Sixteen Small Deaths Read Online Free PDF Page B

deceased for ten minutes and I can’t remember what I saw except for a glowing black oval and two eyes the color of a dying sun. Everything was different from that point and only a week later my first after-death kiss pushed a lovely young lady to shove a knife in her throat after telling me I’d be hers forever.
    Forever is just a word, letters that too often mean too much.
    #
    Georgie’s voice is fuzzy, as if he’s speaking through a cloud. “Done” is the only word I can understand on the other line of the phone. I know it’s only a matter of a few minutes before my mess is cleaned up and the apartment reverts back to its lonely self. I stop into the December Diner on the corner of Tremont and Milk Street for a coffee before finally settling in for the evening. It’s a little after midnight and slumber calls.
    I order a medium coffee, black with two sugars. The man behind the counter takes my two crumpled dollar bills and while I’m waiting for my coffee a lady of no more than twenty-five bumps into me.
    “I’m sorry,” she says, red lips and eyes as brown as rotting wood. She tilts her head and winks with her left eye. “I think I’ve met you before. Do you live in the building on Cambridge Street near Center Plaza?”
    I wonder how she knows me, but I nod anyways. She throws out a hand and I return with a limp fish grip. I study her movements for a full few seconds.
    “My name is Veronica. My friend Carly lives in your building. I believe we spoke for a good two minutes a few weeks ago. Remember, the girl that was reading
The New Yorker
in thelobby?”
    Brain scans and computes my past memories, those startled and broken and real. I realize I’ve met her before. “Ahh, yes. I do. I’m Mick.”
    “Well, Mick, it’s nice to see you again. What are you up to so late?”
    I think of a lie faster than my tongue speaks. “Just had dinner with a few friends. Needed a caffeine bolt on my way home.”
    She smiles, two rows of perfect white teeth. Freckles adorn her face like tiny baby ants. A black tank-top peeks from under a white blouse. I suddenly forget my body’s exhaustion and agree to sit a booth with her. She tells me about her thesis on Paul Auster for her graduate degree, her love of cats, and how she once auditioned for “Survivor.” My skin burns with a comforting itch, the disquieting allure of attraction and caffeine swimming through my veins.
    #
    I pop open a bottle of beer for Veronica and she thanks me before sitting on the sofa. There’s not a single trace of Georgie or his work anywhere in the apartment. I can still smell the haunting leftovers of my earlier beau, and hope that my emotions won’t lead to the same result with the dazzling woman sitting just half an inch away.
    “I really like your place,” she says, taking a long sip of beer and placing the bottle on the edge of the coffee table.
    “Thanks.” As soon as I turn around she’s already in my face, bright red hair a spinning supernova prior to her lips finding mine. We kiss for what feels like a year before I realize that my last adventure in love resulted in an undesirable mishap. I push her off me and I’m greeted with a severe frown.
    “Okay…what’s wrong?”
    I search for an answer but all that’s left in my mind are amillion dead memories and the thought that I’m going to experience another event in a matter of seconds. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
    We sit for a bit in silence before Veronica takes another sip of her beer. I stare at the clock and it’s been a healthy ten minutes since the kiss…and nothing’s happened. My heart flutters with a rocket verve and there’s nothing left to lose. I pull Veronica into my chest and remember that this life was all but a cruel dream.
    #
    It’s been far too long since I’ve seen the naked silhouette of a woman on the opposite side of my bed. Veronica’s curves sparkle in the morning light, cornflower-blue mix of koi fish and rose tattoos glistening with