Stage of the Mundane

By Camden Rose

The night I saw my wife die, I was washing blackberries in the kitchen. My daughters were upstairs napping. Anne, my wife, was in the other room, watching Season 3 of The Bachelor, which meant when I walked back in, I would also be watching Season 3 of The Bachelor. I was tired of that show almost as much as I was tired of my life. To say I loved either was a stretch.

I put the blackberries in a bowl on the counter, hoping my daughters wouldn’t fling it to the floor later. In the other room, someone got a rose.

When I looked around for something else to stop me from returning to the couch, I found Anne, but much younger, staring at me through our back door. She was wearing a white nightgown that trailed to her ankles.
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I took a few steps back until I hit the counter. Then, straining my now-throbbing head, I peered into the living room to see my present-day wife sitting there, staring at the TV with an expression that looked like something Michelangelo would carve out of marble. Her eyes were big and round, focused on the show. They looked just like the girl’s.

I almost expected the young girl to disappear when I turned back, but she was still there, staring at me. The screen sent small black wires streaking across her face.

“Do you want to go on a walk?” I whispered. 

Instead of responding, my younger wife smiled and started skipping into the night.

I cursed under my breath then looked back through the kitchen door, just to make sure. My present-day wife was still there, still watching TV. I looked back into the darkness younger Anne had disappeared into.

Missing an evening of TV wouldn’t change anything.

When I called that I was going out, Anne nodded slightly, yelling back something about picking up eggs. I heard someone give someone else a rose as the screen door shut behind me.

I ran up to my younger wife. She had slowed to a walk so it was easier for me to keep pace. I tried to start a conversation a few times, but all my words fumbled into the air and were swallowed by the crickets and noises of the interstate a few streets over.

I met Anne in college. She was working on getting her nursing degree and I was working on escaping. We started dating out of love, and then convenience. After all, we both had plans to move to the same town, to have the same number of kids, to find similar places in the world. It made sense. The fact that we were already dating was just an added benefit.

I looked at my younger wife. Her hair bounced. I had never seen its natural color before.

“Are you cold?” She shook her head. “Hungry?” She shook her head again. “Thirsty?” No.

“Why are you here?” I finally asked. My younger wife looked over, gave me the sweet mischievous smile I often saw in our oldest, then started sprinting down the street.

I had no choice but to chase back, making my bones ache more than I wanted them to. When I caught up and tried to find my breath again, she took that as another opportunity to run ahead. What could I do but follow?

We continued like this, leapfrogging our way through town. After a few labored sprints, I looked back down the street at what I knew, but what I knew was dry and unexciting. This was adventurous, new, unknown. This was something else.

She finally slowed down once we got to the middle of a field I had never seen despite living here for the past 10 years. Never had a reason to. There was a playground closer that I could take the girls to. I caught up to her, wheezing and showing my age.

“What was that for?” I asked between breaths, staring at the dark grass. There was no response, so I looked up. She was gone. I called for her, but there was no answer. Of course. I sighed and started the walk back.
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It’s not that I hated her, my current wife, but I had gotten so bored. Every day was the same. Wake up, get the kids ready, go to work, pick up the kids, have dinner, watch TV, sleep. I know there were times Anne and I used to run down the street laughing. Times we took our daughters on trips to far-off places. But then school came. Then our daughters’ friends’ parents became our only friends. Our paychecks were used on mortgages and fixing things. Our free time was spent in front of the TV or with our children or sleeping. We just didn’t talk anymore.

I looked around at the trees, haunting the moonlit night. I wasn’t sure where I was exactly, but I heard the interstate in the distance. Younger Anne and I had gone further than I’d expected. And now that my heart rate was returning to a normal speed, I felt cold. I wrapped my arms around me. I should have never followed her.

“O comfortable friar! Where is my lord?” I heard from my left.

It was Younger Anne, standing on a chair that wasn’t there before, dressed in a Victorian-age dress that was too big for her. It made her look like she was floating in a curtain of clothes. On the chair, she was almost as tall as me.

“I do remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?” she said.

It didn’t take me long to catch on to what she was acting out. I had a strange desire to speak the next line, but couldn’t remember what it was. My younger wife stood there, staring beyond me like Anne sometimes did after a long day at work.

“I don’t know the next line,” I admitted. She was quiet, paused, like a statue. I glanced back to see where she was looking, but saw just trees and a flickering billboard sign.

“Go, get thee hence, for I will not away,” she responded. I pointed to my chest. I didn’t want to leave her.

“Me?”

She didn’t respond, but rather bunched the front of her dress in her small arms and jumped off the chair. She glanced at me and I tilted my head. Apparently that was confirmation for something because then she started bolting to the billboard behind me.

“Shit,” I mumbled and dashed after her. I wasn’t going to lose her again.

By the time I got to where she was, Younger Anne had engaged in a long and dramatic monologue. She was crying below the billboard lighting, her tears leaving black streaks down her cheeks, smudging the over-dramatic make-up I was finally getting close enough to see. The pulsing of the light made her face look like fireflies.

It looked too much like how Anne looked when she gave birth to our first. I looked away. I had forgotten how it had felt to make something with my wife like that. Something good that would live beyond us.

But then I heard the sharp sound of metal against stone. She had pulled out a dagger. I hoped it was a prop. Just in case, I sped up.

“O happy dagger! This is thy sheath, there rust.”

I knew this was how the play ended, but something seemed wrong. I ran and picked her up just as she thrust the blade into her chest. She started to bleed out quicker than she should have.

I was never comfortable with blood, but at that moment, I didn’t care. It was my wife. My love. She was dying and I was helpless. No matter how much I tried to use her dress to stop the bleeding, nothing helped. I couldn’t save her.  I was useless. I couldn’t do anything. I was never good at doing anything. Not listening or helping or even trying to manage at being an adult.

I tried to speak but my chest was cold. The dress dangled around her body. She put her fingers to the wound. I didn’t realize I was crying until she rested her finger under my eyes and looked at me.

“And, let me die,” she whispered.

“No,” I said.

She gave a faint smile, one that made her look much older than she was, and closed her eyes. Then, she faded out, dress and all.

I stayed there for a moment, holding my hands out as though she might reappear. She never did. The light flickered on my arms. I heard a loud honk from a car on the interstate. Everything, the dress, my wife, and the blood had gone. All that was left were the crickets and cars and me.

At some point I put my hands down. I looked around. Nothing had changed. I walked home in silence.
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The shadows felt longer. The air felt colder. I made it to the corner grocery store and walked into the blinding lights in a daze. My body shook. No one noticed.

---

The door creaked as I walked back into the house, but Anne didn’t turn around.

“How was the store?” she asked, watching the TV. It was a commercial break, but she seemed just as passively interested in it as she was in the show.

“Good,” I mumbled, putting the eggs in the fridge. I put a blackberry in my mouth on the way over to her. It was sour. The juice left soft red liquid on my fingers.

Anne turned over to me so I smiled a bit. She smiled back. I stayed for a moment, looking at her, trying to find the girl who had passed in my arms. The same smile. The same eyes. The same aura. But everything else had changed.

Anne had grown into a beautiful, wonderful woman. I sat down next to her. The couch sank with wear. I put my arms around her. While she seemed a bit surprised, she responded gently, wrapping her arms around me as well. She looked up at me, her eyes meeting mine, wide and curious.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded as though that would convince myself, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She didn’t answer, instead wetting her thumb on her tongue and wiping right under my eye, exactly where her younger self had touched me when she died just thirty minutes before.

“You have blackberry on your cheek,” she chuckled.

I leaned into her palm. Felt the weight of her real live body against my skin. Among the scattered toys, the washed blackberries, and the TV show, she was here. She had grown up, but maybe I had, too.

“I love you,” I whispered, kissing her palm. Her smile softened.
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“I love you, too.”

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​Camden Rose is a queer author who loves seeking out magic beneath the everyday world. She can often be found at the ocean's edge taking notes on the local mermaid population. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, black cat, and collection of books and board games. You can find her online at www.camdenscorner.com.