Beats Entropy

(CONTINUED IN PART 2)

I

I don’t know if it was the smoking, or the nagging, that finally killed me. I’d like to think it was the smoking: there had been a slow burn suicide pact between us, and it’d be nice to have held up my end of the bargain. Either way my body quit, ran down like a clock in the rain, leaving me little in the way of prospects.

The first difficulty, in situations like mine, is what to do with the body. A corpse, unlike a person, always belongs; it cannot be ignored. Discovery alone suffices investment. With that in mind I awaited resolution.

I should mention I died at the mall. I was hoping to buy shoes. I don’t know that this is a specifically shameful admission, but it’s an underwhelming one. I’d always hoped for a more spectacular demise: cut down by a hail of gunfire, spewing blood and curses, my body borne to the ground by hot lead. Instead I passed on a bench across from an Orange Julius stand; internally debating whether paying for juice with a twenty was worth the extra change incurred. From a physical standpoint it was painless.

The better part of my view was a The Gap. Three windows of immaculately dressed ivory figures faced me. There was smugness to their implausibly slim hips and vacant eyes, an assurance that made them exploitive despite their display: like a grad student stripping her way through a sociology degree. They were intolerable. I became acutely aware of the hole in my shoe, and how that might reflect on me. Had I told anyone, specifically, that I was going to buy shoes…would they speak in my defense? Fucking mannequins.

Eventually the manger found me. He was so alike the mannequins, in dress and manner, he seemed some flush and ambulatory offshoot, hidden in the world of men. I was having trouble making sense of things.

The manager took my pulse, blanched, then returned to the store to consult with his sales team. Their voices were muted, like bees in a bathtub, but I could tell they’d reached a consensus.

Rough hands overtook me. A young woman wept while she dressed me in tan slacks and a burgundy pull over. I can only assume she was in shock. They ditched my body in a Sears dumpster, taking special care to remove the magnetic tags from my garments. I was grateful I wouldn’t go to my grave a thief.

I spent the night in the cardboard leavings of a dying commercial enterprise; wondering at the quality of corpses in a Wal-Mart dumpster: were they larger and better appointed? Recycled into greeter positions? Either way I feared I would suffer in comparison. Spurred by the creeping banality of my plight I spilled out the side of the dumpster, and moved towards my home. A curious omission pulled backwards at my thoughts.

CONTINUED IN PART 2