just breathe

by Zoë Davis

DENIAL:

The ancient ceiling fan, whining on an exposed fist of wiring, didn’t so much as move the air but stir it.

2.33am.

The night was thick and laid on Princess like a second skin, or a demon too exhausted to move. A plastic bedsheet squeaked below her bare back, slick with sweat, reminding her of summer by the lake, racing, whooping, sliding in wet grass. But that was another life. Another time.

The analogue clock, clinging by its nails to the mildewed wall, sighed another minute away.

2.34am.

Princess wanted to cough, spit out the raw tallow smoke that bloated the air, but iron lined her tongue and the best she could manage was a rasping cough. Through broken shutters the distant city had been conveniently sliced into bite-sized chunks: neon on grey, life on death, beauty covering sickness. Even the sky was afraid to go dark, remaining a subtle, midnight blue, graced only by a splattering of stars, mimicking the candles inside.

She’d been told it would be a long procedure, which was why she had asked for a room with a view. Yet it wasn’t the city that had caught her eye, instead, her lungs, softly pulsing in a liquid-filled jar beside her.

All that was missing was a hand-knitted bonnet.

Insurance, they’d called it, to make sure the product was fully functioning before it was sold.

Uncaged, released from their mortal confines, all Princess could assume was that her lungs were fine.

She felt fine, better than fine. No flutters, no gasps, everything normal.

Stable. Yes. That’s what they’d said.

Everything was fine.

ANGER:

The pain was tolerable. Sedation can be a problem when you go to a less reputable apothecary, but Princess had been careful, gone to the elves. The city ones, not the ones in the forest. They could be tricky. She knew she had good commodity to sell. She could call the shots.

Wistfully, she imagined who the recipient would be; what those first few breaths would feel like. Now they were gone, she wasn’t sure what having lungs even felt like. It wasn’t a memory she’d considered keeping now she was haunted.

When she’d been wiping a crimson thumb across a yellowing contract, she’d been casually asked how she felt about her kidneys. The plurality of the word put her off. Kidneys. The roundness of it.

Internally, Princess laughed, tiny claws scraping at her larynx putting paid to actual mirth. Why were lungs any different? They were a pair. Or should that have been a brace? A couple? A breath?

She imagined her kidneys as twin children begging to stay with their mother, then as several gold coins. The larger the pile grew, the less maternal she felt.

Why had they offered? Subtly lighting a long fuse. They knew she’d be back.

She knew she’d be back.

BARGAINING:

It didn’t matter who purchased her lungs. They would outlive her. One of The Beautiful Ones would take them and give them a better life. She hardly knew anyone who wasn’t haunted these days. If you didn’t have a spectral benefactor piloting your flesh, who really were you in society anyway? Her close friend, Good Salutations, had her deceased mother-in-law working her liver. Randomly chosen, she’d been assured. It was just luck of the draw. Unfortunately, haunting took its toll. Many didn’t make it past fifty, while The Beautiful Ones just kept on replacing their worn-out muscles, bones, organs, granting them nigh on eternal life.

Princess sucked in a dry lip. Were they really so beautiful? Weren’t they just becoming someone else? something else, with skin and bone regenerated like a building bombed in the war, rebuilt on the same site, but all that history in the brick and mortar— gone. The underfolk called them flesh squatters. Princess called them lucky, as they had a choice.

Her haunting would be gentle though. She wouldn’t even notice.

Her lungs continued to rise and fall in metronomic perfection.

2.36am.

Honestly, who was more real? Who possessed more of a soul? And why did it matter? To her? To the one who would buy her product? To anyone? After all, what was a soul made of?

Tears?

Memories?

Time, maybe. A cartoon bomb.

DEPRESSION:

Moonlight fell on Princess’s forehead like pipe ash.

Her reflection was restless, shadow landing in a way that stripped back skin. She didn’t want to see. She wanted the bliss of ignorance more than any psychic she was being sluiced with. The plastic line of her spiderweb drip caught in a sudden breeze from the open window, a jump rope swung by the hands of some guilty angel, delivering prayers as if they were dirty words.

For a second there was air. A cool kiss of life.

Her chest fluttered. A programmed expansion. They were connected now.

But there was no air inside, only damp, frozen fingers, needling the small of her back. Princess’s burning eyes widened at the revelation, and she moaned through numb sterility. She needed words, but all she possessed was blood and skin— a now alien parchment.

Was this a debt too far, sharing herself with the dead? Nothing more than a mortal carrier bag for vicious alchemy.

It was a woman, she could feel her history, lovers, babies, fire. Sadness worked the air inside.

They were all a little bit sad, she had been warned, but she already knew that.

“Shhh. Go back to sleep,” a soft voice whispered, elven heels click clacking across the starlit, blood-soaked, floor. “Tomorrow you will leave here a new woman. Rest. Be at peace.”

2.48am.

It was too late to change her mind.

ACCEPTANCE:

Princess left with a duffle bag slung over her shoulder at 3pm precisely, a wadge of parchment in her hand and a bottle of blue elixir to take twice a day for three days. She didn’t care for any of that, only the weight of wicked coin in her pocket. Her debts would be paid first, obviously, then she would head to a psychic, at least extract a name for her new companion.

A ragged line ran north to south down her chest and every time her skin expanded it tugged a little. It was like… a backwards hug. Yes. That’s exactly what it was like.

A young man entering from the opposite direction smiled at her, holding the door open wide. He had no eyes yet was able to see clearly.

“Was that your first?” he asked, thumbing towards the dark interior.

Princess nodded.

“It gets easier. I promise.”

He paused then winked cheekily. “Would you like my number?”

It was a bit forward, but Princess didn’t know who was looking at her. It could have been a former king, an assassin, a milkmaid.

The thrill of possibility chilled her.

“Sure,” she shrugged, holding out her hand.

She’d be fine.

Fine until the next bill came in.

Fine until she started thinking.

Fine until the next thing that stole her heart.

“Quiet now,” her soul cooed as she stared into those grinning, occipital voids, accepting the thin slip of parchment. Too readily offered. Too eagerly taken. “Remember what they told you. If it all gets too much just breathe.”

Photo of Zoë Davis

BIO: Zoë Davis is an emerging writer from Sheffield, England. A quality engineer in advanced manufacturing by day, she spends her evenings and weekends writing poetry and prose, and especially enjoys exploring the interaction between the fantastical and the mundane, with a deeply personal edge to her work. You can find her words in publications such as: Ink Sweat & Tears, Strix, Roi Fainéant, Dust and Red Ogre Review. You can also follow her on X @MeanerHarker where she's always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat.