Free Low Life by Ryan David Jahn

around her, hand cupping a firm breast. He imagined he’d be able to feel her slow heart beating in her chest.
    He set the picture down on the coffee table and looked at it for a while longer.
    Then he got to his feet, found a screwdriver – the one with the black and yellow plastic handle – and screwed a hasp and staple combination into both sides of the door, so the
apartment could be secured from inside and out.
    While doing this, he finished the bottle of whiskey.
    Sleep did not come that night. He simply lay in bed, turning this way and that, pushing his blanket off him and then pulling it back on, flipping his pillow over repeatedly,
his neck kinking, his ankles popping, his right arm falling asleep as he crushed it under the weight of his body, then his left. Thoughts swirled round his brain, which refused to go silent.
    After what felt like an eternity – would this useless fucking night never end? – the gray light of morning began to seep in past the edges of the blue blanket nailed over the
window.
    The alarm clock didn’t have a chance to ring. He shut it off early, got out of bed, and padded to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth and spat toothpaste and blood into the basin. He rinsed
it down the drain, then cupped his hand under the running water, brought a palmful to his mouth, swished it around in there, and spat again. He turned off the water and stared at himself in the
mirror, his face only inches from the glass. He looked into his own green eyes – green with flecks of brown. He had tiny bumps under his eyes, just above his cheekbones. They were white and
about the size of the tip of a pen. He had accidentally scratched a few off once when he had an itch and despite their size they bled quite a bit. He pushed on the gray bag under his left eye. It
was soft and moist and when he pushed on his eyeball through it his eye made a squeaking noise, as air was forced from a duct there, and his vision went blurry. He scraped the eye boogers from the
corners of his eyes with a fingernail. He looked at them and then wiped his finger on his pajamas.
    Then he turned away from the mirror and looked at the corpse lying in the now almost ice-free bathtub. He should have bought more ice yesterday. He would have to buy more this morning, even if
it meant being late for work. He walked to the tub and sat on the edge of it. The porcelain was cool through his pajamas.
    ‘You had a very beautiful wife,’ he said. ‘I hope you appreciated her.’
    He reached down and grabbed the corpse’s cold purple hand. The skin was soft and loose on the bones, like the skin on an undercooked chicken. He pulled the ring off the third finger and
skin came with it, turning inside out and peeling backwards. Simon rinsed the gold band off under the faucet before putting it on his own finger. Then he sat back down beside the corpse. It was
just beginning to smell. The scent was thick and slightly sweet. You could feel it like horseradish behind the roof of your mouth and the backs of your eyes.
    ‘Me,’ he said, ‘I’ve never been in love before. I’ve often wondered what it felt like. So many poems and songs try to describe it, it must be—’ He
stopped there, licking his lips. He just didn’t know how to finish the sentence.
    With most of the ice gone, he could see the corpse’s right hand. It was a blue-white color, the color of a week-old bruise, and covered in a network of scabbed-over cuts.
    Strange.
    He got to his feet and walked out of the bathroom.
    He was only fifteen minutes late for work, and only three times that morning did he stop working in order to look at the gold band on the third finger of his left hand. When he
did stop, he held his hand palm up and looked down at it, and with his right hand he twisted the ring around and around on his finger, thinking of what it meant to be attached to someone by such a
thing. He longed for that. But then each moment passed – he snapped himself from his