Stranger Things Happen | Page 6

students liked me. But I can't
remember the name of the street we lived on, or the author of the last
book I read, or your last name which was also my name, or how I died.
It's funny, Sarah? but the only two names I know for sure are real are
Looly Bellows, the girl who beat me up in fourth grade, and your cat's
name. I'm not going to put your cat's name down on paper just yet.
We were going to name the baby Beatrice. I just remembered that. We
were going to name her after your aunt, the one that doesn't like me.
Didn't like me. Did she come to the funeral?
I've been here for three days, and I'm trying to pretend that it's just a
vacation, like when we went to that island in that country. Santorini?
Great Britain? The one with all the cliffs. The one with the hotel with
the bunkbeds, and little squares of pink toilet paper, like handkerchiefs.
It had seashells in the window too, didn't it, that were transparent like
bottle glass? They smelled like bleach? It was a very nice island. No
trees. You said that when you died, you hoped heaven would be an
island like that. And now I'm dead, and here I am.

This is an island too, I think. There is a beach, and down on the beach
is a mailbox where I am going to post this letter. Other than the beach,
the mailbox, there is the building in which I sit and write this letter. It
seems to be a perfectly pleasant resort hotel with no other guests, no
receptionist, no host, no events coordinator, no bell-boy. Just me. There
is a television set, very old-fashioned, in the hotel lobby. I fiddled the
antenna for a long time, but never got a picture. Just static. I tried to
make images, people out of the static. It looked like they were waving
at me.
My room is on the second floor. It has a sea view. All the rooms here
have views of the sea. There is a desk in my room, and a good supply
of plain, waxy white paper and envelopes in one of the drawers. Laurel?
Maria? Gertrude?
I haven't gone out of sight of the hotel yet, Lucille? because I am afraid
that it might not be there when I get back.
Yours truly, You know who.
The dead man lies on his back on the hotel bed, his hands busy and
curious, stroking his body up and down as if it didn't really belong to
him at all. One hand cups his testicles, the other tugs hard at his erect
penis. His heels push against the mattress and his eyes are open, and his
mouth. He is trying to say someone's name. Outside, the sky seems
much too close, made out of some grey stuff that only grudgingly
allows light through. The dead man has noticed that it never gets any
lighter or darker, but sometimes the air begins to feel heavier, and then
stuff falls out of the sky, fist-sized lumps of whitish-grey doughy
matter. It falls until the beach is covered, and immediately begins to
dissolve. The dead man was outside, the first time the sky fell. Now he
waits inside until the beach is clear again. Sometimes he watches
television, although the reception is poor. The sea goes up and back the
beach, sucking and curling around the mailbox at high tide. There is
something about it that the dead man doesn't like much. It doesn't smell
like salt the way a sea should. Cara? Jasmine? It smells like wet
upholstery, burnt fur.

Dear May? April? Ianthe? My room has a bed with thin, limp sheets
and an amateurish painting of a woman sitting under a tree. She has
nice breasts, but a peculiar expression on her face, for a woman in a
painting in a hotel room, even in a hotel like this. She looks
disgruntled.
I have a bathroom with hot and cold running water, towels, and a
mirror. I looked in the mirror for a long time, but I didn't look familiar.
It's the first time I've ever had a good look at a dead person. I have
brown hair, receding at the temples, brown eyes, and good teeth, white,
even, and not too large. I have a small mark on my shoulder, Celeste?
where you bit me when we were making love that last time. Did you
somehow realize it would be the last time we made love? Your
expression was sad; also, I seem to recall, angry. I remember your
expression now, Eliza? You glared up at me without blinking and when
you came, you said my name, and although I can't