Her

Her groaning was a constant sound in the house. Like an old TV left on for too long, she droned on and on and on, varying in tempo and pitch. The noises of her nails scratching against the door accompanied the groans and created a disastrous cacophony of noise. Her nails would squeak persistently against the painted doors as her voice climbed in pitch, and our dog, Randy, would snuffle and bury his head in its paws. I remained undisturbed. Her and her noises were ordinary to me. Without them, the house might have felt too quiet. 

She scratched at the door again; our dog, Randy, snuffled. I glanced out the window as I sipped on my cup of tea. It was a particularly blue day outside and I pondered taking our dog, Randy, on a walk. The situation -- the zombies -- was well contained in this area. The military lined the perimeter of the city with rifles in hand. A single jerky movement, and a round of quick shots echoed in the air. These ringing echos were comforting, apparently, as the number of people on the streets had increased significantly over the past few days. Even now, I could see a family of three walking briskly down the street towards what I assumed was the market. They were hand in hand and the small one, their child, perhaps, skipped occasionally. 

I turned my eyes back to the woman on screen. The recovery of electricity had meant recovery of the internet, and the morning news had resumed. They assured us repeatedly, the man and woman dressed in brisk suits and sat at shiny counters, that no zombies were left in this city. It was time, they said, to resume with daily life. Time to forget those who’d been lost in the apocalypse. Time to move on. They’d given up all pretenses of finding a cure; they were straightforward in their warning that a zombie was not, in fact, a human. We had to recognize this, they said. We had to leave them behind and return to ordinary life. 

I agreed, of course. The girl locked in my bedroom was no human. She was a zombie, and that was nothing like a human. Her skin had turned a grotesque shade of purples and greens and protruding veins climbed up and down her neck. And she would drool, so relentlessly, in fact, that her spit would at times leak through the crack at the bottom of the door. She hadn’t been a human since the moment she’d been bitten at the fleshy part of her upper thigh-- yet I’d still carried her home, jerking and twisting, into my bedroom. And I still loved her.

There was nothing unusual about our life even today, despite the ugly bite on her leg. Everyday, I woke up on the couch to the sunlight drooling through the curtains and I would wish her a good morning. I fed our dog Randy. I watched the news. Then the ten minute clip would end, and I watched an older piece of news. She scratched and kicked. I watched the news until the sun was slipping over the edge of the Earth. Then, it was time to eat. I boiled one of our last few eggs for 7 precise minutes, and bit into it, soft and warm against the core of my belly. I always wondered if I should give her anything, but I thought it would just make her hungrier. I sat in front of her door as I ate. I closed my eyes, and my arm would slip through the door, like a ghost, and I held her hand. She was still when I held her, and we looked at each other, and were in love. Then the warmth of the egg receded and I rose from the floor. Her drool was sticky on the bottom of my sock. She always screeched when I left; I told her affectionately I’d be back. Then I watched the news again, until it was time for bed. I slept. She scratched and kicked. 

It was love, this feeling I felt in my chest, as I listened to her whines while sipping persistently at my coffee. It was love. She’d become horrible and disgusting, and still, I loved her. I couldn’t find any trace of the woman I’d danced with on the sunny deck of a pretty cruise, and still, I loved her. I couldn’t find any trace of the woman who’d comforted me through the loss of my mother, and still, I loved her. I couldn’t find any trace of the woman I’d fallen in love with, as we sat and watched the sun rise together, and still, I loved her. I loved her now, beating her head against the door, thump thump thump, just as I had in all those moments. I loved her endlessly; I loved her incessantly.

The woman on screen began talking again. She looked tired. She spoke again of returning to ordinary life. We must move on, she said, and hold the ones we love close to our hearts as we do. It is time to treasure this blessing we call life and return to our routine days. I wondered what she would say if she knew about what was in my bedroom. Would she put on a grim face, with downturned lips and seriously frowning eyebrows, and denounce me as an awful citizen? Would she tell anyone watching to report any suspicious activity? Or perhaps this woman would praise me, for my active pursuit of adjustment. I would sit at the newsdesk with her, maybe with the tie I’d received as an anniversary gift, and say, if we can’t live without them, we have to live beside them. And then I’d grin, in a boyishly charismatic way, and look to the camera.

I watched her scarlet lips move passively. She droned on, and on, and on. Time to move on. Time to move on. Time to move on. I had moved on, I thought to myself. Perhaps everyone in the world had moved on, except for this woman, as she sat at this battered news desk with lipstick smudged across her chin, reading the words from some idiot’s propagandistic speech. What a shame, I thought. There was no such thing as a return to normalcy; we were already in it.

Our dog, Randy, buried his hands in his paws again at the sound of hoarse howl. She was there, drooling against the floor behind my bedroom door, and I was here, listening. And that was enough of reality for me.