Sally

In the kitchen, Tracy struggles to keep upright, leaning into the counter, tears streaming down her face. She pounds the marble top in frustration and wails into the phone. The dishwasher roars beside her, loudly, water flowing in cycles. Sally wishes there is something she could do, but she knows that is impossible. Pity and sadness evade her, just compassion that she understands the most.

She has little choice but to back away, calmly, quietly.

Just a week ago, the guys in the apartment next door were rushing to make the ferry for that much-anticipated camping trip. They didn’t even notice as she stood in the hall amused by their last-minute frantic packing. Exactly seven days to the minute, they sit behind closed doors in their respective bedrooms wondering what exactly happened. The story repeats itself in their minds, obsessively, both immersed in guilt, completely estranged, yet just feet away from one another. They have been silent since they have returned. No booming music, no loud laughter. No spoken word. The third roommate, the youngest of the three failed to return from that weekend. His belongings remain undisturbed.

Again, Sally goes unnoticed, but she can see his face: A soft reflection beyond the dark wood of his once-was bedroom door.

She wonders if they’ve seen him.

In suite 248, the young man sits as he’s recently become accustomed to, slumped despairingly on the floor, his back against the sofa. All my plants die in this apartment, he thinks to himself, and all day long he stares blankly at the television set in front of him no matter if it had been turned on or not. Sunlight seems scarce, as he never bothers to pull open the blinds. He has spent his days in this position for quite some time now, it seems, mourning the loss of life itself.

All my plants die in this apartment.

It is unfortunate that you waste your days worrying about death, Sally thinks to herself. She wishes she could somehow express this to him, somehow say it in a way he’d hear her. This man was a friend of hers, not too long ago.

The realization that she has somehow wandered across the hall is brought to her by a sudden gentle whisper. Behind her a man and his girlfriend lay in bed, entangled by each other’s arms and legs, half speaking, half embracing the sound of the rain hitting the windowpane. It almost occurs to Sally that the girl is looking directly at her, foolish, as it may seem, as she speaks to her lover.

I dreamt that we were in a park, you and I and a bunch of friends. Somehow I lost sight of you and right away I began to panic. I couldn’t figure out what happened, where you went. You just suddenly disappeared.

He embraces her face lovingly. Perhaps, concern?

I woke up in a stress, she says, her body pressing closer to his. But you were right here, before me, my arms wrapped around your chest. At that moment I felt closer to you than ever.

They begin to kiss.

Usually this room is empty, as Sally passes through this suite often, her final spot behind the wall…just past their bed…

Once they—the children on the third floor—had bored of it and had asked all they needed to know, or once the elders turned the lock, they slid the game underneath the bed and she was freed to go.

When asked, ‘WHO R U?” on the board, the same question they had inquired before, she smirked and replied: I M THE FLY UPON MY DEATH WATCHING U FROM THE GLASS DOOR.

She is allowed her sense of humour. For that she feels something akin to gratitude. Sally does not understand this next part, only knows it from instinct, a progression, perhaps habit.

From where she had been laying on the living room floor, before they had sent out that beckoning call, the same spot and position Sally had woken up from so many times before. From where Sally had suddenly stood up, on command, without a choice, after she’d heard that intrusive sound echoing from down the hall. This is where Sally finally lays down, in that same position he had left her that one rainy afternoon—after his hands had let go of her throat, and before he had pierced the blade himself into his own—before he’d fallen to his knees, slumped over on the carpet next to where her screaming had already gone unheard.

Forgotten, unnoticed, and then unrecognized so many days afterwards.

As she now gently moves back down into that position where the red stain on her gut meets the wet puddle on the carpet, she sees him, suddenly, standing before her—watching with beastly eyes as she falls defenselessly to the floor. This is the last image, the last memory. Her own personal routine she has been cursed to uphold. There she is, on her left side, her head twisted and lifted, her shocked eyes seeing the smile fade from his face. And it becomes all too familiar to her, as Sally remembers. Him. Her beloved-turned-murderer.


Ldm