NIGHTSHIFT

Hospice asks if he's religious

Let’s just gas the kitchen, the whole house. I will turn the knob, pretend to start dinner; I could even tell them that a watched pot never boils to be sure. Bare dishes but there’ll be remnants in wine glasses, the sticky plasmic residue. We’ll be arguing until our lips turn blue. We used to own orchards, before they got bulldozed. Before they got buried to build homes. Two weeks ago I was writing a eulogy on my twelve hour flight; for the first time it wasn’t mine. I was sitting in the aisle avoiding glares, gasping for air. Choking on what I thought ought to be caterpillars. Something about the turbulence reminded me of the prayer cards on the fridge. He used to lift me onto the counter; legs dangling like earrings, granite cooling the skin under my knees. Butter softening beside me.

Carbon monoxide has no taste, odor, or color. When it happens we will all be sat around the table, the one with the dark wood; it’ll crack our skulls when our heads get too heavy to hold. Television programming will blare the score. In the weeks before there was the kidney failure, the spasming bladder. They were gathered in the ICU while I was whispering into the phone receiver; he asked about you but couldn’t quite remember the name, I told him about our day at the arcade. The machines, the red prize, the two pence. I decide not to mention that I had been so happy that I thought a bus would hit us as punishment. Hospice asked if he’s religious, I take the nightshift. We find at least a dozen chefs knives in the drawers, in the cabinets. After the confusion, the blurred vision, it only takes a matter of minutes. When they find us, will we resemble a household? Faces blanched like bleached cement. Stubborn like sacraments. I tried to make a list once, six pairs of brown eyes was all I could think of.