Chapter 1.
That night I had a dream. I was standing in line at a bureau much like the DMV with an application in hand. When it came my turn to speak to the clerk I passed the sheet beneath a barred window and said as nonchalantly as I was registering a car, “Hi I’m submitting a death request.”
“Application for death. The last name of the applicant?”
“Grangely.”
“First name?”
“Leandra.”
“One moment, please.”
I never saw the face of my teller, nor his hands, and to be quite honest I could not tell you what his voice sounded like. It was now that I realized the earth seemed to be moving. I was quite certain there was an earthquake occurring, and as strange as it sounds considering the aforementioned information, I feared for my life and tried to call out to the teller. I felt a tug at my pants and turned, expecting to see a lost child. However the hand came right out from the floor beneath my feet, and I discovered the floor was not linoleum, tile, wood, or the like. There was no earthquake, there was no lost child. The floor was a moving mass of bodies, crawling upon hands and knees, packed tight together.
I saw no faces, only bony backs and thin, straw like hair, frail from age. The hand seemed almost disconnected from this swarm, when I felt it take a firm grip on my leg and hoist up whatever creature was attached. The crown of a head rose through the waves of decaying flesh, followed by shoulders and a second hand. The creature appeared to be a young woman, or at least she would have been a young woman in some past time when her skin was still plump with vitality, her hair oiled and swept up with a pin. But her dry locks sat flat against her thin face, which she raised to stare at me with empty, black eyes. I only then felt a twinge of fear as I took note of her ghastly face. Her skin crumbled and fell away like dust, slowly revealing the everlasting skeletal frame beneath. Insects and roots were busy within her, growing and climbing about, making themselves at home. But still her eyes were pinned on mine. I could not move. Her head bobbled, as if she was nodding, but I knew instinctively that she was trying to bounce her jaw into motion. Bones that had long lost their muscles now swung and rattled, and I now stared into a face that was hardly a face at all; the lank hair remained, but it clawed its way out of a mere skull now. The eyes continued to stare, but only out of the bony eye sockets that had forever kept them in line. The jaw clanged and grinded and out slipped an incomprehensible, airy voice with a strange familiarity, “Oohnt. Uhn. Eht away!”
I saw no faces, only bony backs and thin, straw like hair, frail from age. The hand seemed almost disconnected from this swarm, when I felt it take a firm grip on my leg and hoist up whatever creature was attached. The crown of a head rose through the waves of decaying flesh, followed by shoulders and a second hand. The creature appeared to be a young woman, or at least she would have been a young woman in some past time when her skin was still plump with vitality, her hair oiled and swept up with a pin. But her dry locks sat flat against her thin face, which she raised to stare at me with empty, black eyes. I only then felt a twinge of fear as I took note of her ghastly face. Her skin crumbled and fell away like dust, slowly revealing the everlasting skeletal frame beneath. Insects and roots were busy within her, growing and climbing about, making themselves at home. But still her eyes were pinned on mine. I could not move. Her head bobbled, as if she was nodding, but I knew instinctively that she was trying to bounce her jaw into motion. Bones that had long lost their muscles now swung and rattled, and I now stared into a face that was hardly a face at all; the lank hair remained, but it clawed its way out of a mere skull now. The eyes continued to stare, but only out of the bony eye sockets that had forever kept them in line. The jaw clanged and grinded and out slipped an incomprehensible, airy voice with a strange familiarity, “Oohnt. Uhn. Eht away!”
I know it sounds mad, but I was dreaming, after all. I answered, “I’m sorry?”
“UHN!” she hollered.
At that moment her entire corpse was dragged under in an instant, as if she was slurped up like a noodle into a broth.
I awake, my head clear. I had expected such a dream to end in that dreaded feeling of falling, shaken into reality by the collision of body on bed. A familiar bed in an unfamiliar room. I came to recognize my situation immediately; I've moved to a new place. I sit up to look out into the late summer sun illuminating a graveyard on a nearby hill. A large, crooked oak tree in the back yard frames the scene, twiggy fingertips brushing the tops of the distant head stones. I smile despite the horror themed display, my senses reveling in the silence of this place which so sharply contrasted my life of old. My ears still ring with the sound of traffic and construction work, the symphonic masterpiece composed exclusively in the city. I'm not at home here quite yet, but contentedness is a good place to start.
Leaning on the windowsill, I examine the yard in closer detail. It's like something out of a rural Nicholas Sparks novel; old, fraying rope swing tied onto a high branch on the oak, mostly hidden from my sight except when a breeze rocks it forward and back. The grass is neat and trimmed in a perfect square around the house, the tree standing on the border of the lawn where the former caretaker allowed nature to take its course. Weeds grow at least four feet tall there, the breeze rippling the tops like waves on water. This wild landscape continues over the rolls of small hills right up to the graveyard, where the greenery is again lovingly tended by an unknown hand. It's lovely, really, the morbidity of the backdrop charming in a fairy tale way.
I hold the old window open with my hand, hoping to catch a scent that would further implant this scene into my memory, but the stagnant, hot air offers nothing. Instead, I feel my body quickly perspire, my odoriferous musk rising off the skin like a vile fog. The window falls shut with a rattling bang as I recoil in disgust. I quickly mash the power button on the air conditioner and it pours a soft, cool shroud around me, the beads of sweat icing my flesh until I shiver, reminded of the feverish sickness I have always been prone to. My shirt is doffed and promptly put to work soaking up the product of my skins' eager performance, the organ ever willing to prove its rapid response time. I smile, chagrined at the thought of winning gold in some kind of involuntary bodily Olympics, the rate at which I sweat and the amount of fluid produced to be prominent factors measured by scientists. This would determine the efficiency of my genetic self-cooling system, which in dry weather may be superior except that my water content would be depleted ten times faster than that of my competitors and I'm sure my increased likelihood of dehydration would be something of an obstacle.
My skin now feeling starched as a button up shirt, I stretch, the salty shell encasing my skin cracking and separating. I turn my head to give my shoulder a shy lick, the salt tinged with the earthy, human flavor unique to myself. My senses thus satisfied, I knot my hair at the nape of my neck, pick a new, crisp shirt from my closet, and leave the whimsical for the practical.
I hold the old window open with my hand, hoping to catch a scent that would further implant this scene into my memory, but the stagnant, hot air offers nothing. Instead, I feel my body quickly perspire, my odoriferous musk rising off the skin like a vile fog. The window falls shut with a rattling bang as I recoil in disgust. I quickly mash the power button on the air conditioner and it pours a soft, cool shroud around me, the beads of sweat icing my flesh until I shiver, reminded of the feverish sickness I have always been prone to. My shirt is doffed and promptly put to work soaking up the product of my skins' eager performance, the organ ever willing to prove its rapid response time. I smile, chagrined at the thought of winning gold in some kind of involuntary bodily Olympics, the rate at which I sweat and the amount of fluid produced to be prominent factors measured by scientists. This would determine the efficiency of my genetic self-cooling system, which in dry weather may be superior except that my water content would be depleted ten times faster than that of my competitors and I'm sure my increased likelihood of dehydration would be something of an obstacle.
My skin now feeling starched as a button up shirt, I stretch, the salty shell encasing my skin cracking and separating. I turn my head to give my shoulder a shy lick, the salt tinged with the earthy, human flavor unique to myself. My senses thus satisfied, I knot my hair at the nape of my neck, pick a new, crisp shirt from my closet, and leave the whimsical for the practical.
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