Necromancy

Janice watched her breath as the wind carried it. As far as she could, which wasn’t very. But it was briefly incredible, how she could see herself as part of this universe. Something made from her body, floating in the air. Is this how mothers feel? she wondered and then she stopped. Feeling sorry for herself never got her anything. Except paranoid. Except two Hep B shots and a security system. Except her newest addiction.

This graveyard walking, though, was a healthy addiction, Janice believed. Something that wouldn’t give way to something worse. Each day she made four laps around the cemetery, stopping to squat down and look at different markers, read the names, subtract the dates, read the occasional epitaph. She had wanted to die more than she should. That’s what a well-adjusted person would say, at least. To her it was normal. That’s why she finally left Greg. There had been too many days wishing to be dead, too few hopeful enough to propel herself into another. And Greg was never going to kill her; she had no choice but to leave him.

A baby wasn’t the right plot for her. Neither was Greg. She could see that now that she had emerged from the ocean of it. All of these headstones and plaques gave her a certitude; look at all these people who lived completely different lives. She didn’t need to fantasize about death. She could invent a new self to be instead. Nothing was set in stone yet. She could take a breath without wishing it would disappear. She could watch her exhalation come to life in a cemetery—ghost that lived inside her released.