MIDTOWN MANHATTAN

SEPTEMBER 2021

I've got to get out of New York City.

I know this.

Yet here I stand, staring out the window at the darkened skyscrapers silhouetted like rotten teeth against the pink tongue of the predawn sky. No lights in 'the City That Never Sleeps,' only the last faded vestiges of a waning crescent moon illuminating the street below. The candle I hold casts flickering shadows on the white walls of this Park Avenue apartment.

I can't see them, but I know they're out there. The creeps. The zombies. Whatever you want to call them. They might be the only ones left on the once-bustling streets of Manhattan.

The power has been out for a while. Not sure how long. Lost track of time. I haven't been out of this apartment in over a week, not since Jake—

I slam the door on that memory. Nothing good ever comes from thinking about Jake.

I glance at the messenger bag, olive drab canvas with a sturdy shoulder strap. Trendy. Hipster. But utilitarian enough. I've filled it with the necessities: canned food, bottled water, my knife, Jake's gun. I wonder, not for the first time, who the bag belonged to, who lived here before the pandemic? Someone rich, obviously. A man. Probably single; no sign of a woman's touch in the sparse modern decor. The edgy paintings are the touch of an interior decorator, not a wife.

See, this is what happens.

I try to focus on a thing, on a task, but my thoughts unspool like loose threads… unraveling into some kind of elaborate web. And then I lose myself in it. This isn't new. Not a product of the end of the world. This is the headspace I've lived in for years.

I reach into my pocket, pull out an orange bottle, shake a couple small pills into my palm, then place them on my tongue. I wash them down with a swig from the whiskey bottle on the window sill. Yamazaki 18. Single malt. Way out of my price range. Doesn't taste any better than Jack to me.

I step away from the window. Set the candle on the glass coffee table. Blow it out. The scent of polyethylene and lavender stings my nose. I collapse onto the couch. For a little while, I just lay there. Wondering what comes next, if I'll ever make it out of New York City. Then the pills start to kick in, the hazy warmth melting over me. I probably should've only taken one. I should ration them. But it feels so good. The dissipation of all my fears and worries. The weightlessness of thinking and feeling nothing.

I close my eyes. My thoughts drift away into the space between dreams and memories.

STATEN ISLAND

APRIL 2021

I lounge on the fainting couch counting cracks on the stucco ceiling, thinking about how children play on sidewalks, singing, 'Step on a crack, break your mother's back.' Though, it's entirely irrelevant to the ceiling, which no one ever steps on.

I scratch the bridge of my nose with a chipped black polished fingernail, bitten with broken cuticles. If your nose itches, a fool is about to kiss you. Or so they say. I divert my eyes from the ceiling and glance at Jake. He is posed with his chin resting on his right hand like that pretentious statue, "The Thinker."

I wonder what he's thinking. And why he hasn't moved to kiss me yet.

"Did you know," I ask, "that if you dangle a ring like a pendulum over a pregnant woman's womb, you can determine the sex of her child?"

Jake looks up, away from the vacuum of the television, and directly at me. His eyes are all bloodshot with boredom.

"Why don't you just take a test?" he asks, voice as vacant as his gaze.

I shift on the couch and place a hand protectively over my belly, which is almost perfectly flat.

"It's only been two weeks," I reply.

He opens his mouth to say something, then sets his jaw in a grim line, apparently thinking better of it. He drums his fingers on the stubble of his chin. I flick my gaze towards the TV. A household cleaning product commercial is on for the twelfth time tonight. It stars a toddler running amuck through an otherwise pristine kitchen. I glance towards our kitchen, where the sink is piled high with dirty dishes. This whole house is a monumental exhibit of our laziness.

"I know what I would name it," I say.

He snaps his head up, his statuesque beauty broken by the motion. His eyes are not indifferent now. They're narrow. Angry.

"You don't even know if there's anything to name," he says.

I don't like the poison in his voice. I know that snakes are immune to their own venom. I wonder if he's even aware that it stings when he spits it at me.

"I'm leaving," I say with a sigh.

His body tenses. Years spent laboring in treetops have produced the sinuous muscles that tighten with my words. I follow the hard curves down to the soft roll of his belly. Pushing 40, he has grown infirm in this one place: too many microwave dinners, too many bottles of beer.

"Don't go," he replies.

He is watching me now, and I suddenly remember what my dead mother told me.

"First, bathe in rosehips and lavender. Burn candles. At the stroke of midnight, gaze into a mirror. Stare at your own reflection. If you look hard enough, the man you are meant to marry will appear."

I tried it. I didn't see this man sitting across from me in the mirror. I didn't see anyone. I' I don't think that's a good omen.

He rises to approach me. The floorboards creak beneath his feet. I shudder at an imagined chill and curl my legs up against my chest. He doesn't seem to notice me shrinking away from him as he lowers himself onto the couch beside me.

He drapes an arm around my shoulder. It feels heavy, his fingers rough as they trace my collarbone. "Please take a test," he says.

On the television, the tall severe man who is our president blusters on about the pandemic. Declaring that "real Americans" don't live in fear. A spittle-filled rant about conquering the invisible foe that is the virus. The tremendous opportunity for… something… this presents.

I sigh, wondering if everything is about to change.

Wondering why Jake still hasn't moved to kiss me.

Then he moves in closer to me.

And he presses a gun to my temple.

And he fires.