Elliott Zee
Jeanette’s death was a cute little thing that wriggled in her lap like a newborn kitten. It was so small that it could fit in the palm of her hand, where it would gurgle and sputter its last breath in a perpetual exit without an ending. During the day, she kept it in her pocket where she whispered secrets to it and fed it cookies. At night, she cradled it in a shoebox and read it bedtime stories. It was the first friend she ever made.
When she was five, Jeanette’s little death got the sniffles, so she made it a pillow fort and sang songs until it felt better. It was hard for Jeanette to be sure what was ailing her death, but the girl’s intuition told her it needed a hug and a big bowl of chicken soup. It accepted her affection and greedily devoured the meal.
When Jeanette turned ten she began to study anatomy. She spent long hours in her local library — her lanky brown arms filled with books that were brimming with images of human viscera. She poured over microfiche of obituaries and coroner’s reports. She marveled at the root cause of broken noses and shattered eye-sockets. She reveled in her newfound knowledge until one overly restrictive librarian redeposited her in the children’s section. But before her curiosity had been stifled by the cruel reins of adult supervision, Jeanette had gained a working knowledge of the human corpse under the conditions of drowning, poison, strangulation, and decapitation. It took her another five weeks, and a stint on a borrowed laptop, before she determined that her little death was likely the result of a lethal combo of blunt force trauma and drowning. Jeanette was elated.
Jeanette’s teenage years were a time of fearlessness. While other girls were worried about acne and awkwardness, Jeanette practiced parkour. She flipped off the sides of buildings with a boldness that terrified her family. But Jeanette knew she had nothing to fear. She had carefully studied her little death. She knew every scar, every bruise, every tear. She understood with unparalleled intimacy every wound and violence that would be inflicted on her body. In turn, she understood all that could not hurt her. The boundaries of her brokenness, of her final release from her earthly existence were clearly defined.
Yet, Jeanette could not shake her sense of loneliness — the invisible veil between her and the rest of the world. Her friends and partners were vulnerable to a fate she couldn’t control. Their deaths were unknowable, anonymous strangers lurking in the shadows. She yearned to penetrate the isolation. Her little death, always a sympathetic friend, rummaged through discarded newspapers and left clippings for personal ads under Jeanette’s pillow. While the miniature corpse was surprisingly adept at finding potential partners, it failed to find another soul who experienced the world like Jeanette.
Inspired, and frustrated, the young woman decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I can see my own dead body. Can you?”
Jeanette discovered death-positive forums on Reddit at the age of thirty-three. She told her story, posted a few selfies of her and her death, and waited. She could hardly contain her excitement in finally finding a venue in which she could connect with kindred spirits. She saw the pictures of funerals and the tasteful ministrations of morticians and knew she’d be at right at home.
Then the comments began to roll in.
“Inappropriate post. Reported.”
“Why are you disrespecting our forum?”
“Quit lying for attention!” said a message from a young man in Colorado. Several followed up to suggest she was in need of medication. One middle-aged woman, thinking she was being helpful, diagnosed Jeanette as suicidal and reported her post to the authorities.
Jeanette was heartbroken. She knew it was foolish to think that anyone would be able to see her little death, even when captured in photographic evidence. All she had done was make herself vulnerable to a sea of unsympathetic minds.
And then there was “Sleepy,” a rando who kept lurking around the forums, replying to her posts with pictures of himself in various states of consciousness. She considered reporting him to someone, but her little death would hiss and shake its head adamantly every time she tried. So instead, Jeanette hit the “ignore” button and plopped face-first onto her bed in a gesture of despondence.
Her death, unconcerned with the opinions of others, flooded the forum with bawdy memes and merrily gored itself on microwave waffles. Every few minutes it would tap her computer screen with a bloody finger, screening messages on her behalf and clicking its tongue until, at last, it found what it was seeking. The little death grinned with a shattered jaw and nudged Jeanette towards several unread replies to her post.
“I don’t get why people say they can’t see your death in the photo. It’s totally right next to you!” The message was from an anonymous poster form Denmark. Jeanette allowed herself to emerge from the funk of her cynicism. Her death grinned at her, victorious as a second message appeared.
“My mom put me on meds as a kid because I told her a little boy who looked like me followed me around the house bleeding everywhere,” said a man from Detroit, “He still does.”
Others followed. The forum was soon flooded with a parade of carnage. Many users continued to insist that the messages were fake, but those with supernatural companions perched on their shoulders could see her death, and she in turn could see theirs. The newly formed community was ecstatic. Their little deaths, inspired by the excitement, would peek over their shoulders, and dive onto keyboards, hunt-and-pecking cryptic code with their bloodstained appendages.
And for the first time in her life, Jeanette felt at peace. Her community was her refuge — a perpetual sanity check that let her know she was not alone. Her little death, feeling generous, unblocked Sleepy, and began to upvote the myriad pictures of him slumbering in exotic locales. Jeanette was too distracted to notice.
“We should have a meet-up some time,” the no-longer-lonely woman suggested one stormy afternoon while her death stood outside and caught raindrops in its fractured arms. “Like a conference. It would be great to get my death out of the house and socialize it a little. It gets restless with just me around.”
The others, nudged on by their little deaths, agreed that if they had the money and time, they would get together someday. A few months later, Jeanette met two of her more enthusiastic peers at a Seattle hotel. The three of them went out to the bar while their little deaths stayed in the lobby for a night of poker and charades.
“Being confronted with my death makes me less afraid,” Jeanette confided. “You’d think it would be horrible, but I guess they’re right about knowledge being power . . . ”
“Maybe, but I wish I had more knowledge to work with,” Dave, a leather clad biker, said with a sigh. “No matter how many times I’ve ordered my death to quit screwing with me, it never does. It just keeps dying of a heart attack, aging right along with me. It’s a death sentence and I have no idea when the ax is gonna drop.”
“Least you know it won’t be from a motorcycle accident.” Jeanette shrugged. Dave rolled his eyes, unimpressed.
“One day I’m gonna take a bullet,” her friend Joshua declared as he tapped his forehead knowingly. “Right there. But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let it bother me.” His crinkled Cajun face reminded Jeanette of sunburnt leather. “Just means I need to work a little harder to make sure it’s all worthwhile. And if it brings me a little extra friendship, I’d say that was a good thing too.”
“That may be so,” Dave nodded. “But there’s a risk to us coming together like this.” He let the remnants of his beer whirl around the bottom of his glass.
“What do you mean?” Jeanette squinted her eyes.
“Now that they’ve met each other, they know our weaknesses,” Dave continued. “What if our deaths want us to die, but they’re too little to do anything about it? What if they just needed help finishing their jobs?”
“Now that’s just stupid!” Jeanette scoffed. “Why would our deaths try to kill us? I mean, they need us alive, right?”
“What if they become us? What if that’s their whole purpose? Maybe they can’t really start living until we’re gone?”
Dave’s words hung heavy in the air as friends exchanged worried glances. After several more minutes of quiet suffering, Jeanette finally spoke. “Look. My little friend’s been with me my whole life. And you know what? That crazy little thing ain’t plotting shit. If she were up to anything, I’d know. She doesn’t hide anything from me.”
“You sure about that?” asked a voice at the back of the bar. The four companions turned to see a bearded man with an afro sipping a drink in the corner. “Cause mine seems to always have a mind of its own.”
“Can we help you?” Jeanette slid down from her barstool. As she approached, the woman noticed that the stranger looked familiar. On the table in front of him was a small stack of printed-out photographs. She squinted, then snatched a photo of Dave on his motorcycle from the table and waved it in the air. The image showed his little death sprawled red-face in the sidecar. “You’ve been stalking us. Jesus!”
“Seems so,” Dave muttered narrowing his eyes. He turned towards the gentleman with an air of casual menace. “But why?”
“It’s not like that! I thought. I just — ” The stranger winced and took a deep gulp from his drink. “Damnit! I should have known better than to come here! It never works.”
“What never works?” Dave asked, leaning in towards the stranger.
“Making friends,” the man replied with a soft sigh. “The pictures were from Reddit. From your forum. I was invited here. By her friend.” He motioned to Jeanette.
“I didn’t invite him,” Jeanette said with a frown.
“No, but your death did.” He spoke the last words in a half-whisper. “She’s been networking with the others.”
“Pardon?” Joshua raised a crooked eyebrow.
“After her last message, my little guy insisted that I drive out here.” The stranger said with a small smile. “He helps me sometimes, whether I want it or not. Likes to send pictures. Usually gets me banned from forums.”
“Wait. Hold on. I know who you are.” Jeanette took a breath and tried not to cringe remembering the relentless stream of spam she had received from the unwelcome stranger. “But if you were one of us, we’d be able to tell — ”
“ — cause he’d be in the pictures he sent.” The man took a breath and raised a hand. “But he was. I’ll show you.” The stranger reached into the bag next to his chair. Inside was a small figure curled in a blanket. His face was calm. His eyes were closed. He wasn’t breathing. The tiny man was dead. A death with no sign of injury. A death that looked like an ordinary person, asleep.
“Selfies!” Jeanette gasped with understanding.
The man nodded as he scooped his little death into his hand to show them. “No one ever believes me. Then again, I wasn’t sure you were the real deal either. But Sleepy said I could trust ya’ll.”
“Yours talks to you?” Dave asked, his body relaxing.
“Types,” the man replied. “Also knows sign language.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Joshua clapped his hands together with a smile. Dave grunted, slapped his new pal on the back and wandered back to the front of the bar for another drink.
“My name is Jeff, by the way.” The new friend offered a shy smile, his eyes looking off in the distance. Jeanette extended her hand.
“Jeanette,” and this is “Joshua and Dave. But I guess you already know that.”
Jeff’s little death began to stir. It stretched and made a few quick gestures in ASL. Jeanette extended a finger to shake the little death’s miniature hand. “Well hey there, little guy.” She grinned. “What happened to you?” Jeff’s death offered no reply. Instead it simply winked and curled back onto the table.
“He does that,” Jeff confided, wringing his umber hands. “He’s friendly enough, but doesn’t like answering questions.”
“At least he’s helpful,” Joshua replied with a smile. “Mine ain’t bad, but would probably be more useful if it didn’t get its head blown off every ten minutes.” The others chuckled.
“So where are your little deaths anyway?”
“They’re in the lobby playing a round of charades near the coat-check.” Jeanette replied. Sleepy opened an eye in curiosity at the conversation. “Hey, you can go out there if you want.” The little death stretched its arms and tilted its head cautiously towards Jeff.
“It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”
Sleepy grinned from ear-to-ear. He gave a small salute and shimmied down the chair-leg and out into the lobby.
“Well, I’m turning in for the night,” Joshua said. How ‘bout you all?”
“Turn in?” Dave scoffed, “This is the first time my death has left me alone for more than five minutes. I’m gonna see what there is to do in this town. You two in?” The pair exchanged a cautious glance at each other.
“No, it’s okay,” Jeanette replied. “I think we’re gonna stay behind and chat, right Jeff?”
The biker rolled his eyes. “Suit yourselves.” He paid his tab and wandered out of the bar, towards the street.
“Hey, I owe you an apology,” Jeanette said softly once she and Jeff were alone. “She finished her drink and felt the warmth of it in her stomach. “I shouldn’t have ignored you when you reached out to me.”
“Yeah, well,” Jeff lowered his eyes and fiddled with his keychain. “I had no idea that Sleepy was posting stuff on my behalf till last week.
“Seriously?”
Jeff shrugged. “I never use my Reddit account.” He let out a chuckle. “But apparently Sleepy does. Must be bored out of his mind.”
Jeanette smiled. “Yeah, mine does the same thing sometimes. She thinks she’s being helpful, but I can’t help but wonder if she wants a life outside of me, y’know?”
“Exactly. We both exist, so we’re two different people, right? Different people with different needs.”
“Different needs,” Jeanette repeated, rocking slightly in her chair. “I’m glad you’re here, Jeff. Sorry I thought you were a weirdo.”
“It was perfectly reasonable to assume I was a weirdo.” Jeff grinned.
“No. I should have given you — him the benefit of the doubt.”
Jeff smiled as Jeanette leaned groggily in his direction. “Hey,” he said after a few moments of silence, “it’s been great speaking with you, but I think I better get some sleep.”
Jeanette nodded. She paid her tab and stumbled over to a dusty ottoman in the corner of the lobby where the little deaths were still socializing. She steadied herself against the stonework of the lobby’s fireplace and headed off to bed. That night, her mind conjured images of broken bodies dancing and moaning and flicking bent fingers against floating keyboards. She felt a strange welling in her chest — a bittersweet convergence of empathy and trepidation. Her dreams were filled with sensations of flight accompanied by the burning of lungs and a pressing, precious submersion.
Jeanette woke at 11:42am the next morning in a cold sweat surrounded by a tangle of bedsheets. She wandered to the sink and shucked the plastic off a hotel cup, filling it four times in an attempt to fight her dehydration headache. Then she stripped off her clothes, stepped into the shower and let the hot water wash off the excesses of the evening before.
“Well, that was an interesting party, wasn’t it, little buddy?” Jeanette chuckled as she tilted her head towards where her little death perched in the mornings. “Buddy?” There was no gurgle, no sputter, no last hiss of air escaping through broken teeth. Jeanette’s hand filled the empty space where her death should have been. “Yo! Where are you?” Jeanette ended her shower.
“Little death?” She searched for her death amongst the blankets. She checked under the bed, and behind the dresser, but her companion was nowhere to be found. In desperation, she checked the mini-fridge. The phone began to ring. She massaged her temples and tried to steady her breathing as she scrambled across the room and lifted the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Jeanette Richardson in room 302?” asked the receptionist in the lobby.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“We have a man named Jeff Fischer down here. He says he’s been trying to reach on your cell but it goes to voicemail. He claims he’s a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, um. Sure. Did he say what he wanted?”
“No.” The woman on the other end of the phone let out a sigh. “He just says it’s urgent that you come down and talk to him. But if you don’t know him, I can tell him to quit hassling you.”
“I know him,” Jeanette replied. She starred down at the eight missed calls on her cell phone. “I’ll be right down.”
Jeanette got dressed and walked the three flights of stairs to the lobby. As she opened the stairwell door, she saw Jeff pacing nervously in front of the elevators. He fidgeted and stared at his phone, as though he was expecting an urgent message. Jeanette noticed that his little death was missing as well.
“Hey, have you seen — ”
“Yes! And everything’s fine, I think. Better now that you’re here!” Jeff shifted his weight from foot-to-foot, barely able to contain the nervous energy coursing through his body. “But something happened. Last night. The note. Did she share one with you?” His tone fluctuated between anxious and manic.
“No. What are you talking about?” Jeanette stared at the man in confusion.
“Our deaths. They’ve been corresponding. Like I told you last night.”
“Right. So?”
Jeff’s eyes grew huge as though he could barely contain his newfound revelation. “So, Sleepy and your little death have a chat history. My little guy printed out the transcript. He left it rolled up in my shoe.” He produced the bundle of papers that had been folded under his arm. “Apparently, they’ve been dating.”
“Pardon?” Jeanette shook her head in confusion.
“Online. The messages they’ve been exchanging. They’re well, kinda…” Jeff blushed and handed her papers.
Jeanette’s eyes darted over words like, “eternal,” and ”thirsty,” and “caress.”
“Hot damn!”
“Anyhow,” Jeff coughed, “I found them together this morning. I called you right away, but you weren’t answering.” He paused and took a deep breath, sweat dripping from his nervous, handsome brow. “I didn’t know what to do, so I recorded it. I thought you might know what it means.”
Jeanette took a step backwards as Jeff held out his phone in his trembling fingers. An image of tiny people appeared on the screen. They stood arm-in-arm on the high-dive of the hotel swimming pool. They jumped together, plummeting into the water over and over as blood, viscera, and mucus trailed behind them. Children played below in their water-wings and innertubes, unaware of the mortal struggle in their midst.
“He’s dying,” Jeff whispered. “In a good way.”
Jeanette nodded and squeezed Jeff’s hand. “And you say they’ve been doing that all morning?”
The duo steadied each other as they walked over to the indoor pool. The little deaths had toweled themselves off and were now sitting on the headrest of plastic lounge chair, gasping and hemorrhaging together in each other’s arms. They turned and beamed at their living counterparts with raw contentment.
Jeanette Richardson and Jeff Fischer eloped the following weekend. The members of their Reddit community sent best wishes, virtual flowers, and pictures of their little deaths in party hats.
On the morning of their fiftieth anniversary, after a long night celebrating their bold and fearless lives, Jeanette and Jeff’s deaths woke to find themselves submerged beneath crystal blue waters. A mountain spring poured over their tiny heads and shoulders as they bobbed to the surface of the lake. The sky was warm and dark with wisps of fog, and hints of light. They weren’t sure how they had gotten to this place, but dreamlike recollection emerged from the shadows of their minds. Onward, onward the elderly couple had traveled, despite their aching backs and ancient frames. The movement of their bodies, gently ascending to the summit of the mountain, had lulled the little deaths into a gentle slumber. Now, as the sun broke through over the cliffs, the two little deaths breached from the water and vanished into vapor in a singular moment of birth.
ELLIOTT ZEE is a queer Jersey expat who gave up his spray tan for Birkenstocks and escaped to the Pacific Northwest. He has stories published in Five2One Magazine; The Molotov Cocktail Magazine; and Mad Scientist Journal. He also has work forthcoming with the Love and Bubbles Anthology.
