Holly Golightly Syndrome Read online

  Chapter 2

  Despite enjoying relatively secularized burials, Bertha’s consolation tied to anything spiritual ended at the doors of a church. Nothing makes you feel more alienated than being guilt-led into participating in something you don’t believe in. But Bertha went anyway for her family, and because she liked observing the way people act in church.

  Bright and early, that annoying family swoops in to get the front row seats as if it were a competition. They nod emphatically with the sermons and send up one of their seven children up to mumble out the readings. Then you have the snoopy people looking around at everyone else’s families, and then after mass even her own family would pull out their mental rolodex “Yeah I saw so and so and the so and sos and then the mother but not the father… and she looks too skinny.” Of course, most of the mass would be old people and families, but everyone in a while you’d see an odd duckling young person going to mass. Unlike the rest of them, old people and singles actually seemed genuine. And then of course there are the people forced to go like myself. You can usually pick us out.

  Bertha remembered when she turned 15 and turned from being religious to an atheist. It just made more sense to her, and she thought her family would understand.

  “Why would you want to be an atheist? It’s just because you’re too lazy to go to church.”

  (Well no, it’s because I don’t believe in any of this. Sorry it’s just not my thing, why can’t you respect that? I don’t care that you believe in something, why should you care if I don’t? Don’t you respect my opinion as a human being?)

  There had been talks, oh there had been many, many talks “it’s just a phase talk” and

  “Augustine’s argument” to which she’d reply “well I believe in a combination of Voltaire’s stopwatch God theory and Spinoza’s concepts of pan-theism”. And then there had been the desperate plea “well don’t you want to believe in something!” and “don’t you want an afterlife? (“I’m already living out this life as much as I can, what in the world would I need a second one for?” “I hate following rules, and I’m already paranoid enough without the idea of some omnipotent figure watching me all the time.” So really, her answer to that was “no”.)

  There was also the issue of “everything happens for a reason.”

  Everything happens because of a cause.

  There wasn’t any reason in it until people showed up.

  Bertha realized though, that she would be just as preachy if she tried to explain it sounding like a broken-record, so she usually kept it to her writing, angry scribbled pages about how she found herself when she was lost, and now can see.

  “You’re lazy and selfish!”

  “Ok, sure, whatever you say.”

  Sometimes it was just easier that way.

  It’s like that one psychological test…

  “After you die you’re in a room with no windows and no doors. How do you feel?”

  Naturally, Bertha said, “Well I’d feel trapped of course, and try to make a way out.”

  But her friend had responded “I’d feel safe. Nothing can get in.”

  Bertha was so lost in thought that when her phone buzzed she felt her heart crescendo. Cautiously, she dragged it towards her as if it may bite, fearful that she may perhaps find out the secret identity of the person she had accidently texted.

  Hey it’s George. I was wondering if you wanted to get dinner some time.

  (Omg omg omg yay!!! Eeeeee! My heart is on fire and I want to start dancing!)

  Yeah, sure.

  For a moment she regretted sending the last text. Not because she didn’t like him, but she was afraid. The last time she had revealed her undying sympathies for someone it hadn’t gone down too well. She had tried the whole Jane Eyre bit before. Even took to listening to the breeze for her name in highly wooded areas, which turned out to be a bad idea because she nearly got shot during hunting season.

  Besides, she simply wasn’t the type of girl that men fell in love with. Men had called her hot, sexy, cute, and occasionally “el cuerpo” which caused confusion at first because she thought it meant corpse instead of body. If she were in a romantic comedy, she’d be the sexy, intelligent, successful, bitch who gets envied by some annoying-ass girl with low self-esteem who believes in true love and butterfly fairytales and does something like saving babies and puppies by hand-feeding them sugar cookies. (Good grief I hate chick flicks). But of course, in the movies, if a woman is hot and intelligent she must have one flaw, and that flaw of course must be her lack of sanity.

  Ok great, are you free Friday night?

  Yeah

  She peered warily at her phone.

  (I did mention my craziness to him, didn’t I?)

  A few men in her life had made that mistake. She supposed it wasn’t their fault: she acted normally enough in class, sort of kept to herself…

  Some of them had even liked it, but as a sort of novelty.

  Great! Is it cool if I pick you up at 8?

  Sure! I’m so excited I can’t wait to see you again.

  She needed someone who was crazy enough to have something in common with her, but sane enough to anchor her crazy.

  (Oh and no one normal. Normal people are like turtlenecks.)

  Me too! Any food in particular you like.

  Hmmm I like Italian.

  There was the other catch. Despite being a size zero, Bertha had the eating capacity of a full grown wildebeest. It was not terribly attractive. She ate more food than almost every other guy she had ever dated. A few of them had even become envious of her metabolism especially the ones who had to watch their weight.

  The rest of the week dragged like a foot that had fallen asleep. Bertha felt guilty defining her life by some man she had just met. After all, there had been periods where she hadn’t been dating and she had still been alive and doing things. Besides, it was definitely something you weren’t supposed to do.

  But what better way to define yourself at one point in time than by the person you’re in love with? Or, you could define yourself in turn, at the point at which you fall out of love.

  Bertha found herself in a constant cycle between the two. People used to make fun of her for having the habit of falling passionately in love with people.

  The points at which you fall out of love turn out to be, quite frankly, usually hilarious at how pathetic they are. She could pinpoint every single one of them; they’re those awkward moments when you’re dating someone and suddenly realize “yeah this isn’t going to work.” The first one became evident when her very pierced loved interest attempt to seduce her by swinging one of his swords around her head. The second had occurred when she popped into her boyfriend’s car for a date and he took her hand, romantically stared into her eyes and eerily said: “I have a very important question to ask you. Have you been saved by our lord Jesus Christ?” Another one had insistently told her that he thought of himself as a young Kurt Cobain who was yet to be discovered. Yet another one had asked if she had mis-dialed his number, because his other friends had put their phones in their shirts and their boobs had dialed him, as if it would impress me that he was friends with people who had multi-tasking breasts. Finally one had given her and another girl a flower that he stole from a bouquet of flowers in a supermarket at the same time, while pointing out the song “Kiss Me” droning overhead.

  It was an extended Goldilocks situation and incredibly frustrating. But George was different…for now. He seemed genuine.

  One day at lunch Bertha started to reveal her situation to her friend from accounting, when Katie cut her off and asked “Have you, by any chance, started dating anyone?”

  Bertha looked back at her quizzically. “Yes, actually I am. Why do you ask?”

  She shook her head, and plunged a fork into a salad. “I can’t believe that. I just had the strangest dream that someone declared his love for you in an arena.”

  “That is weird.
Are your dreams always that accurate?”

  Katie moved some of the croutons with her fork. “They have been.” Her brown eyes looked slightly frightened. “I had a dream that a man got hit by a bus one time. The next day, when I was riding the bus we hit a guy.”

  “Wow that is weird.” Bertha would normally be skeptical, but Katie was the sort of person who read math textbooks for fun and built computers.

  “But anyway. In the dream you also got married. For some reason you also participated a rodeo…” her brow furrowed. “I can’t quite explain that part.”

  “Oh.” Bertha blushed. “That would be nice. The wedding I mean.”

  Katie looked at her as though she had grown a second head. “What are you and what have you done with Bertha?”

  It was true. Bertha feared this man was making her of all things –gasp- sentimental. It was horrible.

  “It’s so strange.” Bertha sipped more diet coke, having finished her burger and fries in an embarrassingly short amount of time. “I might… actually… want to cuddle? And hug him. I mean what the hell is this; you know how much I hate hugging. But with him I don’t care. I’d be a hugger for him. I’d be anything for him.”

  “Are you on drugs?”

  “Not unless you count diet coke.”

  “Actually I do count it. You drink so much.”

  Generations in Bertha’s family had predisposed her to the culture of Diet Coke. It was to the point where if she noticed a teacher drinking Diet Coke, she instantly respected him or her more. And, perhaps coincidentally, the teachers who drank Diet Coke also happened to be some of the best teachers she had ever had.

  But of course, the same didn’t apply to other diet colas. She hated when people made the gesture of buying Diet Cola but didn’t get Diet Coke. Then you’re stuck in the awkward position of being appreciative of a soda you do not like.

  Commercialism had combed her brain with a fine toothed comb, just in the way that television had brainwashed her into thinking that she was destined to be a writer.

  But Bertha in fact, was not destined to be a writer. When she was little, she had watched a show called “Harriet the Spy” and had simply been imitating her ever since. There was nothing particularly awe-inspiring in that, except perhaps that it stuck. But writing always appeals to the weird quiet ones anyway, the way harmonicas and guitars magnetically attach themselves to brooding men.

  Sitting at her desk during the last five minutes of work, she became envious of the parade passing by outside. (Of course, when you’re working you always imagine there’s some sort of epic fiesta going on that dissolves itself into the everyday world when you sign out for the day). Her mind drifted to experiences writing in her elementary school cafeteria when she didn’t feel like talking to everyone else. When she was finally safe from interaction, the shadow of a teacher approached, and she nearly screamed as someone rested their hand on her shoulder horror-movie style.

  “You write so small.” Her school principle rasped into her ear. She smelled like cigarettes.

  That was always the worst.

  (I’m writing because I don’t feel like talking to you. I’m not writing so that you can comment about the fact that I’m writing.)

  (No, you can’t read it yet.)

  Her dad had occasionally crept over to her laptop or notebook and started to read it out loud, nodding his head until Bertha promptly shut one and gave him the evil eye.

  “Yes, yes I’ll save all of those stories.”

  (Much good it’s doing me.)

  Over the years she had known other authors, and listened to their stories and ideas and helped out. But she could never bear to part with all of her ideas or her work.

  (Someone is going to miss something significant, or they’re going to make something symbolic when it’s really just random.)

  Being a former English major, Bertha felt incredibly aware of the unfortunate symptoms of English majors: The way books are sliced and diced, and their meanings act like a Rorschach test. Nasty things had come out of overanalyzing books, especially books that weren’t meant to be over-analyzed. Everything was edenic or philosophic or drawing on this or that. Bertha’s only hope was that if she made references, they would be evident enough that someone wouldn’t be able to pull an interpretation out of their ass.

  (And then of course everything is Shakespearean or unoriginal somehow even if you weren’t thinking of that at the time. Everything is Hamlet/ Hieronimo and Marxism whether you like it or not.)

  Suddenly she recalled other college experiences.

  (On Dasher- men who had run away from her and Emily Dickinson with her dashes, On Dancer- the awkward parties with women in vag dresses grinding up against someone new, On Prancer- the heels, On Vixen-because you are necessarily a vixen if you have an ass, On Comet-but with New York’s air pollution we can’t see the stars, On Cupid- unsuccessfully setting up her friend with a kid named Anthony, On Donner- the annoying girl pulling out a pair of Prada shoes at the school cafeteria, and On Blitzen-again are you?)

  Do you ever notice how over time, the things you hate the most seem to lump together into one amorphous blob? Christmas, icky times in college, and high school, and elementary school sort of blended together into one horrific mosaic.

  (And, anticipating the shock from a people so grown expectant to liking Christmas and thinking youth is merely full of happiness, I do apologize.)

  On the subway ride home something suddenly and abruptly smashed her foot.

  “Agh.” She shouted out stunned, but felt badly immediately afterwards seeing that it had been a blind man with his cane who had punctured her foot.

  Wincing quietly, she moved it over.

  Unfortunately the cane also moved over, and whacked her in the ankle this time.

  “Jesus.” She winced quietly.

  A small girl looked at her disapprovingly.

  “Is my hero.” She added on, rubbing her foot.

  Thankfully the blind man soon settled on the other side of the train.

  Oh subway rides.

  Bertha remembered taking the D train back to campus and getting the strangest looks.

  Perhaps the most awkward experience had been when a man got up started an intense, passionately filled poem, about white people as the oppressor. And unfortunately, Bertha was the only white person on the train. She hoped he wouldn’t see her, so she sort of leaned back, but he eventually made his way around and began to shout at full volume, rudely to her face about slavery. That was the last time she rode the D train. It was, quite frankly, terrifying.

  And afterwards of course, he held out his hand to ask her for money.

  She appreciated the fact that most of the other train goers looked at him disapprovingly, or didn’t give him money as well.

  But it hadn’t been her craziest experience, not by a long shot.

  A religious man in a robe used to frequent the D train.

  He had a long, grizzled white beard, ingrown wrinkles, and smelled horrible.

  She and her friend were on their way to the city on a Friday night to see a movie.

  They heard him before they saw him, an echoing, shouting, “…change your ways…” moved with the train passing in the opposite direction.

  Unfortunately, he spotted Bertha and Rose, who were standing as close to the track as they could without it being dangerous.

  Bertha caught his dilapidated shoes creeping up to the yellow line.

  It started as a mumble, much like the poem, and then it began to erupt into an explosion of admonishments.

  “Our young people, they are so sinful! They get tattoos, and they pierce their bodies. Do you want a needle in your penis?”

  They didn’t respond, as it seemed redundant to explain that as women, they did not have penises.

  Rose gave her a look, and they both nearly broke into laughter, but thankfully the train whooshed over just in time.

  B
ut she felt bad for him as she sank onto the seat of questionable cleanliness.

  How would you feel if no one believed anything you said?

  Bertha, at times, had nearly reached that incoherency herself. When a loved one had stopped listening she just lost it. Because when you lose someone’s attention, it’s the beginning of the end. It’s the most horrible thing in the world to know that a person actively invalidates your opinion, and you feel as though you haven’t even been given a chance in the first place. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on your mental state.

  A sudden gripping, paralyzing fear struck her.

  If George stopped listening to her she feared she may lose it.

  It had happened with men, but most of the time she had seen it coming because of their personalities.

  But George, with his goofy smile and blue eyes, George was a terrifying concept.

  (I refuse to believe in fate.)

  It was absolutely terrifying how much she had fallen for George, even though she barely knew him.

  (What the hell is wrong with me?)

  This was not her. This was some strange Anti-Bertha. It was like a reverse Jekyll and Hyde. She had turned her from some inhuman thing that could taunt and tease any man she liked and have absolutely no feelings into something that needed things.

  It was honestly horrible. She wished George would go away. But at the same time, she was too far gone for that.

  By the time she got home she had very little time to get ready, and to make matters worse, she could hear phantom echoes of conversations from across the street.

  The phantom echoes followed her everywhere. In the different booths at restaurants, from the vents in the wall which connected to other rooms in the building, and from behind closed doors tendrils from other people’s conversations would hook and latch into her brain. As much as she didn’t want to hear other people’s conversations, she almost had to if they insisted on talking so loudly.

  It had gotten to the point where she often picked places she wanted to go based on the conversations she couldn’t help but hearing. If, for instance, she felt the need to be inebriated with interpretation she would go to a modern art museum and listen to people’s comments to help her understand what they were looking at. If she wanted to make fun of hipsters and find out about 500 new bands she would go to Starbucks, and listen to the daily lives of the cosmopolitans.

  On the other hand, she’d go to pseudo dumpy diners or fast food restaurants or listen in airports for different demographics. Or, the best of all was different bars, but never clubs. In clubs people expect you to dance. Conversations are also limited by thumping, ear butchering techno that makes you want to listen to any other type of music.

  Moving from place to place felt like switching television channels.

  It had only shut itself down once on the top of a mountain in Yosemite.

  As she rested near an old, crumbling rock shelter, she heard nothing for the first time.

  No people talking about this or that, or dogs barking, or computers whinnying. Just nothing.

  Her eyes began to water.

  (What is wrong with me?)

  She couldn’t fully explain the disconnection. It was as if someone else was using her eyes as peepholes, though who that was, she couldn’t entirely pinpoint.

  During her freshman year of college, her life had become so strange and drastic, she found herself eating a lot of popcorn. Her own life had become a movie, or so she had hoped. When her life seemed pathetic and miserly, she’d step out of herself and eat popcorn and observe and critique.

  (Well, yes that is all well but this is the part where you’re supposed to have an epiphany.)

  She’d pace a bit up the halls like some sort of ghost, expecting to find some sort of omen. (I never knew my next door neighbor’s name was Lou.)

  (Like Courtney-Lou backwards…)

  (Do you ever get the sense that if there is a God that he is a bit like James Joyce?)

  But of course the unfortunate thing about movies and books is that they give people the delusion that things actually start and end in one moment, instead of accumulating weight like a water droplet falling down the side of a car window and picking up the smaller droplets in the endless ripping wind.

  Though they may try, books and movies rarely capture the time you saw someone before you loved them and connect the dots to when you did. They can’t capture all the gazes, all the grasps and kisses. They can’t capture the science of why one person is drawn to blue eyes and the other brown or green. They can’t capture why.

  If you slowed the moving world down to milliseconds, nothing would be truly spontaneous. Or perhaps other people did fall in love instantly. The whole falling “in love at first sight” had never happened to Bertha. Every person she had ever fallen in love with had been after talking to them.

  Romantic movies are so stupid.

  They think that love has to be in grand gestures. You have to repair a dilapidated house you had sex in. Or drive across the country for someone you’ve heard on a radio. Or you have to die dramatically or stop a wedding and take a bus somewhere.

  But either way, fiction seems to illustrate that the best kind of love was the love that you saw coming. The first time you saw so and so by the sea shore like Thomas Hardy’s Emma all rimmed in the red of the sunlight.

  But I think that the best kind of love is the love you didn’t see coming.

  Maybe it’s the person you’d never, quite frankly, noticed before.

  In the deepest form of love, or excused insanity, every tiny thing counts. Every time you see them means something.

  And but of course, we’re all so oblivious to these tiny little changes, that everyone thinks that romantic encounters are dramatic, planned, spontaneous, and destined. But really attraction is this breathing, pulsing thing that exists before either of the people notice it.

  With that in mind, the author finds it important to add that Bertha and George’s relationship had been in no way different.

  George had in fact seen Bertha at more than one funeral, with his apartment in very close range; the cemetery was a part of his weekend jogging path.

  For a while he was almost frightened that she had known all of the deceased, but after a while he began to catch on that she was not related to anyone.

  His first instinctive thought was that she was insane.

  In fact, when she approached him, it had been because he thought that she should seek help.

  He was absolutely not attracted to her… until she started speaking.

  Then suddenly the words became her, and made everything make more sense.

  Up close, he realized how beautiful she was, even when distressed. It only made her eyes all the bluer. The crazy lady in the background had turned lovely, and intriguing, and before he knew it, he was in love with the cemetery woman. He was also one of the unfortunate people who had a need to find people who looked wounded.

  So this is for all of the annoying books where someone sees so and so from a distance and they fall in love with each other before speaking. That isn’t love. That’s “Wow that person is kind of hot.” It’s impossible to separate the thought process out of love.

  Love is when two people only make sense when they’re together.

  And suddenly he was there.

  “Hi.” Her face blossomed. “How have you been?”

  “Pretty good.” He replied shortly.

  “Oh that’s great!” Bertha was oblivious to his distance. “I’m so happy for you! I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”

  “Excellent, yes.” They stood in silence for a while as the elevator descended. “I’m sorry did you say something?” He asked absently.

  “Oh… I said I was looking forward to seeing you.” Bertha said, deflated.

  “About that…” As they stepped out of the elevator and off to the side, he grabbed her h
and and began to massage it, but it seemed to be more for his sake of having something to fiddle with, “I have something to tell you.”

  “Yeah.” Bertha felt the sensation of plummeting.

  “Well I didn’t want to mention it before, but I’m moving in about half a year. Someone offered to buy the restaurant for a decent amount of money.”

  “Oh.” She looked around at the lobby uncertain of how to respond to that.

  (Why are you telling me this now?)

  “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to put a damper on this whole thing.”

  “No, it’s alright.”

  (Figures.)

  “Do you um… not want us to date then?” Bertha looked up, confused as to why he would bother to come over in the first place.

  “Oh no I want to date. I just don’t want anything too serious. I don’t see why we can’t have fun for two weeks though, right?”

  “Yeah.” She was hesitant at first. Bertha looked through her reflection as they walked in the rain to the taxi waiting outside, and then at her reflection in the window. And then back at him again.

  (Well I thought we matched but I could be wrong.)

  “So do you like Carciollo’s?” He asked, as they eased back into traffic.

  “Yeah, I do…”

  She considered her odds.

  Two weeks to make a man fall in love with her.

  That wouldn’t be enough time.

  It wasn’t fair. Over the course of the night she found out that he would be about four hours away. Restless from a horrid dream involving getting a 79 on a test, Bertha found herself waking up beside him again.

  She had tried to cuddle with him at night but halfway through he had pushed her off and turned his back, and rolled to the opposite side of the bed.

  So she lay on her back, and looked up at the ceiling.

  Without warning a tidal sob came over her, but she bit her hand, just in time. She had become adept at crying silently, because she didn’t like the attention that her bewildering mood swings gave her. They can’t be laughing with you if you’re crying.

  (Oh, it’s all just for attention.)

  She didn’t want to be noticed, or particularly different from anyone else, but sometimes these things just happen.

  It was a tricky, fidgety slush dilemma.

  “Hey.” A gentle voice came from the other side of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  (Why bother?)

  “Oh goodness.” He sighed. “What did I get myself into?”

  That provoked a louder sob croak.

  “Hey no no no!” He turned her over, and held her. “No cries. Why are you sad?”

  “Because…” She sniffled. “Because I like you but but but you’re going away now.”

  “Awww.”

  She cringed, waiting for an awkward pat, and a look of poorly masked face of sheer terror.

  But instead he began to smile and hug her closer. “You’re a giant baby.”

  “Am not.” She sobbed back, stubborn.

  “You are too.” His lips pressed her eyelids like petals on water. “Nope see you can’t cry now.”

  “Well…” Actually she couldn’t because it tickled her face. “Maybe but…hey stop it.”

  His hands scrambled up her belly and near her butt. “Aww are you ticklish?”

  “Maybe.” She couldn’t stop giggling. “But you’re ruining my bad mood.” She tried to frown but it didn’t work.

  “Goodness woman.” He laughed back. “You just have so many emotions, don’t you...She doesn’t even go here.”

  “You like Mean Girls?” Bertha settled her head on his chest, and then decided to kiss him again.

  “That’s kind of awesome.”

  “Oh sure. I have a sister and my mom is ridiculous. I’ve seen all the romances and chick flicks. Sleepless in Seattle, It’s a Wonderful Life…”

  “So do I, and haven’t seen either of those.”

  “Really?” He gave her a look. “What kind of strange thing are you?” He laughed. “Oh.” He brushed a piece of her hair back and began to play with it. “I know what you are. Strange girl, I think you secretly enjoy some romantic things. You’re trying to act all tough.”

  “Me tough?” She brushed back a stray tear. “How am I tough?”

  “I know you don’t believe me, but you are incredibly intimidating to approach. You seem very… Oh I don’t know… independent-minded. Just very studious, definitely a nerd…”

  “I’m not a nerd!” She objected.

  “Yes you are. It’s ok though, you’re my nerd. And you can try and look all tough and whatever, Ms. Don’t be all cheesy in public, but I know you better. I know you have a soul, as much as you hate the idea of that.”

  “But no one knows I’m like this. They don’t know I like… some things… that are cute.” The word felt like ashes and death in her mouth.

  “You’re cute!” he pulled her back into a hug, and their mouths attacked each other fondly.

  “Mmm…” he paused for a second. “I think I shall make you my muse.”

  “Oh no.” She shook her head fervently. “I object wholeheartedly to that.”

  “Why?” He stared straight into her eyes. “I don’t see what the problem with that is.”

  “Well relationships between the muse and the person who gave her that title usually imply a tragic, stunted, and or nonexistent relationship. At least in the classical sense of the word… “

  “I haven’t decided how to make you my muse yet.” He began to form imaginary boxes around her face. “Well I’m not very good at writing poetry or anything silly like that… this does pose a problem… I suppose I could write books like you…”

  “No, that’s my thing you can’t take it.” Bertha pouted. “Besides I didn’t think you liked writing.”

  “As a matter of fact I don’t.” He began to get up and pace. “What to do what to do?” His hands fumbled with a stick of unlit incense.

  “Well at least you can be my muse.” Bertha decided promptly. “I’m in very much need of a muse right now.”

  “Can men be muses?” His curly hair danced around his face in the moonlight.

  “I don’t see why not.” She stretched, and huddled next to him and he got into bed eagerly, like a happy dog. “You’re very handsome.”

  He began to shake with laughter. “Whatever you say…”

  After following the rippled tail of murky marbled half thoughts, she found herself in a supermarket with her sister.

  There was a solid tape line between the two of them.

  The side of the store on her side was still well lit, but on Bertha’s side, the lights began to buzz, and dim, and shut off.

  It started off slowly.

  No one else was on Bertha’s side of the line.

  “What do you mean you’re not a summer girl?” Her sister asked her, looking spooked. A group of bystanders watched on.

  The lights flickered back on.

  No one else was on Bertha’s side.

  Squeaking wheels caught her ear, and she turned around to see a cart moving of its own accord.

  “They told me I was winter.” Bertha replied.

  Then the lights began to flicker more rapidly as if a mischievous child were having a field day with the light switch.

  The other side of the tape stayed light, but as many times as she tried, Bertha could not cross the line. Something kept pushing her back, leaving deep red handprints on her arms and legs.

  “Well what’s going to happen to me here?”

  The others began to shrug, and Bertha realized with horror that the other shoppers were also the mourners at Cyril’s funeral.

  The only noise was bluegrass sounding grainy over the supermarket speakers.

  Black out.