I volunteer for the Resurrection Day shift because you get time-and-a-half. That’s all.
“Don’t you…?” Fabiana begins when I add my name to the list, and then she stops herself. Because there’s no good way to ask if I really didn’t know anyone, anyone at all who’d died in the past calendar year.
She herself takes the day off, and from the way she talks, I assume it’s just to watch this year’s They Were Missed: Swan Song! special with the most recently deceased singers and musicians. But Sharif whispers to me later that shift that her cousin passed from leukemia in April.
Today, on the day itself, when she texts after the dinner non-rush to relay next week’s schedule—our benevolent corporate overlords don’t understand the meaning of “stat holiday”—I pause by the fry station to reply promptly. I don’t usually answer my phone at work, but it would be cruel to make her waste any more of her cousin’s twenty-four hours of temporary life waiting on my answer.
There are also a dozen notifications on my Facebook app. I mute it without checking them. They’ll all be from that group chat. Which I should have deleted. The number spins up by one, two as I watch. Then a text from Unknown: Hey, just wanted to reach out and offer a ride if you need one? 🙂 How did any of them get my number? Block. No, I can’t block. Say it’s a kind offer, but no thanks. Just ignore it. My excuse is watertight: I’m working.
It’s better like this. Living my life how I want is the best way to… well, you know. Like my therapist would say, if I could afford a therapist.
“You should go,” Sharif says.
I accidentally chip my nail polish on the metal counter. How did he find out?
Don’t be stupid. Sharif didn’t find out. He just assumes I lost someone, like Fabiana.
I can’t go. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. I don’t want to have to thank her. I don’t know how to thank her the right way, and the wrong kind of thanks is worse than none at all.
Somewhere between real coughing fits, I picked up the habit of forcing one when I can’t think of anything to say. The fits are gone, but the habit stuck. I cough, fakely, into my elbow.
Sharif doesn’t understand. “It’s okay, I won’t dock you or whatever. It’s always slow on Resurrection Day.”
My face burns in a way that has nothing to do with how close I am to the deep fryer.
He smiles. “Mia, just go.”
And he turns away without expecting me to say anything. I stare at his back, the curls fighting through his hairnet.
I try it, experimentally, too quiet for him to hear.
Thanks.
Not so hard?
I arrive late. The ride from Unknown was still too much, so I splurged for an Uber—time-and-a-half, after all. There are only a few hours left before this year’s newly dead slip back to their graves, this time for keeps. The address turns out to be a community center, and someone has printed signs leading to one of the parquet-floor studios. There’s a folding table with cans of pop, a cardboard traveler of coffee, and picked-over doughnuts. I recognize some of the half-dozen people milling around from their profile pictures. Their name tags say, SONAL: KIDNEY. ALEKS: RETINA. IDA: HEART.
The blood is warm in my cheeks. Everyone will notice how late I am, and how I’m still wearing my tacky uniform, and how I smell like drive-through leftovers someone forgot in the backseat. What if she’s angry? She deserves to be, doesn’t she? What if she hates me? I grab one of the Hello, my name is stickers beside the pop. MIA, I scrawl in Sharpie. LUNG.
And then… I look. The guest of honour sits on a plastic chair, chatting with ALEKS: RETINA. She’s slung her leather jacket over the back. The motorcycle helmet was too big and too unwieldy to wear inside, of course, so she’s put it on the floor beside her. Not that wearing it helped her much in the first place. Though I guess, if it had, none of the rest of us would be here.
She looks older than I pictured. There are streaks of grey in her hair and creases at the corners of her lips. I guess the photos her family shared were a few years old. And there’s a twist to her mouth that looks… not exactly happy. But her eyes are wide with wonder like my two-year-old nephew’s.
“Hey,” I say.
Her gaze flicks over my sticker, and a smile stretches across her face. And even though I don’t know what else I can say, I’m glad I came.
About the author:
S. R. Kriger (she/her) is a Canadian writer of speculative fiction. You can find more about her and her work at www.srkriger.com.
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