it’s okay

by Willow Nichols

When I entered my car early Thursday morning, the ground was damp with dew. Droplets covered the wilting grass on my lawn, an irritating reminder of my wife’s failure to tend to our property. When I was wrenched from my car an hour later, the ground was painted with my blood. Such a pity that I couldn’t see it, I had always loved art when I was alive.

 I heard sirens wailing and panic surround me. A frantic “I didn’t see her; I didn’t see her!” muttered from a man somewhere to my left. On my right someone, an EMT most likely, emitted sounds of mixed disgust and distress. I felt him search for a pulse, and when he said nothing while removing his fingers from my throat, I knew. A moment later, the sirens fell silent, and I was gingerly lifted from the asphalt. My heart no longer beating, and my body grew cold while they zipped me in plastic and drove me away.

Now, I lay here, but not here as in my naked back presses against the cold of the slab they’ve placed me on in the mortuary cabinet. When I was young and thought of death, I did not picture it like this. My eyes cast a sea of darkness, but I feel the stagnant air of the cabinet permeate around me. I think of Cassie and the phone call she must’ve received by now. I want to suck in a breath at the thought, but my lungs stay unexpressed. I try with every bit of strength just to move a leg, an arm, even a finger, all fruitless attempts. I try screaming, the sound rings through my head but only that, the room stays silent. I think back to this morning, to the wreckage that put me here. Filled with regret about my displeasure aimed toward the state of my lawn, I think of all the moments Cassie spent doing whatever I asked. I would take every second back to be with her again. To see her smile, feel her touch, hear her laugh one more time. Now she sits exiled to the recesses of my mind, a faceless figure. I reach out to touch her, and she disintegrates to dust under my embrace. The room around us crumbled, too, and I am jolted into the darkness of my reality once again.

 A car horn roars, an uninvited interruption to the noiseless room. I now stand in another memory, a forever frozen fragment of my life. I remember the fog and the yellow pair of headlights peering down at me through the mist like a monster stalking prey. I remember realizing it was too late, that the monster caught me. The dust encapsulates me again, bringing me back to my unavoidable fate.

I hear a clock ticking but have no idea how much time is passing while I lay trapped in this human refrigerator. Memories flood my brain every so often, playing like the movies I used to attend so regularly in my waking life. Cassie and I would go every week to see a six-dollar Monday matinee. Most of the time the movies were laughably abysmal, but it didn’t matter; we were together. As each reel of my memory ends, I am left with the darkness and the incessant ticking of the clock again. After what feels like thousands of ticks, I hear a voice muffled by the door. It swings open with a groan and wags back and forth on its hinges before closing again. The open air surrounds me as the mortician folds my sheet down carefully, exposing my mangled, broken body. She moves me gently and I sense an openness, as we move the atmosphere reaches out and touches me, one last embrace. The squeaking of the wheels was of no comfort to me as I was unsure of what was to happen next.

What would become of me when she cuts into my flesh and removes pieces of me? Pieces that I never loved enough, pieces that I judged too harshly in the mirror and harmed when my mind was hurting, too. What would happen when she steals my consciousness from the cavity in my head? Would I think like this forever? Doomed to an eternity of my own interminable, blind conciseness? Panic sinks deep into my stomach.

 I remember the stories my mother told me as a child, of how people were often buried alive before semi-modern medical advancements. The thought would make me sick to my stomach. I used to lay in my bed covered in goosebumps, thinking of the thread that would attach the toe of my entombed corpse to a bell on the surface. Nightmares plagued me; bells ringing, screaming and tolling, and no one coming to save me. I would dig my fingers into the wood of my coffin and cry until I woke, covered in sweat, alone in my room.

Was that what was to become of me? I want to scream; I want to tell her Please don’t! I’m here! But the only sound heard is the wheels of the freezing metal table.

We reach our destination as the last wheel squeaks into place, the last laugh. Objects clatter around on trays while the me inside of me sobs.

“Please…” I begged only myself. I hear breathing and for a moment mistake it as my own. The mortician sways around me, sending air wafting against the stillness of my body. I startle when her voice rings through the room.

“I am so sorry.” she says, a sadness haunting her statement.

“It’s okay,” I say, a similar melancholy crashes over my body, flooding me with hurt. I don’t expect her to hear me, so I lay still and listen to the hum of the fluorescent lights above me. We stay in silence for a while until she speaks again.

“What’s your name?” This feels like a cruel game, and I hesitate to say an answer that will never be heard.

“It’s Zola.” I mutter, unable to push away the human need for connection. More lights humming.

“Zola is a pretty name.” she says, thick with a feeling I couldn’t quite place. Pity, perhaps.

“This isn’t real” I whisper inside, and I hear her sigh and reposition herself closer to me. I felt the warmth of her hand encase my freezing fingers.

“Zola, I wish I could tell you why, I can’t. But I will be here for you until I can’t be anymore.” I vibrate with fear and confusion.

“What is happening to me?” Again, she sighs before she speaks.

“It will be okay,” I scream inside, she can hear me, she empathizes with me, but she won’t help me. “I can’t help you; I can be here for you, but I have to do my job.” With this I hear her touch the tray of her tools. Metal clinks, and I begin to sob.

“Please,” I say again, this time not to myself.

“I’m so sorry,” she says again and begins to cry too.

“It’s okay.” I say as her fingers rest gingerly on the side of my temple and I feel the cool tip of the scalpel press above my ear.

Photo of Willow Nichols

BIO: Willow Nichols is a New England based writer of all things speculative fiction. She enjoys all forms of horror, often using her experiences as a BIPOC queer woman to inspire her darkest stories. You can find her on Bluesky @novellamenagerie.bsky.social