones of you and your mother. Memories of trips to Ocean City with your kids. That picture of you holding Jason above your head. Even the one where you look like you’re not paying attention at Sara’s dance recital.
        I’ll be putting you in there, into my bag, all the way to the tippy top.
        I’ll tie it close, swing it over my head, let it land in the back seat of my Lexus, right on the black leather seats where Gail loves to make out because it feels like hundreds of dollars—my hand on her thigh—because it feels like the last two years—my lips on her neck—because it feels like being alive.
        When you’re dead, I’ll tell Gail, “It’s no problem, Love, I’ll put this all in storage until you’re ready. It’s hard to know what to do with this kind of stuff.”
        I’ll ask her for the security code, as if I didn’t already have it written down on a cocktail receipt in my wallet.
        On my way to the storage garage, I’ll stop at the bridge, let the bag drop, plop into the water, listen to the splash like a farmer does after he throws his burlap sack stuffed full of unwanted puppies into the cool water of his favorite swimming pond.
        Just like that, Daniel.
        And in the storage unit, I’ll take what’s good enough to keep, try on your watches, that two-button blazer, the navy one you used to wear in college when Gail was still attracted to you.
        It fits me, like your house, your wife, your kids.
        It fits me so well.
        When you’re dead, delivered to a hole in the ground by your brother and his two sons because your little Jason and sad tiny Sara are too young to carry your heavy weight—don’t wait for her. Not your wife, not Gail, don’t leave any room for her to be dropped down beside you for the rest of eternity.
        It’s not going to happen. She didn’t mean that promise. Not that one.
        When you’re dead, Daniel, when you’re beneath a marble stone marker stating how long and who you were at one time, I’ll drive back to where I left her, re-introduce myself to your kids, say “I’m a close friend of the family.” I’ll sleep there for the first time, right after your oldest closes her eyes.
        And in the morning, I’ll be there for Jason’s eggs and toast.
        And that next night, after that first dark day you’re gone, I’ll re-introduce myself again, this time as an even closer family friend, a close, close friend of their mother’s. I’ll sit next to them on the sofa, inches away from their legs.
        When you’re dead, Daniel, I’ll come inside. I’ll sit in your house and be everything you never knew I could be—for Gail, for Sara, for Jason—for me—so alive and willing to be you.
        Now that you’re gone.
        Now that you’re not you.
 

Christopher DiCicco

Christopher David DiCicco loves his wife and children—not writing stark minimalist stories in the attic of his home in Yardley, Pennsylvania. But he does. It’s something he has to do, like sleeping or eating catfish. His work has recently appeared in Nib Magazine, Intellectual Refuge, Sundog Lit, Cease, Cows! and Bohemia Arts & Literary—and is forthcoming in The Cossack Review, WhiskeyPaper, Flash Fiction Online, Bartleby Snopes, and First Stop Fiction. You can follow him on twitter @ChrisDiCicco or visit him @ www.cddicicco.com.

Christopher DiCicco's website »