Conjectural Figments Feb 2012

DATALOG 2023:08.08 A.M. She won’t even get out of bed. And I know what she wants. Her skin in pale, and her eyes are bloodshot, but her smile is white and the room smells of vanilla. She has long gray hair that is almost white, her eyes a dull shade of blue. Light slips in through the sheer drapes and I pause to move them aside, looking down on the city, the placid lake to the east, the sky clear and blue. And cold. If the coffee doesn’t wake me up, it’s the random times I forget to warm the attachments, a cold hand screwed on sending shivers up my arm. It fractures throbbing veins all the way to my heart. What’s left of it.

“Could you kiss me first, she asks?”

I nod my head.

“It’s part of the package, miss. Not that you aren’t pretty.”

“I know what I am,” she gasps, reaching for the oxygen mask, “I’m a fucking ghoul, but I used to be stunning, once.” She raises a bony finger and points to a collection of photos, framed and sitting on a nearby vanity.

“You don’t need me for this, you know,” I say. “I mean, there are other ways.”

“You come highly recommended,” she whispers, sucking on the mask.

“Hand me those pills, please,” she says, and I oblige. I pop open the top first, and she swallows down the contents of the clear tube. I hand her