Cold Call

I handle dead bodies the way most people handle their taxes. Wear gloves. Keep your head down. Try not to inhale. Nobody thanks you, but you keep doing it. You hope nobody notices how much you start to enjoy the silence.

Morgues aren't quiet. Not really. They whisper. A low hum of fluorescent bulbs like mosquitoes feeding on a corpse. The slow drip of fluids leaking from plastic bags—bodies losing their secrets drop by drop.

Angela said she wouldn't sleep with me even if she were dead. Exact words. “Not if I was stiff and cold on your fucking slab.” Said it loud enough for everyone at the diner to hear, forks hovering halfway to mouths, egg yolks bleeding on plates. Angela, sharp-tongued and lipstick-red angry. I smiled and paid for her breakfast anyway.

The dead don’t reject you. They lie still, obedient, patient. Skin pale like paper, bodies neatly folded like unwanted mail. No complaints. No rejections. Perfect conversation partners.

Angela’s voice, thick with disgust, echoes through my head, mixing with the quiet dripping of a stranger’s punctured lung.

They bring her in Tuesday morning. A car wreck, sudden and violent. Blonde hair tangled like broken violin strings, lips parted in mid-curse. Her eyes stare at the ceiling, defiant even in death.

I prepare her gently, with reverence she never gave me. A last act of kindness. Cool antiseptic on cotton, soft swabs against torn skin. The cut of a thread through flesh is peaceful, Zen-like, sewing broken stories closed.

Then, the impossible.

Her hand twitches, a subtle jerk—like static shock. Fingers flex, curl, stretching toward mine. I step back, heart kicking ribs.

Eyes blink open, pale irises swimming to focus.

Angela’s lips part, throat grinding gravel, words clawing their way out:

“Changed my mind,” she whispers. Her mouth twists in a slow smile, cracked lipstick like blood crusted at the edge of a glass. “Now that we have something in common.”

My heart slams hard, a bullet fired into darkness.

The bulb above flickers—God’s camera flash, snapping our wedding portrait.

I stare, breath trapped like flies in a jar. Angela’s hand falls limp, body sinking back into obedient silence, leaving me alone with her invitation ringing through my head.

Now we have something in common.

I peel off the gloves, toss them aside.

After all, relationships are about compromise.