Waking the Dead and Other Stories by Yvette Tan

Author:Yvette Tan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Anvil Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Fade to Nothing

David

Felicia took a deep breath, heaved, and threw up, her petite body shuddering as the last bit of bile-corroded food left her mouth. Kneeling on the floor, bent over her porcelain god, Felicia coughed, choked, spit out bruschetta and pasta, iced tea and crème bruleé. She was lovely then, loose strands of hair hanging from the side of her face, eyes slightly glazed from the purging.

“You okay?” I asked from where I stood behind her, holding her hair up to keep it from falling.

“Fine,” she whispered, closing her eyes, heaving again and coming up with nothing except a few last gobs of saliva and a handful of puke-fouled air.

“Let’s get you up,” I said, hauling her to her feet.

She paused—to make sure that she had regurgitated the last of her stomach’s contents—before letting me help her up and flushing the evidence of her disease down the toilet. She watched a small whirlpool erupted, swirling her mess around before disappearing, leaving no trace of what had just happened. I watched her watch the toilet, my own stomach churning, not because of what I had seen but because of what I had helped her do.

I had locked the door behind me when we first entered, and though this cubicle was bigger than most it was hardly built for two people. Felicia reached past me, turned the knob, and for a brief moment I swore she was reaching for me, but she was only pushing the cubicle door open and nudging me outside. I reached over and surreptitiously wiped a bit of vomit from the side of her mouth as she crossed to the sink. She smiled at me, a semi-vacant smile that said, Thank you, what would I do without you? while absently tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Don’t do that,” I said, pushing her hand away and wiping flecks of vomit off her hair with a wad of tissue. She giggled, standing still like a giddy school girl while I got the stuff off.

“Would you get my purse please, David? I think I left it inside.”

I handed her the purse. She opened it, took out a small bottle of mouthwash and proceeded to gargle, leaving me to my own devices. I took a piss, taking great pains to double-check that she had left nothing of hers behind. I studied the black-white-black-white checkered pattern of the tiles, watched the light play on the toilet’s flush mechanism, marveled at the pristine, antiseptic whiteness that the restaurant maintained. Hanging out with Felicia has acquainted me with washrooms. I pretend to see things in the way she must see them; it’s the closest I can get to her now.

I exited the cubicle just as two women came in, chattering away in chipmunk voices. They pretended not to pay me any attention, though I could feel the stares burning behind their carefully turned-away eyes.

One of them turned to me. It must have excited her to see a man in the ladies’ room, but to

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