Whenever he thought of his demise, the initial sunburst in his mind was Ms. Irma Ann Dream. She was a teacher of Algebra but a student of literature foremost (and perhaps this disunity is the reason for her presence). Though in his heart of hearts he believed chronology was a matter of journalism and not metaphysics, the order in which that life was resurrected always followed the path of experience. It was an autumn Wednesday; a meeting of parents and teachers; a persimmon leaf of construction paper had escaped its Scotch-tape shackles and was wafting downward. He could see Irma Ann as she was—in black-rim glasses, alternately digging the heels of her scuffed maroon boots into the floor. Her skin was a gold of unclear origin, which he invariably and crudely called yellow (reprimanding himself every time for the wrong), and was a place of focus so intense, he pondered if her shade could possibly flow as evenly across her entire body. Did a mole or scar interrupt her hips or the expanse of an Achilles tendon?

It’s the same, forever the same, the point of departure in his world of forking roads. Behind a folding chair propped against a wall was her backpack, a reminder of a years ago yet freshly remembered trip through Western Europe: on this evening, it contained Modern French Poets: Selections with Translations (she would learn that language soon enough). And this was the aim of her first step—that first step, which disrupted the intensity of John Doe’s gaze; that first step, which landed uncertainly, as though she were no longer sure of herself. The leaf descended past Irma Ann’s face with a pendulum-like swoop. On her second attempt, she stopped its descent and pressed it against her chest. Her blouse was navy blue and sleeveless, and when she moved, he observed her over the rim of a clear plastic cup from which he drank slowly, half empty with tangerine punch, and over and around a chatting teacher, administrator, and parent—a pianist with a stye, a secretary with a cold, and an RN who was useless to them both. She moved and unfolded the chair with an archaeologist’s touch, easing it from the wall with a middle and index finger and peeking behind it (yes, the prized possession was still there) then pulling its seat down, flinching when it noiselessly reached the locked position. With her back to him, she stood on the chair and lengthened herself on her toes, pressing the leaf to the ceiling with the very tips of her fingers. There was the melodic composition of her arms, nape, and back, every curve and angle of which confirmed that her tone was faithfully reproduced, not a bend of bone or intertriginous area overlooked.

She stepped down and into my mouth and I tasted it all in a single swallow. This was how I held on to the people in my life, by incorporating them in a real and mental, imagined and physical sense. Make-believe flings, friends who had been present in the flesh, a fiancée turned wife, my son, and once-seen strangers whom I plucked from branches overhanging my property—they were one and all and equally imbibed or eaten, transformed into purplish scents or milk-white lotions that I violently inhaled or rubbed into my skin. Once a part, you can never be apart: this is life’s only lesson, my child.

I was placed across from Ms. Dream in the circle of seats, so each time a conversation passed from one side to the other, my eyes stayed a bit on her during their tennis spectator course. Mrs. Chavez was the school’s Spanish teacher. She was short and small but with unusually large hands, which she waved liberally as she spoke (“Let’s beat last fall’s bake sale total. Everyone loved the peanut butter bars, Mr. Waltrip!”). Neither she nor Mr. Waltrip—a recently remarried HR man with a straw-broom mustache—made my cut. I recall them as one would a passed-over dish on a menu, as I did the woman of about forty, who after every topic was discussed, summarized the main points and opinions for no apparent reason; or that tank of a man whose hips poured over the sides of his seat so much it looked as though he were excreting the helpless chair. Oh, but this is how it went. When the urge struck, there was one, perhaps two, people I would possess, while the rest took their places as background objects. The difference with her, however, was that she figured as part of a continuum. She was linked with what came after her, unlike the people of my collection before that day who could be individually pulled from the roots of their historical places—she was an inexplicable point of departure. When the meeting ended, she was among those with whom “Thank you for coming” and “My pleasure” was exchanged in passing. I sipped from another half-cup of punch before finally reaching the conference room door, then looked back and saw its spaciousness and wondered if our kids knew how well they had it. They did not: parents can only answer this question one way. In the hallway, I stopped at a trophy case and in its reflection adjusted my tie-less collar, plucked a lonesome eyelash from my cheek, and put on my olive-colored jacket: behind me Irma Ann left the restroom, flicking damp fingers at her sides, just as my right arm punched through its sleeve. And here is where it starts to make sense.

I drove a quiet, fuel-efficient, four-door, American-made pale blue car. I kept mint-flavored Mentos in the glovebox and a spare white shirt in the trunk. This day I parked on the street in front of my house rather than the garage. Pulling up, the right tires scraped the curb, and I jerked the steering wheel once quickly to the left and eased into a full stop. The console’s clock said it was almost nine, which is when I decided to sleep in the next day. Everything, absolutely everything, could wait until I was well rested. The walkway leading to the front door of my home was a collection of concrete lily pads, hexagon-shaped and reddish-orange. I walked, as I normally did, without my soles touching the grass, as though my steps landing wholly within the bounds of those stones kept me upright. The vestibule light came on—the abstract bird on the front door’s glass panel came alive—then the door opened. My son, Jackson, must not have appeared first, this is not how you escort someone out, but this is where I picture him, in the doorway wearing jeans and a fitted black sweater, to which is pinned a “Nixon-Agnew ‘68” button. His hair is a tangle of curls like his mother’s and subdued by a baseball cap. He has his mother’s face, too, round as a thumb print with slightly larger-than-normal lips counterbalancing ho-hum brown eyes: he is her made masculine. And as I see it now, Richard appeared. He must have said, “Hey, Mr. Doe” as we shook hands, and with his palm touching mine, I experienced the secret pleasure of keeping a dangerous thought to oneself. There are moments when you feel the planet move and recognize every bit of matter on Earth is being pushed through the universe at thirty kilometers a second. The sun rushes at two-hundred kilometers a second. Plates shift beneath our feet as clouds huddle and break above us. Nothing is stable; but everything in our lives depends upon pretending otherwise. Soldiering on, blocking out, ignoring evidence to the contrary is all-important. The unacknowledged is a potion you cannot undrink. And God have mercy, I drank from the cup of my own death.

Richard and I had met before—we had undoubtedly met before … There was, most recently, Jackson and my wife’s birthday party late that summer. Their birthdays were separated by two weeks and occurred in different months, but that was Gregory XIII’s mistake, according to Mrs. Jacqueline Doe (who was, on that lethal Wednesday, lying in bed like a pile of bones beneath the sheets, nursing a headache), and that man had confused the dates did not mean God’s intentions should go unnoticed. On our backyard fence was pinned happy birthday banners. The birthday boy and girl were sitting at the patio table, shaded by its umbrella, as people placed leftover pizzas and what remained of a decadent variety of chips and dips in the kitchen. Jackson didn’t eat cake and Jacqueline hardly ate anything that hadn’t sprung from a tree, vine, or bush, so our tradition was to present the guests of honor with their life’s count of Hershey’s Kisses, with an extra tossed in for good luck. This was my job: counting and presenting the candies. With an eye focused outside, I counted fifty-nine chocolates in one glass bowl and seventeen in another, before dumping them both in one container: the year before was the last time those four decades would be made obvious in two bowls. I noted, I did, the young man standing behind my son as I approached; it must have been the same person. Both of them were a couple, maybe one-and-a-half, inches shorter than me. The first, I believe, had shorter hair, though the second no longer had the awkward and wispy goatee. There was, nevertheless, the same leanness of their jaws and chin and deepness with which their eyes set in their heads. I could go on about other occasions I rediscovered while searching for an ur-impulse, but more than anything, it is my sense linking these twins in time.

I’m certain Jacqueline had not moved since she put herself in bed. Motionless under the blankets, she looked like the excavated remains of a fetus in utero. I sat next to her and placed a hand on her side. “How are you, dear?” I asked and, “Not good,” she emitted through exhale and growl. Our bedroom walls were painted a subtle yellow; maroonish wood trim circled where the walls met the ceiling. The window was open and a second-floor breeze moved the curtains softly, nicely.

…

Shaun Rouser’s fiction has appeared in Colloquium, The Rupture, and deLuge Journal. A chapbook collection of his short stories, titled Family Affair, was published by Red Bird Chapbooks, and his drama has appeared in Fleas on the Dog. He previously co-founded and served as co-editor-in-chief of The Blackstone Review, an online arts and humanities journal, where he also contributed fiction and non-fiction.