Cuento de Mi Id

“The Mourning After”

He hadn’t wanted to attend the funeral, and already he regretted the fact that he had.

His bedroom smelled like something had died there, and his skull was afire with the granddaddy of all hangovers. Evidently he had gotten drunk last night. But what happened afterward was still blank.

He remembered seeing John there at the church and blaming him silently for the miscarriage which had taken Maggie’s life. After all, it should have been him that Maggie married, not John, and if John had not gotten her pregnant, she would have eventually changed her mind.

Instead she had been stolen by the ultimate suitor, and all his years of waiting were wasted. There was no divorce from the Grim Reaper. Not even a trial separation. And it was all John’s fault.

He knew he shouldn’t think that way. After all, thoughts could be as real as bullets. His father had told him that. But then his father had also believed in the mal de ojo, the Mexican evil eye. If that was real, John would have been dead by now.

The smell grew stronger in his bedroom. Then he turned and noticed a shape beneath the sheets on the other side of the bed. Evidently, he had gotten lucky last night. How ironic.

He had started to reach for his companion when his fingers brushed against a cold, dirt-covered hand bearing a familiar ring.

It was then that he remembered what he had done last night.

He closed his eyes and screamed. He did not wish to remember any more. It was just an illusion; Maggie wasn’t really there. When he opened his eyes, she would be gone.

But when he squeezed her cold hand involuntarily, she was still there. And that was not the worst part.

The worst part came when she squeezed back.