CRUMBS

I stared at the portrait of Dr. Guillotin for a long time, holding my own head in my hands, when I finally got access to a mobile phone and the internet in the twenty-first century, here in a building in New York, where I’ve lived for the past two decades. That satisfied half-smile and the ridiculous white wig under which, I’m sure, his greasy, sticky hair reeked, stays with me even now. However, I quickly learned, after searching online, that he didn’t actually invent the device that beheaded me back in 1793 in Paris. Innocent! Of course.

After that sharp piece of metal fell on my soft, slender, young neck, I immediately saw my own eyes staring back at me. My head, yes, my head, had rolled away, separating from me, yet it was still me at the same time. My ghost-head, for lack of a better word, looked at my—well, human—head. Caught in a strange kind of procession, somewhere in the dreamlike waters of the world, my consciousness existed in two places, I’d say, about ten seconds, if it’s even possible to measure time being in two places at once, before I became this—a headless ghost who must carry his head everywhere he goes.

“Are you listening to me?” I asked the dog, who was panting and staring at the sunset as it burst apart, just before it was about to melt into a bloody meridian. A perfect moment in time when the guillotine falls on the day. A precise line that ends one thing and begins another.

The hairy creature with shiny black eyes and a rough tongue doesn’t understand me, I know, but sometimes it’s necessary to pretend we’re communicating, just to feel like we exist. That what’s happening to us has some meaning. This remains true, even postmortem.

When I was still alive, at this time of year, I loved roasting chestnuts. Ah yes, the crunch of dry leaves underfoot. The smell of damp earth. The freshness of the mind. The freshness of melancholy. The remnants of soot on my fingers from peeling chestnuts my brother and I roasted behind our house. The crackling fire in the metal barrel.

I’ve never met anyone in the afterlife.

I shook my head with my hands, trying to stop thinking about my previous life, and placed it on the rough gray stone by the water, where I liked to sit and reflect on the wounded sky’s reflection in the lake of Central Park.

That couple, holding hands, with scarves wrapped around their necks—I never had that. Never the warmth of romantic love. The endless entanglements of my revolutionary mind led me to ideals, and those ideals somehow implied solitude. I don’t like irony, but now, now I’m truly alone. It’s funny that today people use the term “ghosting” when someone doesn’t reply or avoids you, but yes, I think I understand.

“Isn’t that right?” I asked the dog again, who lifted his backside off the gray stone and ran off, spending his time before death caught up with him. Will he become a ghost, like me?

I don’t know what makes someone a ghost. I’m sure there are others, but the whole point of being a ghost is that no one, no one sees or hears you. Centuries of solitude. I’m not sad, I promise.

I’m sure there are others, but I just can’t reach them.

Ah, all that’s left is watching people. Living their lives.

Right now, I’m living—or rather, existing—in an apartment with a newlywed couple who are in the “honeymoon phase,” as they say, and I watch their lives. Besides all the touching, which I don’t watch, I must clarify, although you probably don’t believe me, you who are listening to my internal monologue, because it’s become tiresome and revolting. The amount of “that,” as I’ll call it, in today’s world is simply staggering and off-putting. Passion is defiled.

So, besides all the touching and laughing, I’ve noticed they spend too much time staring at screens. Sometimes, our apartment feels like it has three ghosts living in it, and every day it becomes more intense. Bit by bit. First, their feet began to disconnect, then their hands. The “honeymoon” is fading. Now they eat while watching some series on Netflix. Completely unaware that my body is on one side and my head on the other. Somehow, I don’t like taking sides. I don’t think I will, even when they start fighting.

Ah, how glad I am that I can’t hear other people’s thoughts… though I hope someone hears mine.

Imagine all you’d hear when you hear what they choose to say. If I could, I’d shudder. Oh, and while we’re on that topic: one neat trick is that I can’t feel nauseous or throw up. I’m free from physical illnesses. And needs. If there’s any silver lining in this lonely hell, it’s that. A silver lining, I suppose.

Soon, the day’s death will end. Look.

Who invented the guillotine anyway? I don't have my tenants' phones here. I can’t sneak a peek. And yes, if anyone’s listening, know that I once got burned snooping through people’s private things. I’m not interested in that.

But who was it? There were two of them…

My hands shake my head again, like a black magic 8-ball.

What is fate? A single flow of reality? The idea of order in existence? I don’t like it. As someone who was innocently beheaded in front of a crowd that spat and cursed, I can’t say order exists. History says Dr. Guillotin proposed banning public executions. If they had adopted that, maybe it would’ve been easier for me. Maybe it would’ve been closer to… justice.

Justice? Let’s not dwell on such topics after so much time, on a day like this. Autumn, full of silence. Park lampposts. Benches. Everything is quieting down.

I remember when I first learned about Ouija boards. How hard I tried to communicate. Another crack.

Oh no, more memories. A rainy day at my mother’s funeral. A sunny one at my father’s. Snow that winter when my brother died in the cholera epidemic. And his wife. And their children. 1832, yes. History is a collection of terrible events. What is the problem of this era? What awaits these people?

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Macbeth.

The day passed, and I stole a piece of bread because I was hungry. Because my brother was hungry. Now, I am a headless ghost witnessing time pass. My existence is observation. Watching this world. The same shaky stage, farce upon farce, which sometimes holds a sweetness worth devoting oneself to. A sweetness worth simply feeling, because recording it steals the feeling.

I must go now, to watch some TV show with my tenants, who sneak glances at reels and posts while the show plays. Later, with a brief kiss, they’ll turn their backs to each other in bed. And I, I’ll sit and wait for a new day.

I take my transparent white head in my hands, which turns blue in the moonlight. The grass grows damp. I hope I wasn’t just white noise to you, whoever is listening. Look at the flock of people. They’re rushing somewhere. I’ll have to leave New York soon. I’ve felt it as much as I can. I think I need to move on to marginal places. Maybe there, in the quiet, someone will hear me.

I stole a piece of bread.