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Smoke Break with Mama Metcalf
Last Updated:
2021-09-06 16:19:43
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Where the Dead go to Die The Choices Mothers Make
THE CHOICES MOTHERS MAKELucette was finally sleeping.Emily sat by the girl’s bed, listening to her labored breathing. It was so deep it made the bedsprings squeak. All about them were bundles of soiled tissues, cotton buds, a half empty bottle of gin, red bath towels that had been drenched red. The prior afternoon and the night that followed had been its own kind of slaughter, not so different from that which she’d witnessed at work. Emotional destruction.These had been the most difficult hours of Emily’s existence.She patted her daughter’s sizzling forehead, trying not to look at the bandages wrapped around the lower part of her face. The wet fabric sloshed inwards and outwards with every one of her daughter’s desperate intakes of air. This detail broke Emily’s heart because it made it all seem too real. And it was real, despite the way the hours since leaving the hospice had blurred together, like those fitful times when dreaming and waking mingled. A blur of wishing versus t
Where the Dead go to Die Red
RED“What in the name Sam Hill was that?”It was the first time Emily had dropped the expression in years. When times turned south, so too did her vocabulary—even her accent sounded stronger. But the shock of her slip was nothing compared to the sound reverberating through the facility, ringing in her ears.You know what that was, said a voice in the back of her head. You know only too well.Woods was next to Emily at the door to her supervisor’s office, surrounded by the five Crowners. As expected, their visitors had arrived in their ‘casual’ attire, a thrift store patchwork of summer shirts that made them look like unassuming RV drivers, only instead of prowling highways they coursed the corridors of America’s hospice system. Like Emily and Woods, they had all flinched and ducked at the gunshot, exchanging wide-eyed glances.A second blast rung out. Someone started screaming for help. Mykel.“The break room,” Woods said. She clutched her blouse, a gesture that undermined the fe
Where the Dead go to Die Interlude Six
INTERLUDE SIXTo complete, inside reverse fold one side to fashion the head, and then fold down the wings. Only then, as you do this, will the origami crane take shape. You are finished.Emily was in the bed she no longer shared with her husband, yet which still smelled like him, when the noise came. Twisting metal, shrieking tires, engines that roared like rabid things hell-bent on biting and tearing until there was nothing left to bite and tear. Whoever they were, they had knocked down the gate. All that noise was lightning-fierce, seeming to shake the earth their house was built on, snapping her from sleep. It extinguished all other sound. She bolted upright, unable to hold in or hear her cry, and watched the window overlooking the driveway burn bright, the venetian blinds sending swirling bars of yellow light across the walls. Emily shielded her face, splayed fingers doing little to obscure that false-dawn glare.Doors slammed. The thump of heavy boots pounding the lawn.She lo
Where the Dead go to Die Murphy’s Law
MURPHY’S LAWEvery day has its destiny. The cracking icicle that’s almost ready to fall. A branch weighted by too much snow, soon to break. Clouds that try and try to hold in their water, only to fail, and in doing so fulfill their meaning in the world. An architecture of inevitability, that this was fated to be. The destiny of this day: Bloodshed. It would begin with a single drop.A pigeon sailed through the air, uncaring and unthinking. It knew nothing but its desperate need to eat, that desire its only real companion. That, and lice. Wind rustled its feathers as it soared out of the sky towards the hospice, which from above seemed two-dimensional against the snow. It neared the rear courtyard where the tall, two legged creatures sat to eat, this act of survival, despite the cold, uniting them in some strange way.Closer now. Closer.It was then that the wind changed, warping the bird’s descent. Its wings were sideswiped, its body turning fast. The pigeon didn’t feel fear, it ha
Where the Dead go to Die Interlude Five
INTERLUDE FIVEFold both legs of the model upwards, crease with great pressure, and then unfold again. Inside reverse fold the legs along those creases you just made.Sally parked her station wagon under an elm, its branches as old as any of the buildings in the city, its roots stretching back through layers of soil to a time when the ground was less bitter. Those days were gone, yet the determined though foolish tree lingered on. It offered shade to a world doomed to burn anyway, and not all the chicken soup in the universe would change that.But regardless, she had to try.The contents of the Tupperware container tucked under her arm sloshed as Sally made her way up the street in the direction of Emily and Jordan’s house. A corridor of hedges zoomed by on her right, dead leaves crunching under her sneakers. The seasons had already started to mingle, a chill encroaching like an anti-fever.It was just after ten in the morning and she’d left Kevin in her husband’s care. Conrad was
Where the Dead go to Die The Uglies
THE UGLIESThe first time Robby experienced a night terror, back in the early days of his infection, he had no idea what was going on. Something bitter twinkled to life in his dream, twisting the otherwise innocuous imagery into a nightmare that didn’t end with waking. This was always the worst part. The leftovers. Whatever despicable things the fever conjured in the dream—the uglies, as he’d come to think of them—followed him into reality. There they would linger.The uglies were with him that Christmas night. They stood at the foot of his bed.He’d gone to sleep thinking about the summer Lucette had whispered to life earlier that week. The checkered cloth across the grass, the leaves on the tree, fireflies in the eyes of the dinosaur skull. But his fatigue had been deep. His limbs had grown heavy, as though he weren’t dressed in a gown but an iron suit, like the kind deep-sea divers wore in old movies. And then the heaviness dragged him into the dark where he was alone for a while
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