Unseen

Sheila woke on Thursday morning to discover her body had died during the night.

It had happened before. A toe here. A finger there. On her 35th birthday she’d lost sight in her left eye for a whole week. Just before Christmas, an entire limb crossed over, the putrefied flesh flapping in the winds of a polar vortex. Fortunately, the chill had preserved her skin and when the blood began to flow again, it functioned quite as well as ever. But never before had her whole body died at once.
With a heavy sigh she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and gaped at the pale blue hue of her toes. Large bruises had formed where blood pooled as she slept. Purple hues crisscrossed her skin, mimicking the blanket’s waffle pattern before gathering at her knees, ankles, and the backs of her thighs.
On the floor beneath her numb appendages, a fresh red wine stain spoke of her long wait for Ethan’s return the night before. She felt humiliation creep up her spine with the slow and measured tread of a well-fed lizard. He hadn’t come home until the bars had closed, another woman’s perfume emanating from his skin. Sheila crossed her arms over her waist, hugging her elbows to the cool, flaccid flesh of her stomach.
In the bathroom, Ethan spit out a mouthful of foamy paste and reached for an absent hand towel. “Where in god’s name are the towels?”
        “Linen closet,” Sheila said.
        “I don’t have time to run around looking for this shit.”
       “I said they’re in the linen…” Sheila winced as the closet door slammed. She inspected the blue tips of her nails, pale hands folded in her ample lap as Ethan fumed. He left a trail of curses in his wake as he dug through his armoire, a snarl on his lips.
        He had been handsome once, Sheila thought. She supposed people still found him so, even though she no longer did. Ten years ago, he had been the epitome of charm. Sought after, popular, a man surrounded by friends who believe him when he said he was going places. He was everything a woman could ask for and nothing her plain looks and awkward nature would ever aspire to hope for. Which had made it even more perplexing—and she had to admit, more than a little flattering—to Sheila when he had picked her out of the crowd, showered her with love and attention, and soon after asked her to be his wife.
        “Which tie? Blue or red?” He held them both up to his perfectly pressed dress shirt as he stood before the mirror.
        “Blue.”
        “Red.” He nodded to himself as he cast the blue tie to the floor. It crumpled into an inanimate heap, as if a pit viper had shed its skin. Ethan slipped a suit coat over his shoulders, the tie left hanging loose. He made for the kitchen of the little three-bedroom ranch without a backward glance.
“No coffee? Can’t even remember to set the…”
In the living room, the mantel clock chimed.
        “Shit,” he said. “I’m late.”
        Sheila rose and moved to the doorway of their long-shared bedroom, the habits of nearly a decade well-formed and never misplaced. He searched frantically for the phone she had set on the table near the front door. Three inches in from the side, one inch back from the front. On the floor to the right, his briefcase leaned at a precise 30-degree angle for ease of snatchability. She’d arranged it the night before, just as she always did. Ethan kicked it over in haste when he bolted for the door.
        “Have a good…” Sheila began.
        The door slammed.
        “…day.”
        With a heavy sigh, she glanced again at the mottled flesh of her dead limbs and cautiously sniffed the air. The sickening scent of his expensive aftershave clashed with the minty hint of toothpaste. At least one thing had gone right that morning, Sheila thought.
        She hadn’t started to rot.        

Alone in the bathroom she inspected her reflection. She searched her skin for the luminescent sheen associated with autolysis, but the process of self-digestion seemed to be delayed. Perhaps her tissue had not yet become fully necrotic. That might explain why the enzymes poised to devour her flesh had failed to make an appearance. Hadn’t she read somewhere that the process wouldn’t start until she stopped breathing? Yes, that had to be it. Her lungs still seemed to be working just fine. Active decay and skeletonization wouldn’t start for a while yet, so she had some time. Still, autolysis would come along soon enough, followed by that awful bloating. With a shudder she remembered the last time one of her limbs had reached that stage—Ethan had not been pleased when she’d released that rotten egg smell at one of his company’s dinner parties.
Tousling her hair, she paused long enough to watch multiple strands fall into the sink, then dressed in her favorite pair of jeans and a roomy t-shirt covered with a cardigan. In the kitchen, she paused to look out the window onto a bright fall day. The colorful carnage of the forest beckoned her, and she imagined lying beneath the canopy. She wondered what it would be like to drift away in sunlight that fell like rain through decaying limbs. To feed the earth with her death.
        Maybe she should ask Ethan for a natural burial, she thought. But the idea of bugs crawling over her body before she ceased to feel their endless legs changed her mind.
        No. It would have to be a coffin for her. After all, she’d buried her mother in the clean white casket, her father under that lovely black onyx sheen. Of course, the one for Avery had been much smaller. Just basket-sized really. There’d been no need for anything more.
       For a single moment, Sheila felt the warmth of breath against her neck and choked back a sob before shaking her head like an angry dog. The memory shattered like glass, piercing her head and body with old pain. By the time it dissipated, the sun had risen high, bright as a lover’s eye in the Carolina blue.
Startled into awareness by a sudden trilling from her purse, Sheila forged her way into the kitchen. Getting her limbs moving took some doing, the joints like unoiled hinges that fought her with every step.
        Rigor mortis, she thought, but then shook her head again. “No. That doesn’t start for 12 to 24 hours,” she muttered and glanced at the clock and then at the calendar beside it. Her own handwriting glared back at her. Lunch with Margot. Oh hell, she thought as her stomach gurgled. The bloat was sure to begin soon, and she had no desire to be in a restaurant when it did.
The incessant ringing returned, and she retrieved her phone from her purse, ready to speak when Margot cut her off.
        “Not this time, girlfriend,” Margot said. “I’m nearly at the restaurant, so get your ass in your car and get here. It’s been ages.”
        Sheila stared at the phone, mouth agape as she wiped a bit of accumulated funk from the corners. A single syllable crawled out of her throat. “I…”
        “Ass in car. Now. No excuses. See you soon. Kisses.”
        Margot hung up and Sheila sighed again. She would have to go. There was no turning down Margot when she was in one of her moods, and she was definitely in one of her moods.
        At the restaurant, Sheila stood at the host stand while the young woman seated four other groups, eyes scouring the tables as she looked for Margot. Instead, she found one of the dead. Sheila called them the Unseen. It was another woman this time, alone in a corner, face buried in a book as she automatically shoveled fries between her dark blue lips. Sheila felt a stab of pity in her chest and wondered how the woman would react if she ventured over to say hello. Would she know? Would she recognize Sheila as one of her own? Did the dead see anything other than themselves? She had nearly made up her mind to go over, to ask what the Unseen was reading and perhaps see if she would like to talk about the story over an iced tea when Margot’s voice rose over the din.
“Hey lady! Over here!”
        Checking left then right then left again as if she were about to pull out into traffic, Sheila threaded her way through the tables. Margot held up a finger as she finished shouting at someone on the other end of the phone.
        “I don’t care what it costs. Rip it out and do it again, you understand?” She rolled her eyes and turned away from the table. “No, you listen. I’m the one paying the bill, not my husband, so you answer to me. Whether he liked it or not is irrelevant. Now I’ve asked you nicely once, don’t make me ask you again.” She smiled and winked in Sheila’s general direction. “Thank you.”
        Margot hung up as the waiter dropped by and asked, “Can I take your order?”
        Sheila’s jaw clicked painfully as she tried to open her mouth. When nothing came out, Margot ordered for them both.
“Two Caesar salads, shrimp on one, grilled chicken on the other, iced tea for me and seltzer with lime for my pale friend.”
        “Coming right up.”
        “I swear these decorators don’t have a clue…” Margot rambled on until the drinks arrived. She took a long pull of her iced tea and put her elbows on the table. “How are you doing, kiddo?”
        Sheila found it even harder to unhinge her lips. Lockjaw, she thought. Typical.
        “You’re looking pale. Have you been getting out much? Ethan coming home? I swear to god if Jackson treated me half as bad as that jerk treats you, I’d be gone in a minute. Do you know what he did the other day? You’re never going to believe this…”
        Ears still work, Sheila thought as Margot droned on. She looked around the busy restaurant finding most people glued to their phones, poised to capture the next viral video but no longer willing to intervene. A woman with a baby was so distracted she didn’t even notice the plastic keys she bounced over her son’s carrier were hitting the child in the face. When he began to scream, she grew irate.
Sheila drifted, the clinking of the utensils on plates as irritating as the baby’s cries. She wondered what she would’ve done if Avery had screamed in such a place. But she’d never had the chance to hear those screams. Never had the opportunity to soothe them into silence.
        “Was something wrong?” the waiter asked, and Sheila snapped back to her body.
        “She never eats in front of people,” Margot said before Sheila could answer. “Box it up, will you?”
        “Sure thing.”
        The dead have no need for food, Sheila thought as her stomach turned over once more.
        Margot inspected her closely. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”
Sheila looked up sharply.
“Ethan wouldn’t have to know. My aunt Beverly has the best hypnotist in the world. I’ll get you his number. She swears he cured little Remy of his sugar addiction, and she’s lost about fifteen pounds since she did that hypnotism session.”
        The waiter set down a box in the middle of the table. “Can I get you anything else?”
Sheila looked at Margot who had moved on, her prattle now focused on her most recent yoga instructor’s recommendations for herbal menopause remedies.
“All good,” Margot said and offered the waiter a dazzling smile. She set an appreciative gaze on his rear as he walked away. “If I were 20 years younger,” she said with a grunt of lust. Gathering her purse, Margot stood. “Gotta run. You call me, okay? And get some sun. Far too pale. I’ll get you that number. Kisses!”
Sheila watched her go and then glanced back at the nearby table. The young mother and her son had gone. She couldn’t remember seeing them leave.
In the car again, Sheila made her way across town through traffic that barely moved. Rather than sit, she tried a new route and followed a single ray of sunlight that had escaped from the gathering clouds. Turning down an unknown street, her gaze landed upon a simple sign, the subtle lettering forming the words “Duggan’s Funeral Home.” It wasn’t one she had used for her parents or for Avery, and she felt a tug of interest to see what lay inside. A black hearse was parked in the middle of the curving drive, and Sheila pulled in behind it.
Stepping into the showroom, the silence greeted her with hushed anticipation. A somber secretary in a somber black suit sat behind a dark cherry desk, the muted tones of her conversation barely reaching Sheila’s ears. A calm of belonging settled over her as she let her fingers dance along the silken innards of a particularly beautiful mahogany coffin. She caressed the satin pillows that sat fluffed and perfect on a slim mattress. Such a shame it would soon be soiled by the inevitable degradation of the body it would cradle.
“May I help you?” the secretary asked in a voice tinged with the appropriate amount of mournful commiseration.
“I need…” What do I need, Sheila thought, and paused long enough that the somber lady shifted her weight in annoyance. “…to make arrangements.”
“May I ask for whom?”
“Myself,” Sheila said without looking at the woman.
“Of course,” the secretary said, and this time the sympathy seemed almost genuine. “Please feel free to browse. I’ll let Mr. Duggan know you’re here.”
Sheila moved away from the pricier options, looking very much like a kid who’d just seen a particularly lovely Christmas display. She twirled in the silence and stopped at the very basket-sized option she had purchased nearly a year before.
She was still there, breath held tight within her lungs when Mr. Duggan found her. He held out both hands to Sheila. “I’m so sorry for your loss, but I do thank you for choosing Duggan’s. I can assure you we will meet your every need and expectation, Mrs.…” He raised an inquiring eyebrow.
Sheila moved beside the mahogany coffin once more. “May I try this one?”
Startled, Duggan looked from Sheila to the casket and then back to Sheila.
“Just for a minute,” she said to ease the awkward silence.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he said with the same air of authority Sheila had heard every day for the past ten years. “If you’ll kindly join me in my office…”
“Where do you keep the bodies? Is there a morgue?”
“We have facilities below.”
“May I see them?”
The mortician shifted his stance and clasped his hands protectively before him. “I hardly think that’s a good idea…”
“Do you embalm them? Does it hurt?”
“I can assure you, the dead do not feel a thing.”
        “No,” Sheila agreed. “They don’t.”
Feeling a gurgle of gas, Sheila moved away to peek behind the green velvet curtains shielding the showroom from a viewing. A small group of mourners stood next to a casket, whispering without looking down. No one ever really looked at the dead. Behind her, Duggan gave a polite cough.
        Sheila let the curtain fall. “I think I’d like the mahogany one.”
The mortician allowed his lips to twitch. “Of course. I understand from my secretary that this is pre-planning for your own transition. May I ask your diagnosis?”
Sheila faced him. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
She leaned close to whisper in his ear. “I’m already dead.”
Duggan stepped back and tugged the jacket of his suit straight as he muttered under his breath. Sheila couldn’t be sure exactly what he said, but the words “goddamn kooks” seemed pretty clear. He snapped his fingers to call the somber woman. “I’m afraid I have another appointment. My secretary will see you out.”
The woman hustled Sheila outside with stunning efficiency and closed the door. The lock clicked and a “Viewing in Progress—Please Use Side Entrance” sign appeared. Sheila touched her fingers to the cool glass and watched as her reflection reached out from the other side. She stared at the spot where their fingers connected with interest as a jolt of static seemed to transfer through the glass. Overhead, a clap of thunder drew her attention. Dropping her hand, Sheila scurried to her car just as the first drops of rain splashed against her skin.

*****

Dinner sat cold and congealed on the table. The gas fireplace flickered, heat pumping through the vent, but Sheila didn’t feel it. She sat in the corner, the rocker moving slowly in time with her labored breath. Ethan had gone out. She hadn’t asked where or with whom.
It had been like this for years, and she had to wonder, had it always been like this? His pursuit of her had been relentless. The constant attention, the feigned understanding, the desperation to make her his bride—so much so that she had agreed to elope after just three months of dating, never knowing until it was too late that he didn’t want to have children. Her father had never set foot in this house, her mother only rarely, and the isolation had been painful to endure. Still, she endured it. She had loved her husband then. And she had given God and Ethan her word.
Until death do us part.
It had been years before she realized she no longer spoke to old friends, and that her family avoided speaking to her husband. When Avery had been conceived through a happy accident of failed birth control, even the announcement of her pregnancy had seemed a clandestine affair. Her mother had reluctantly agreed to meet on the condition that Ethan not be present, and the tears that had fallen when Sheila told her the news had not been signs of joy. She had taken Sheila’s hands in both of hers, squeezing them tightly before cupping her daughter’s cheek as she rose and left the restaurant without another word.
Sheila hadn’t understood that response. Not until she’d felt Avery flutter in her womb for the very first time. Everything had changed then.
Ethan hadn’t wanted the child, but he’d finally agreed to let her keep it as long as she made sure it didn’t disrupt his own life. The months that followed had been the happiest of her life. She no longer cared where Ethan went. Didn’t fret about anything more than the right shade of green for the nursery and a proper crib to match her grandmother’s rocker. The very chair she now sat in. The same she’d sat in after that ill-fated appointment last summer.
“It’s a congenital defect,” the doctor had said. “The child will need to be carried to term, but she won’t live beyond the womb.”
Sheila’s jaw had barely moved when she asked, “How long?”
The old doctor had laid a kind hand on hers. “You’ll have hours at most.”
That had been the first time Sheila died.
She’d thanked the doctor, gone home, cleaned the house, made her husband’s favorite meal, and told no one. There was no one left to tell.
The next time she went to the doctor, she asked to be induced on a day when Ethan would be halfway across the country. To say the delivery had been difficult was a poor euphemism for the pain she suffered. When Avery finally arrived, Sheila felt like she had been ripped down the middle and stapled back together by a blind man. Still, she’d found the strength to hold Avery in her arms for all the time they’d had together. Three hours and fifty-seven minutes.
She could still feel the baby’s warm breath on her neck. The weight of her against the blanket. The one regret she kept from that day was simple: Avery had never opened her eyes. During the sleepless nights after, Sheila had tormented herself with wonder over the color. Blue, green, brown—what had they been? She thought about it nonstop, her desperation to know the answer the one thing she believed would quell the anger and sadness that plagued her when she thought about how she had once been a mother, unseen.
The loss of her limbs had started soon after she’d laid Avery to rest. That broken toe. That frost-bitten finger. A rather severe bout with pinkeye. The episode where she’d lost her hearing for three days straight and no one seemed to notice. Certainly not Ethan. That weekend had been the most serene she’d had since the day she’d put Avery in the ground.
She’d spotted the first Unseen on a rainy Tuesday two months later. He’d been on a bus, stuck next to her car in traffic. He’d had his face turned to the window, but his eyes were dead. She could tell by the way he stared that he, too, lived a life unseen.
Slowly, she began to recognize them. Walking the aisles in the grocery store, their children bouncing around them. Clinging to umbrellas on the sidewalk during the lonely drudge from train to work. Sitting in restaurants and mechanically chewing when their bodies no longer desired food or cleaning their plates when no triggers arrived to tell them they felt full. They were everywhere. Each one completely alone in the flowing crowds of the living.
The dead don’t feel a thing.
Sheila knew this to be true. She went through the motions. Get up. Cook. Clean. Wait eight hours while staring at the ceiling and dreaming of a multitude of brilliant blues and then do it all again. She thought about standing now, but her dead limbs no longer responded, and she wished them a fond farewell.
The clock on the mantel chimed. Sixteen hours since she had awoken. Rigor mortis had surely set in.
“Christ, what is that smell?” Ethan said as he stumbled over the threshold.
The bedroom door slammed, and Sheila felt some life return to her limbs. She knew where she belonged. Knew exactly where she had to go. Moving faster than she had all day, she made her way back to Duggan’s. The lights were out, the darkness within complete but for a few well-placed security cameras with unblinking red eyes. She didn’t mind those. When they found her, she would be where she belonged.
The window broke easily enough. Dark blood barely flowed from the cut on her arm as she crawled inside. Feet firmly on the floor, she found the mahogany coffin and ran her frozen fingers along the silken folds.
She climbed inside and laid down on the mattress, head cushioned by silk perfection. A wave of peace flowed over her body, and she could feel herself shutting down. A sense of finality settled over her, and she floated like a leaf on a stream, soon to be carried to a new destination. Crossing her hands over her chest, she allowed herself to relax and waited for whatever came next.

*****

“Ma’am?”
Sheila snapped her eyes open. Red and blue lights reflected on the solemn white walls, and she wondered that heaven would look so bland.
“Ma’am? I’m afraid we need to ask you to exit…” The officer paused. “Exit, the, ah…ah hell. Can you please get up?”
Sheila sat up and blinked. Mr. Duggan scowled at her from the corner before returning his attention to the officer taking his statement.
“We’re going to have to ask you to come with us.” The officer held out a hand to help her out of the casket.
Sheila made no objection and soon found herself in the antiseptic hallway of the police station, sitting on a hard wooden bench while officers shuffled back and forth. Across the way, another Unseen sat with his decaying hands folded in his lap. The woman beside him argued vehemently with a young officer as she attempted to convince him that the havoc wreaked upon the Unseen’s face had been the result of a fall.
Sheila watched with interest as the Unseen’s bruises swelled in time with the irritating rise of his wife’s voice. Intrigued, she noticed how the discoloration spread and then retreated when the woman finally shut up. Looking down at her own hands, she saw how the sheen of the self-digesting enzymes seemed to mimic a healthy glow. Sheila felt a tingle run the length of her spine just as Ethan stumbled into the hall.
A few feet away, a man in a sport coat spoke to the Officer who had been so kind to Sheila. She had spent an hour with Sport Coat in a small room, the questions he asked answered with one- or two-word responses. After all, he didn’t really care what happened to her. No one ever did.
Sport Coat greeted Ethan before he ushered them both into a small interrogation room.
“I’m sorry about the lack of a conference room,” Sport Coat said and introduced himself to Ethan as Dr. Donald Downs. “Busy night. I hope you don’t mind.”
“What the hell am I doing here, Doc?” Ethan grumbled and rubbed his temples.
In the hall, the argument escalated. Sheila listened intently as the woman finally lost her rather formidable temper.
“…believe Mrs. MacNeil may be suffering from a delusional condition known as…”
“Delusional.” Ethan groaned. “That’s just great. Just what I need at three a.m. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I understand there’s been some recent trauma,” Sport Coat said as he flipped open Sheila’s file. “Tell me, did Mrs. MacNeil believe herself dead, or perhaps even die, however briefly, during that incident?”
“How the hell should I know?” Ethan said and leaned forward to point a finger at the doctor. “I’ll tell you what, though. If Duggan thinks he’s getting a dime out of me for that coffin he’s got another thing coming.”
Sheila caught the flash of anger as it darted across her face in the room’s two-way mirror.
Sport Coat continued. “I believe your wife is suffering from an extremely rare condition known as Cotard’s Delusion. Typically, the patient suffers some sort of depersonalization episode and believes strongly that he or she has died.”
Watching herself in the mirror, Sheila saw her brow crease in confusion. She didn’t think her condition was all that rare. After all, there was another Unseen in the hall. And she’d seen three more on her way into the station. Young women dressed in short skirts with lost eyes and hollow faces.
“What do you mean, ‘believes she died’?” Ethan asked. “She’s fine. Look at her.”
In the mirror, Sheila could see that neither of the men bothered to turn their heads her way. Typical, she thought, and caught the flash of wry humor as it ran across her lips. She touched her fingers to the spot, a tingle like a child’s laugh running down her arm, and she watched in awe as fresh pink blood rushed into the pale blue limb.
“Case in point,” Sport Coat said. “A woman in Russia believed so strongly that she was in hell, she didn’t eat for weeks. Died of starvation.”
“Just another nut case,” Ethan said.
“A man in a motorcycle accident thought he had died of sepsis and that his mother’s soul had taken him to hell. In reality, they’d gone on a vacation to South Africa. The heat…” Sport Coat shrugged. “With treatment, he got better. I understand you recently lost a child?”
“Can’t lose something you never had. Cost a fortune to bury it.” Ethan leaned forward again. “I mean seriously, Doc. Why do you have to bury something that never even bothered to breathe?”
Sheila watched her face, the charge of emotion clear and easy to see. In the hall, the angry woman stood up so abruptly she took the entire bench with her, tossing her husband to the floor. He landed with a dull thud before the interrogation room door. Concerned, Sheila stood. To the wonder of her husband and the doctor, she hurried into the hall and offered a hand to the man on the floor. He looked up at her and their eyes met.
“I see you,” she said, and let the tingle run the length of her arm, fingers warming as he tentatively took her hand. The man let out a rancid breath before inhaling deeply, as if he hadn’t ever done it before, a hint of laughter leaving his lips as his frozen fingers drew life from her warmth.
Sheila helped him to his feet and then returned to the interrogation room. She faced the mirror to find the dark circles beneath her eyes were gone. Cerulean blue sparkled in the fluorescent light, and she knew—just knew—that Avery’s eyes would’ve been the exact same shade. She smiled and set both hands against the glass as her blood flowed freely once more.
“Three hours and fifty-seven minutes,” she said to her reflection.
“Here we go,” Ethan muttered and rolled his eyes.
Sheila whirled, dismissing her husband as fully and effectively as she had her own emotions every day for the past 10 years. She addressed the doctor directly.
“Her name was Avery. And she breathed. For three hours and fifty-seven minutes. I was a mother unseen by my daughter’s eyes. But she lived, and breathed, for three hours and fifty-seven minutes, one year ago today.”
Dr. Downs invited her to sit down. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Feeling coursed through Sheila’s body in an effervescent flood as she looked at the doctor, tears finally wrung from her eyes.
“Yes, I would.”

***

Deirdre Swinden is published author and second-year MFA candidate in Arcadia University’s Creative Writing program. Her short story, “The Springing Point,” recently appeared in Griffel Literary Magazine #9. Her short work “Shooting Televisions” won the Popular Short Story Contest at the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference (2000). For the past 20 years, she has built a successful career as a writer/editor in the corporate world. She is currently working on her first novel.

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