By Tom McEachin

I don’t know exactly when I died. The decay was so gradual I never felt my own mortality slipping away. Bit by bit My Chimera devoured me, until there was nothing going on in my head, nothing left of my soul. I wilted for so long that the transition into death wasn’t all that dramatic. 

He went away to college to get a degree in engineering, to find a wife who understood him. He came home with just the degree. Forget that before he left, he said I was nothing. When he returned with thirty extra pounds and no prospects, he said I was the woman for him. Said he would take care of me. Promised me Eden.

I wanted to believe it, so I believed it. Even when he missed our anniversary, I believed. Even when he forgot my birthday.

There was something between us at first, I’m sure of it. In the wedding pictures, I see we both smiled. He held my hand, danced with me. The photographs reminded me I must have been alive once. I didn’t imagine it. 

Then came the years of telling me I couldn’t do anything right. I tried harder, did better, but still, he said it. You can’t do anything right. He criticized my family, badmouthed my friends, left me with no one to talk to. 

He started wearing cologne to work, came home one night when it was already morning. I asked where he’d been. He scowled and left me behind. I withered away after that, out of his sight, cocooned in the TV room with my cigarettes, finding shelter inside the imaginary world of love boats, bachelorettes, and witty family banter.

My life turned out nothing like the Eden he promised. What I got instead was a world of cigarettes and TV and staying the hell out of the way. 

I kept the curtains shut, shopped only on gloomy days when I could bundle up. I couldn’t feel humiliation if no one could see me. Retreating became the only direction I knew. 

My Chimera, I took to calling him. The fabulous monster. Never out loud, of course. I never said anything out loud, or he would divorce me.

I clung to my pitiful world because it was my pitiful world. It wasn’t so bad, I told myself. I have my cigarettes. I have TV. 

The creature left me anyway, told me I was suffocating him. He moved to an apartment, told me to find one too, he’d pay. Said I had two weeks to move because he sold the house. Because we were getting a divorce. Don’t go calling a lawyer, he said, or I’d get nothing.

He walloped me upside the head with the news, and I never flinched. I guess dead people don’t flinch. I turned off the TV, lit another cigarette. Apartments, I thought. They must have them around here. How do I get an apartment? Or a job? I’ll probably need a job.

I walked to the bathroom, looked in the mirror. Years since I wore makeup. No color in my face except the pallid yellow skin tone and the dusk under my eyes. Why would anyone hire this face? Early forties. No degree. No experience. Been dead for years. You’re exactly what we’re looking for!

Did I just giggle?

How long has it been since I giggled? Hell, I don’t even cry anymore. I don’t do any of the things dead people don’t do. But something just tingled inside. My heart still beats. Fifty-two times in a minute, I counted.

My Chimera told me about this job, said it would pay more than anything I could find on my own. Said I should take it if I knew what’s good for me. He wasn’t footing the bill for my sorry ass forever.

So I took the job. My Chimera moved me into an apartment, said I could walk the nine blocks to work, so I didn’t need a car. 

The sun hurt my eyes that first morning. I smoked three cigarettes on my walk to work, every step frightening. The pull of losing what little I had was only slightly stronger than the fear of showing up, of going inside. So I showed up, went inside.

I was glad no one asked me that first day. They kept their eyes on the floor, the walls, the clock, anywhere but on me. A pretty woman showed me my desk, explained the phone, said something about personal items. Is she even alive? I imagined them asking behind my back.

I signed forms I didn’t understand and sat where they told me, streams of people passing in every direction, an island, surrounded by terrifying waters. They said I had to go somewhere to smoke, but I couldn’t remember where, too scared to ask.

The phone rang. “Peterson Investments,” I managed in my charcoal voice. The caller asked for a name. I found the name on the list they gave me, punched in the number next to the name. 

For the rest of the morning, the phone kept ringing, and I kept matching names with numbers. I was busy, so I could pretend I didn’t notice people not looking at me.

At ten o’clock, the pretty woman came back, said it was my break. Reminded me where the restroom was, where I could go to smoke. 

Later they told me it was lunch. And then afternoon break. Then time to go home. The pretty woman said good job, see you tomorrow. I smiled. Not a pretty smile. My teeth were gray and crooked. My smile was gray and crooked. 

On the nine-block walk to my apartment, I lit a cigarette. Not once the whole day did anyone cuss at me. Not once did anyone tell me I must be stupid. I stopped and lit another cigarette. Looking back toward the sun, I felt the warmth of the rays on my skin.