Page 6 of Incarnate

“Oh, already another error?” the woman asks, as if unsure if she heard the details correctly. “Some bad luck following you, Marg.”

The woman pulls out her own Nefirium, and I watch the words appear to see Penelope Mae Morris and a biography.

“That’s all correct,” I say as I look closer, leaning over to read whatever Margaret had read earlier. “At least, I know the details are right, but it doesn’t feel like me at all. I’m sure it’s just a part of the process, honestly. I’m really sure this is fine.”

The woman at the desk clears her throat. “What you are doing is very rude, although I understand, being a novus. But… you should know this is rude.” She looks back down as I lean back. “Alright… Penelope. Your Social Security number?”

“What?”

“Look here, is that correct?” she says, pointing out a spot in her Nefirium.

“Yes, that is my social,” I say. “Why do you have that?”

“Your birthday is February 4th, 1976?”

“Yes,” I nearly hiss, not liking how she’s shouting all my private details.

“Your parents are Roger and Samantha Morris?”

“Yes.”

“You are a widow to Chris Jones?”

A gasp escapes me. “Yes, oh, Chris,” I say, completely forgetting about Chris. How could I forget Chris? I stare at the wooden table, feeling the smallest morsel of genuine sorrow for my dead husband, but it’s like I’m playing with a doll and know the feelings that are supposed to be there, but genuinely aren’t.

“You were a clinical psychologist—” I glance up “—well, I suppose we should call you Doctor Morris, although that won’t be of use here. Doctors in the Underworld are not like the ones on Earth. Anywho, you lived alone in Asheville, North Carolina?”

Asheville… the mountains. “Yes, I bought a condo there to get away from all the pain,” I state, as if reading off my lines. “I always loved the place,” I add with a wispy voice.

“No children?”

“It never took,” I quietly confess, knowing there is supposed to be a lot more dread associated with those feelings, but it’s as if I’m reciting someone else’s life.

“What was your final thought before death?”

My brows furrow, my feet adjusting on the floor—I glance down, aware that I’m barefoot but the stone floor isn’t cold. “I don’t have any shoes.”

“You won’t feel temperature until you take off the garb and get your new clothes, so they’re not needed… Now, again, what was your final thought before death? Right as you fell from the balcony?”

I blink rapidly, trying to parse through everything, imagining the balcony that was adjacent to the woods with a lovely creek. That is the clearest memory to hit me. “I was first terrified, and then I was happy I’d get to see my husband and my parents,” I say, breathing shallowly.

Oh, that hurt.

Margaret and the woman look at each other. My gaze slowly lowers. I remember falling like I remembered watching my mother’s heart monitor go flat. My mother’s mouth had been open, her left eye only partially closed. The room smelled like Doritos from the bag I opened. I was already going downhill with my diet since Chris’s death and decided to say fuck it and indulge as much as I wanted, despite my high cholesterol.

I remember wearing my pink Crocs and the glass earrings I had bought at a Renaissance Fair… and I remember drinking many canned margaritas on my balcony, crying as I was lonely. I remember thinking I had little to live for and that dying would not be so terrible.

I was not ready, not yet, but I wouldn’t grudgingly go, either. I tried to rationalize it away, knowing that my world had changed, and it was only natural to want death, where I was convinced my family awaited.

And then… and then I stepped on an old dog ball and fell… literally rolled over the edge. Mom, Dad… Chris… I smiled before hitting the pavement. Not happy, just… happy to think I would see them.

“Oh no… I don’t want to go to purgatory,” I mumble as my body grows light while a blackened circle fills my vision, my pulse skipping beats. My body feels light, and it’s hard to breathe.

“Penelope,” the woman says, her voice dark and somehow encircling me. I stare at her. “Listen to me, sweet thing… it’s alright. You are not dead. You are alive, just here.”

“I’m dead!” I say, my anger grounding me, recalling how I hit the ground so hard and then it was all black. “Oh my fuck, I actually fell off my balcony!”

“Do you want a margarita?” Margaret asks, stepping closer.