End of Life
And I can’t wait to watch the world slip away
I couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t just because the empty space next to me got colder and lonelier every night, but Mrs. Huber, Lucinda’s mom, would keep coming by leaving food and baskets of various teas and hot chocolates, instead of knocking on the door and talking to me, as if I was hurting more than her. Yes, I had just lost my girlfriend I held dear to my heart and loved more than I Ioved myself, but she had lost her only daughter. I couldn’t roll over to her side of the bed, something was stopping me, maybe it was my mind not wanting to process it because if i stayed on my side of the bed long enough, Luci might come crawl in. Maybe it was the way her scent stuck to the sheets and her pillow. I noticed the way our tiny apartment smelled when I got home after I went to the morgue with Mrs. Huber for the first time since I moved in with Luci. The smell of vanilla incense, lavender and sage hit me like a brick.
When I came home that day, she had left two incense burning, four candles lit and a note telling me dinner was in the oven and she’ll be home at 9 after her night class. Looking back, I feel stupid for not being concerned when 9:30 passed but then again, she spent as much time as she could in the greenhouse. But, then again, Luci was always on time.
I couldn’t sleep because I should have called.
It’s been two days.
It’s 8:28 at night and I’m walking into an apartment empty of her, again. I spent my day in the city, walking up and down the streets and peering into shops, looking at scarves and gloves Luci would have liked. And I still had all of her things, I couldn’t bring myself to give them to her parents just yet, especially her tiny brown dachshund, Kili, who cries because he knows she isn’t coming home. No matter how long he stays by the door or is a good dog, Luci isn’t coming home. Even Kili knows not to sleep on her side. He plops his fat body on the edge and sticks his head next to my feet instead.
It’s hard to live without someone until you know they’re gone for good, cliche yes but it was true. I never stopped to think about how I would live or be if Luci and I ever broke up or if we grew old together and if she died before me but now it’s just too harsh to be real. Before, I took her for granted, I never thought about how much I loved her until I couldn’t have her anymore, I couldn’t kiss her or make love to her. Everyone told us we made it look easy; loving and living with your significant other. I always told them it was just easy to be around Luci during all my free time. I wanted to be around her. But wanting your lover isn’t enough to make them stay on this Earth as long as you wanted, which was forever when it came to Luci.
She didn’t deserve to die.
From our neighbors, I get sympathetic looks as I stumble my way up the stairs. As I did, the old woman living at the far end of the corridor whispered a prayer, her frail hands clutching her rosary. Since Lucinda died, she only wore black and kne;t on a pillow outside her door as if she was watching for me.
Once again at our door sat a shit ton of stuffed animals, cards from the children in the building and a big basket filled with Lucinda’s favorite snacks. Amongst the gifts, there lay a flower pot with a single Oncidium orchid. The card was addressed to me: “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
― M.P.”
I stuffed the card in my pocket and opened the door, setting the orchid down on the table then going back to get the rest of the shit so no none tripped. I then shoved all of the stuff in the closet with the rest of the baskets and animals, sighing. I went to bed without changing or eating, but before I let myself fall asleep, the smell of sage suffocated me.
“I love you.” She was here. Rolling over, I was meet with Lucinda, propped up against her pillows, a book cracked open and one of her hands reaching over to comb through my hair. I couldn’t move. “Go to sleep, Frankie baby. You’ll be okay in the morning.” I did as she told me to do, not even questioning my sanity. I was hallucinating, seeing my dead girlfriend as she ran her thin fingers through my hair like she’d always do when I couldn’t sleep. I was going crazy.
I woke up with Kili liking my cheeks and wagging his tail. The light on my phone was blinking signaling that there was a message on my phone. Before I checked it, I got up to take Kili go pee, then I made our my bed and opened the blinds to let the morning’s pale light pour in. These were Lucinda’s favorite mornings. The ones where the light flows through at an angle and you could see particles floating through the air.
I sat at the desk next to our my bed, picking up my phone and listening to the message.
“Hello-o Frank. It’s me again,” It was Mrs. Huber again, “I n-n-need help finding-g Luci-i-i’s um, gold hospital-l b-ban-nd. Plea-a-se.” She was sobbing, and I could hear Luci’s brother and dad in the back trying to get Mrs. Huber to leave me alone. Truth is, she wasn’t bothering me; Luci got her voice from her mom, raspy and raw, it was pleasing to hear.
I knew which bracelet she was talking about, the last time I saw it, the morning that Luci died, she had put it in her jewelry box on the dresser.
Calling Mrs. Huber back, I told her where it was and that I’d drive to their house to drop it off, then having her thank me a thousand times. As a kid much like myself, Lucinda basically lived in her local hospital then at 17 she was deemed perfect for the outside world and then her parents presented her with a gold replica of a hospital band with her name and information etched on it. It was a little inside joke I never really understood.
I made my way to the dining room where my mind played more mean tricks on me. Luci was sitting in her seat across from mine. I had placed a vase of chrysanthemums on the table but now I moved them to the edge so I could see her. But it wasn’t really her, it was her ghost. We sat together, Luci moving her hand through the air, me sitting not wanting her to go away again. “You’re dead.” I said, she nodded.
“Yes, unfortunately. I never meant to hurt you Frankie, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” She still spoke the same. No, I made her sound the same. This wasn’t real, this was my mind fucking with me. I was so lonely without her.
“How are you here? You’re dead.”
“I wanted to see you.” She propped her head up with the palm of her hand, looking at me with her big brown eyes. Two months prior, she had shaved her head. She looks so cute, even now with being dead and all. “You know Frank, you need to take care of yourself. Or you’ll hurt yourself.”
“How did you die, Luci?” I wanted to know, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to have to face the fact someone ripped her open and looked at her naked body, looked at her special tattoo that read ‘I want to be the only want to hold you so close and so tight and if it's cool with you I'd really love to spend the night’. She got it on her hips, from one bone to the other in tiny cursive letters with red ink. I got the words ‘I wish I were a ghost’ tattooed on my wrist as a kind of couple’s tattoo. Same lettering, same ink. It was the first thing I heard from Lucinda when we meet.
I wonder if she slept okay in her silver, metal box on that cold metal slab. Probably not.
On the back of the closet’s door was her old black hoodie, a black and white band logo printed on it and in the pocket was a white piece of paper. I got up from the table and put it on, flipping the hood over my head and zipped it up. I took the note from inside the pocket realizing that it was a not I had written her.
When you leave, it feels like a heart attack coming on.
It wasn’t just because the empty space next to me got colder and lonelier every night, but Mrs. Huber, Lucinda’s mom, would keep coming by leaving food and baskets of various teas and hot chocolates, instead of knocking on the door and talking to me, as if I was hurting more than her. Yes, I had just lost my girlfriend I held dear to my heart and loved more than I Ioved myself, but she had lost her only daughter. I couldn’t roll over to her side of the bed, something was stopping me, maybe it was my mind not wanting to process it because if i stayed on my side of the bed long enough, Luci might come crawl in. Maybe it was the way her scent stuck to the sheets and her pillow. I noticed the way our tiny apartment smelled when I got home after I went to the morgue with Mrs. Huber for the first time since I moved in with Luci. The smell of vanilla incense, lavender and sage hit me like a brick.
When I came home that day, she had left two incense burning, four candles lit and a note telling me dinner was in the oven and she’ll be home at 9 after her night class. Looking back, I feel stupid for not being concerned when 9:30 passed but then again, she spent as much time as she could in the greenhouse. But, then again, Luci was always on time.
I couldn’t sleep because I should have called.
✝
It’s been two days.
It’s 8:28 at night and I’m walking into an apartment empty of her, again. I spent my day in the city, walking up and down the streets and peering into shops, looking at scarves and gloves Luci would have liked. And I still had all of her things, I couldn’t bring myself to give them to her parents just yet, especially her tiny brown dachshund, Kili, who cries because he knows she isn’t coming home. No matter how long he stays by the door or is a good dog, Luci isn’t coming home. Even Kili knows not to sleep on her side. He plops his fat body on the edge and sticks his head next to my feet instead.
It’s hard to live without someone until you know they’re gone for good, cliche yes but it was true. I never stopped to think about how I would live or be if Luci and I ever broke up or if we grew old together and if she died before me but now it’s just too harsh to be real. Before, I took her for granted, I never thought about how much I loved her until I couldn’t have her anymore, I couldn’t kiss her or make love to her. Everyone told us we made it look easy; loving and living with your significant other. I always told them it was just easy to be around Luci during all my free time. I wanted to be around her. But wanting your lover isn’t enough to make them stay on this Earth as long as you wanted, which was forever when it came to Luci.
She didn’t deserve to die.
From our neighbors, I get sympathetic looks as I stumble my way up the stairs. As I did, the old woman living at the far end of the corridor whispered a prayer, her frail hands clutching her rosary. Since Lucinda died, she only wore black and kne;t on a pillow outside her door as if she was watching for me.
Once again at our door sat a shit ton of stuffed animals, cards from the children in the building and a big basket filled with Lucinda’s favorite snacks. Amongst the gifts, there lay a flower pot with a single Oncidium orchid. The card was addressed to me: “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
― M.P.”
I stuffed the card in my pocket and opened the door, setting the orchid down on the table then going back to get the rest of the shit so no none tripped. I then shoved all of the stuff in the closet with the rest of the baskets and animals, sighing. I went to bed without changing or eating, but before I let myself fall asleep, the smell of sage suffocated me.
“I love you.” She was here. Rolling over, I was meet with Lucinda, propped up against her pillows, a book cracked open and one of her hands reaching over to comb through my hair. I couldn’t move. “Go to sleep, Frankie baby. You’ll be okay in the morning.” I did as she told me to do, not even questioning my sanity. I was hallucinating, seeing my dead girlfriend as she ran her thin fingers through my hair like she’d always do when I couldn’t sleep. I was going crazy.
✝
I woke up with Kili liking my cheeks and wagging his tail. The light on my phone was blinking signaling that there was a message on my phone. Before I checked it, I got up to take Kili go pee, then I made our my bed and opened the blinds to let the morning’s pale light pour in. These were Lucinda’s favorite mornings. The ones where the light flows through at an angle and you could see particles floating through the air.
I sat at the desk next to our my bed, picking up my phone and listening to the message.
“Hello-o Frank. It’s me again,” It was Mrs. Huber again, “I n-n-need help finding-g Luci-i-i’s um, gold hospital-l b-ban-nd. Plea-a-se.” She was sobbing, and I could hear Luci’s brother and dad in the back trying to get Mrs. Huber to leave me alone. Truth is, she wasn’t bothering me; Luci got her voice from her mom, raspy and raw, it was pleasing to hear.
I knew which bracelet she was talking about, the last time I saw it, the morning that Luci died, she had put it in her jewelry box on the dresser.
Calling Mrs. Huber back, I told her where it was and that I’d drive to their house to drop it off, then having her thank me a thousand times. As a kid much like myself, Lucinda basically lived in her local hospital then at 17 she was deemed perfect for the outside world and then her parents presented her with a gold replica of a hospital band with her name and information etched on it. It was a little inside joke I never really understood.
I made my way to the dining room where my mind played more mean tricks on me. Luci was sitting in her seat across from mine. I had placed a vase of chrysanthemums on the table but now I moved them to the edge so I could see her. But it wasn’t really her, it was her ghost. We sat together, Luci moving her hand through the air, me sitting not wanting her to go away again. “You’re dead.” I said, she nodded.
“Yes, unfortunately. I never meant to hurt you Frankie, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.” She still spoke the same. No, I made her sound the same. This wasn’t real, this was my mind fucking with me. I was so lonely without her.
“How are you here? You’re dead.”
“I wanted to see you.” She propped her head up with the palm of her hand, looking at me with her big brown eyes. Two months prior, she had shaved her head. She looks so cute, even now with being dead and all. “You know Frank, you need to take care of yourself. Or you’ll hurt yourself.”
“How did you die, Luci?” I wanted to know, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to have to face the fact someone ripped her open and looked at her naked body, looked at her special tattoo that read ‘I want to be the only want to hold you so close and so tight and if it's cool with you I'd really love to spend the night’. She got it on her hips, from one bone to the other in tiny cursive letters with red ink. I got the words ‘I wish I were a ghost’ tattooed on my wrist as a kind of couple’s tattoo. Same lettering, same ink. It was the first thing I heard from Lucinda when we meet.
I wonder if she slept okay in her silver, metal box on that cold metal slab. Probably not.
On the back of the closet’s door was her old black hoodie, a black and white band logo printed on it and in the pocket was a white piece of paper. I got up from the table and put it on, flipping the hood over my head and zipped it up. I took the note from inside the pocket realizing that it was a not I had written her.
When you leave, it feels like a heart attack coming on.