Dead Reflex

"I'm just asking why you didn't call someone sooner." The cop ran a hand through his hair again like a nervous twitch. He was staring down at his notepad. He hadn't looked at me since the first time I told the story. Like maybe the crazy would catch if he made eye contact.

I crossed my cuffed wrists on the table in front of me and pretended to study my fingernails. "I did call sooner. I called as soon as I found out."

He stared at me blankly. We'd been at this for hours now. He wanted to know why I stayed in my apartment with my dead girlfriend for a day and half. I kept trying to explain that she didn't act dead.

"Why don't you tell me again what happened?" He didn't really look like he wanted to hear it again.

I put my head on my arms and took a deep breath. I wondered what it felt like to go into shock. Everything from my neck up had gone numb when I realized how cold she was.

Shakily, I started. She'd been throwing up into the miniature, wicker wastebasket by the bed when I woke up that day. She glared at me through a cracked wall of tangled hair when I asked if she was alright. We couldn't afford a doctor. We could barely afford rent. I stopped by the drugstore on my way home from work.

"What do you do?" The officer asked just like he had the countless times.

My head was swimming. For a moment, I couldn't remember. All of the trays and menus, refills and clean silverware of the daytime slipped out of my brain. My life was becoming so foggy that I couldn't be sure it wasn't a dream.

"Hey? Julian?" He said my name for the first time since they'd arrested me as he pushed a glass of water towards me. "You're not looking so good."

I took a few large gulps of water. I felt it hit the bottom of my rumbling stomach. It burned like a shot of whiskey and I swallowed hard to keep it down. She was late. She said she must be pregnant. I decided to skip the part about me being a dick and saying the kid couldn't be mine. No matter how I did the math, I couldn't make it add up right. I jumped to the part about her being sick.

"She couldn't stop throwing up," I said. "We didn't have the money to go a doctor." Damn, I felt sick. I wondered if the officer had quick enough reflexes to move before I showered his feet with my lunch. I must have caught whatever Marie had. "She wanted to keep the baby."

"She wasn't pregnant," the cop said. "The coroner confirmed that".

I nodded, dimly aware that he may have said that same thing the first time we did this. Had we already done this?

He shot a look at me and I continued. Marie was sick. I remember wanting to call someone, but she wouldn't let me. I should have slept on the couch, I hadn't said two words to her since the whole thing started, but then I thought about what would happen if she got worse. I wanted to be close in case she needed me. I must have felt her forehead a hundred times. I almost hoped she would have a fever. Then I'd at least be able to tell myself it was the flu. When I woke up, she was in my arms. I shivered against her cold body. "Jesus, Marie," I said to her. "You're freezing."

I stopped talking then. I suddenly couldn't get the feel of her off me. She'd been dead weight next to me. It was so hard to get out from underneath her; I kept finding myself wrapped in the sheets.

Absently, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. The handcuffs jangled as I pulled to hard on my other wrist. I wished it hurt more. Or at all.

When I finally found my voice, I told him about how quiet she was, how she never answered me. The whole time I was pushing her body off of my arm, she didn't say a word. I told him about how I stood at the foot of the bed staring at her for a minute before realizing what had happened.

He interrupted again, "The blood settled in her feet. She'd been dead for thirty-six hours and not lying down. How did it happen?"

I closed my eyes tightly. I didn't know the right answer. He'd already asked me this.

Someone opened the door behind me. The cop looked past me at him and they left with a quick, "I'll be right back."

I buried my head in my arms. The fluorescent lights throbbed above me to match the pain in my head. My stomach cramped until I started dry heaving. I put my head between my knees until it passed, the rested my head on the table again. I woke up a stiff neck and sore shoulders. I must have been asleep for a long time because a strange sort of numbness had settled in my arms. I stretched, hoping to work feeling back into my limbs. My bones cracked and popped. The handcuffs had dug into my wrists, leaving angry, red indentions, just shy of drawing blood.

No one ever came back?

I forced myself out of the chair and stumbled to the door. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see through the small window at the top. In the hall, there was a woman cuffed to a bench. She pulled against the metal until it tore his wrist, but she didn't bleed. She was hunched over the body of the officer that had been questioning me. She daintily picked at stringy, sticky bits of him and put them in her mouth. Her fingers were stained red. Her hair glistened with something grey and oozy that slowly slipped out of her head. Chunks of grey and slivers of white littered her shoulder.

Did I ever get to tell him about when Marie woke up? When they zipped the body bag around her and she opened her eyes. "Dead reflex," the coroner said.

I sighed and pressed my forehead against the glass. I must have been in shock, because I wasn't feeling anything except hungry. It gnawed at my stomach. I wanted food so badly, I almost cried. I didn't even notice myself clawing at the door until I heard something snap. Dumbly, I looked down at my hand. Pieces of flesh clung to the rough surface of the wood. I'd broken my nail. Not just a little, not just a snag, halfway to the cuticle.

Once, when I was little, I slammed my hand in a door so hard, my fingernail fell off. It stung. Even now, when I think back on it, I can't help shivering. But standing in the interrogation room with my broken nail and something psychotic happening out in the hallway, I felt nothing. Nothing but hungry. I turned my back to the door and slid to the floor. It was easier to sit, too difficult to move. God, how long was I asleep? If I could just open that door. If I didn't feel like such dead weight, I could get out of here and everything might be okay.