You're Dead

I looked self-gratifyingly around at the five remaining people in the building. No one cared about what had happened. Encounters with the sixth years were nothing unusual for Augustinopolis, so why should they look? Did I want a medal for given him the huge sum of a dollar?

I noticed that the couple who had come in soon after I did were now well into a connubial spat.  Their little kid was passed out on a chair, obviously quite accustomed to such arguments.  The dad wore a ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ t-shirt which was quite deficient in its office of covering a masterpiece gut, sculpted out of innumerable cans of light beer and frozen pizza.  He rubbed the chef-d’oeuvre to get the pugilistic juices flowing; reared back, chest forward, gut hanging; adjusted his baseball cap turning it to the appropriate 180 degree redneck backwards ass position; scratched his crack; and announced,

-I ain’t puttin no soap in no warsher. That’s yer work, woman.

 He stood mutely, staring imperviously out into space while his wife worked twice as hard to finish the laundry before her  husband’s carnal sculpture began to rumble for a frozen specialty pizza and a sequel to the six-pack of America’s Best Light Lite--one fourth the calories and twice the image for the same cost as real beer. Only once throughout the rest of the “warshing” ordeal did he uncross his  forearms, only to attempt to stretch the soiled t-shirt over the hairy abyss of a belly button.

 He believed every second that he was fully deserving of the testimony that he wore on his chest. The wife never told him differently. When they finally left, her back was wet with sweat.  The same back  on which he would later set his beer on as he unloaded his genetic strands of DNA into her quivering, exhausted body.  The average human’s DNA corresponds approximately 97 % to that of a chimpanzee.  In later scientific journals, it was reported that the man in the laundry mat was 98.3% compatible, an insult for the poor chimp.

Suddenly, a giant cockroach ran across my bare foot. I squealed like an fool and quickly slipped one of my sandals on to squash the intruder of my thoughts.

- Suppose that had been you?

 I had not even noticed the girl, who had been sitting in the far corner of the building, glide up next to me.  She wore various layers of black fishnet stockings and heavy black army surplus boots with a collection of symbols painted on with cherry soda lipstick. She resembled a walking Madonna museum from the early “Lucky Star” days.  Around her neck was an opaque crystal, clutched by a crow’s foot and wrapped with leather straps. I could smell her body, but not by the smell of bad hygiene,  but a more human-bestial, almost, but not quite, sensual smell.

- Excuse me?

- Suppose that bug had been you, and your foot was Death?

- Then I suppose I would be dead right now.

- Is that all?  You would be dead and nothing more?

- Sure. Food for worms as they once said.

-I don’t suppose that you have ever had visions?

- Visions of what?

- Death.

- No, I can’t say that I have.

- No, I would guess that you just sit here comfortably in this laundry mat without ever contemplating death, perhaps death by your own hand.

- Suicide? I don’t think so.

- I don’t believe you. I would imagine that you have sat home at night alone with all of that knowledge that you have acquired at college, then you have the startling realization that nothing really matters. Sitting there all alone, listening to the voices in your head. You do hear voices, don’t you?

My initial hostility had disappeared under the calmness and effluent penetration of her voice. The pacific smell of sandalwood incense seemed to exude from her clothes.

- Sometimes.

She placed her hand on mine. I didn’t move mine. The touch of another human being upon my skin felt nice, but it was much more than just a physical tactile sensation, much deeper. I could not remember if even Carol, my girlfriend, had touched me so curiously inward as did this stranger. I did not feel like myself. I did not feel anything. The only thing I could feel was her warm hand on mine, which remained motionless under her touch.

-Sometimes? You were listening to them when I sat down next to you without you noticing me. They were talking to you about that family.  They were telling you that those people did not matter to you. They were telling you that nothing matters to you any longer, nobody matters to you, least of all, yourself. That is why you stepped on that bug. It broke your concentration. Its sudden presence jolted you into existence, and brought you out from the Void. The Void into which you seek to escape. The Void that offers you silence from all of the other noise in the world. The Void in which you can hear only the voices. Your voices. Voices which ask you questions. Voices which try to answer your questions. Voices which tell you that you are in heaven, yet they sometimes drag you through the mental hell of anxieties and insecurities.

She firmly pressed her hand upon mine. Her touch seduced me while her voice mesmerized me, paralyzing my brain.

Who am I? Why was I here in this laundry mat? Shakespeare. Final. All is lost. Words. Matter. To be or not to be Ellis. Who is Ellis? The Beast. Iago. Ophelia. Puck. Lear. Hamlet. Hamnet. Othello. William. Bacon. Jonson. Blah, blah, blah.

I returned to her.

- Who are you?

-Does it matter right now?

- Not really, I guess.

-No, I guess not. So, I ask you again, do you have visions?

- Yes, I do. Sometimes I see myself in a room full of people. Everyone is telling me everything that I have ever wanted to hear. Everyone is so honest. Nobody lies to me. Nobody tries to hide from me. I try to speak, but I am mute. I try to move, but I can’t.

- You are dead.