Ashes, Ashes (LMS Story 2)

There are days when you wake up outside of your own body. You think it should surprise you, but doesn’t. You rise from the sleeping bag in the homeless shelter with little effort, only to look down and find that you left your skin behind. It’s an inconvenience, nothing more.

A couple cots down, a man plays a violin. It’s his fault that this happened to you. You devote a small section of your consciousness to hating him.

It takes you a half-hour to rouse your body. You sing a lot of Green Day.

You tell yourself to write this development down in your journal, the one that Dr. Newman told you to keep, but your arms won’t obey. Oh well. Save it for later.

The workers at the shelter don’t ask questions. You leave.

Your body is a lot less adventurous than you. After all, it needs to worry about mortality. You follow it down the street and around the corner, even stop to eat breakfast with it at the café. Neither of you digest anything. It heads for the subway station, so you trail behind. Subways are scary. There was that one story where a lady got killed on a subway. Dangerous stuff. Your body is a fifteen-year-old boy, but serial killers have varying tastes.

Down you both go, down the stairs. Into the earth. There are so many other people, but you get to float above them. Above everything. It’s weird, being underneath the ground and yet above the general populace. Something’s out-of-touch.

Don’t

think

about

it.

Thinking about it only makes you sad. Sadness shouldn’t be able to touch you when you’re like this. You devote your attention to the beautiful girl who gets on the subway next to your body.

“Hi, Quinn,” she tells it. “You write anything recently?”

Your body probably gives an answer, but you formulate your own in your head. “No, I haven’t written anything. Medicine kills my creativity.” Because she shouldn’t refer to your body as Quinn. You are Quinn. Only you are Quinn.

“That’s okay,” she says.

You remember her face, but your body asks her to repeat her name anyway. She does. There’s something in her smile, something sweet, something childlike. You must ask this every time you see her. And of course you know why. You’re too busy thinking through the complexity of your own mind that you forget to catch what she says. It’s fine. Your body will remember.

The girl kisses your body on the cheek as she rushes for her train. Your body dawdles. Now that the girl is gone, there is no reason for you to hang out with your flesh if you don’t have to. Your body can spend the entire day riding around on the subway. You can’t. You go down to the fountain near the park where all the birds splash around, and talk with them.

“Haven’t you brought us bread?” they ask.

Except, you haven’t.

And even if you had, how could you throw it to them? You’re not in your body.

“I’m sorry, birds,” you tell them. “I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s okay,” they reply. “Bring something later.”

You make a note in your head to take food to them when you awake in your body once more. Maybe they will like spice cake. Maybe they will like the taste of the ground Lithium pills you were meant to swallow with your breakfast that morning.

Or maybe they won’t. It’s a toss-up.

“Have you seen anything especially beautiful today?” you say, trying to strike up conversation once more.

“Yes, yes. We saw a couple get married,” a bluebird quips.

“Very young couple,” adds a pigeon. “Too young, if you ask me. But her dress was truly gorgeous.” The pigeon sounds like your mother. You’ll tell your mother about the pigeon.

“Anything else?” you ask.

“There was a store playing lovely music down there. Something by… what’s that man’s name… Mozart! I wish I was alive when he was. Such piano! Such violin!”

“Yes, Mozart.” You glide into the fountain to get closer to the birds. “Mozart is wonderful.”

The other birds join in a chorus of different languages. “Sí! Mozart es bueno!”

“Mozart er godt! Han har på seg gode klær også!”

You can translate those birds because of the website you were using before your diagnosis. What was it called? Ah, whatever. You learned Spanish and Norwegian. An odd combination. Why do the birds speak specific languages that you know? They must know you know them.

There’s another question you must ask. “Are you all from very far away?”

“No. We come from very close. America is a melting pot, is it not?” The birds stop answering you after that. You are disenchanted with the birds.

There’s a man with a powerful voice belting a solo inside a nearby building. He’s just a grainy picture on a discount TV screen, but you are drawn to him anyway. You watch how he inhales and exhales. It’s like there’s fire inside his lungs. He closes his eyes to hit a falsetto note, and you close your eyes with him.

Focus is a heck of a drug.

You can’t even recognize your own face on the next television set over as your family desperately tries to find you. They talk about your medication, how you shouldn’t be without it.

They’re wrong, though. It’s your body that needs the medication. And since you’ve escaped it, you have no need. You can drift onwards forever. Maybe someone on the subway will report your body to the police, and they’ll bring it back to your house safe and sound so you can use it once you’re back inside. Maybe. So many maybes. Or, they might not find your body. Doesn’t matter to you at all. At this point, you’re at least seventy-percent sure that you’re already dead.

That’s it! Someone killed you. Again. Those people, the people you told your mother were coming. They killed you. Finally. You showed her.

The screen-man’s name is Brian. Everyone on TV loves him. You might want to go meet Brian.

Somebody else enters the shop behind you. Their voice is raspy and thick. You cannot stay here with their voice overlapping with Brian’s. They complain about a DVD not working properly on their player, and the shopkeeper attempts to explain to them that their player doesn’t work for Blu-Ray disks. What even is Blu-Ray? You can’t stick around. You need to leave.

The scent of candy drags you down yet another street.

When you were little, your father used to get you these things called “circus peanuts.” You didn’t know what they tasted like then. Heck, you still don’t know. But you want to taste them. They were unnaturally orange and chewy, getting caught in your braces and stuck to the roof of your mouth. Like peanut butter, except not peanut butter. Without any peanut at all.

Good times.

You want to signal for your body to join you outside the store. Marshmallows and chocolate-covered pretzels occupy the display stand, along with a sign written in a fancy calligraphy font. For your sweetheart, on Valentine’s Day, or any day. And another: Show her how much you care! Do you have a sweetheart? Yes, of course you do. You must. After all, the girl at the subway station kissed your body’s cheek. Yes, she’s yours. Does she know that you’re dead? Yes, of course she does. You will buy her some chocolate tonight.

In the meantime, there are more pressing matters to attend to. You locate the jar filled with circus peanuts somewhere off to your left. Simple enough. But gummy sharks, and butterflies, bears, and worms… how will you ever decide which one that you want? You check your pockets for cash. Oh wait, you don’t have pockets. They’re with your body. No money. Well. You absorb the smell anyway. Stores can’t charge you for smells.

A child outside screams with delight. He holds in his hand a bag of M&M candies, waving them tantalizingly over his comrades. They all seem happy. You will play with the child now.

“Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies!”

Posies, yes. Your sister plants flowers in the window box that dangles over the road below. She likes poppies and Black-Eyed Susans. You like tulips. Your body was allergic to begonias. Thank goodness you’re not tethered to that loser anymore.

“Ashes, ashes…”

Ashes. When you sat outside your house after that fire, bits of your bedroom were raining down from the window. And they looked like snow, so you danced underneath them. Your mother pulled you away. Why would she do that? Fire… marshmallows… circus peanuts! You really should have bought some circus peanuts. Why didn’t you buy any?

“We all fall down!”

Such a fun little game, one that involves sprawling on your back. You’re certain you’ve played it before, but at the same time you’re not. Your brother… what is his name? Or, what was his name? You don’t have siblings anymore because you have ceased to exist. Of course. Why do you keep forgetting that? Brother… maybe Michael? Maybe he’s still alive.

No, his name is Bartley.

The children spin in circles as they warble their upbeat chant. The child drops his M&M bag.

“Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

They crumple on the cobblestone path, giggling all the while. You fall with them this time. And you don’t laugh. Somewhere far away, an ambulance speeds through the intersections to get to the subway station entrance. Maybe your body’s there.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Why is it always maybe?

What you would give for a single day without any maybes.

A smoker outside your favorite bakery exhales a darkened breath. Even from where you lie, you’re sure you inhale it too.

Some days, you wake up outside your own body. Some days, you won’t get that body back.