Short Story: “Mourning”
She didn’t know what she wanted, and that was sad. Three months ago, he had sat across from her, saying that.
“You don’t know what you want, CJ.” He pushed his reading glasses further up his nose. “And that’s sad.”
He didn’t cry, and neither did she. She had never cried over a boy before. The school librarian shushed her when she tried to respond.
After a few minutes, he left, and CJ took the back exit to the parking lot.
Outside, she found a world in mourning. Passersby wore black. Students donned arm-bands, and teachers bowed their heads as she made for the bus. The marching band stood in solemn formation on the football field, playing a funeral march. They saluted her, and placed their hands over their hearts. The bus driver offered her his condolences. Walking home, she found that the trees were crying.
School was cancelled the next day all across the district. The day off was announced over the television that morning in a banner floating beneath a shiny news-lady:
“CJ Nilson broke her boyfriend Jake’s heart, and her own, somehow, in the process, and there will be no school until further notice.”
In the days following, students and their parents waited anxiously in front of the television each morning, only to be met with the same announcement:
“Unfortunately, CJ Nilson is still sad, and schools will remain closed. Stay tuned.”
The Weather Channel expressed their regrets that the sun would be taking a leave of absence for the foreseeable future. The forecast predicted gray skies.
The radio played only their song, Jake and CJ’s song, and no one could change the station. She sang along, at first.
I give my love and all my love to you, my love
I feast on love, a beast for love, release my love
But after a couple of times, the song became tiresome. CJ was sad. She went back to bed, and slept for days.
Two weeks later, the students were allowed to come back to school. When she stepped outside for the first time, CJ found the world had changed again. The sidewalk was made of hundreds of hands, interlacing fingers, supporting her feet. Above her was a green sky, interrupted by a black iris for a sun. The houses in her neighborhood were built of reading glasses, with gray t-shirt curtains. Hairy, gangly teenage legs shot upwards in place of streetlights. A breeze blew up the hem of her skirt, and the wind said,
You're scared and unprepared for love, don't care my love
Cause you’re the only woman i've been dreaming of
Everything was made of Jake. She sang along.
At school, everyone grumbled and shot sideways glances, because they knew that CJ Nilson and Jake Fisher were the reason they had to catch up on two weeks of work. Exams couldn’t be rescheduled this late in the semester, so everyone huffed and puffed and studied and scrambled. In all the chaos of the first day back, no one noticed that photographs of Jake had replaced every canvas in the art room, and every locker combination was his birthday. At lunchtime, the milk in the cafeteria didn’t taste like milk, but it tasted like kissing Jake.
Halfway through the first day back, Lola Bernard came up to CJ in the hallway.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
“I’m fantastic, Lola.”
Lola paused. “I don’t know if it’s true,” She said. “But someone told me in Physics that Jake was talking to this girl Maggie.”
Maggie was very pretty. The principal called an emergency whole-school assembly.
“Jake Fisher, what is wrong with you” Principal Chavez said at the front of the auditorium. “It’s been two weeks since she broke your heart. Are you not crushed? You couldn’t have just waited?” Everyone cheered - except Jake.
That night after the sun went down, the sky lit up like a giant projector. For hours it stayed on, playing a video of Jake and Maggie. It was all anyone could look at. It was all anyone could talk about. CJ’s family asked all about it; people she hadn’t spoken to in years called her on the phone to ask what had happened between them. Old friends from camp. The little girl she used to babysit. The neighbor’s brother-in-law she had met at a barbecue two summers ago. To drown out all of the questions, CJ screamed out her bedroom window that it was all Maggie’s fault, and she was so loud that everyone in the entire world could hear.
By the time the semester exams came around in December, most all of the Jake had faded away. It had been so gradual that CJ hadn’t noticed. One morning she woke up and the green light that had covered everything for weeks was finally gone. The sidewalk was firm concrete under her feet. Everything was familiar, and everything was fine.
Before they took the English final, Mr. Sanders sent CJ to the supply closet to fetch extra pencils. Jake and Maggie looked up when the closet door opened.
Jake. Maggie. Hands on handsonhandshands. Touching everything.
CJ’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Instead teeth grew big and her fingernails extended, eyes popping out of their sockets and veins bulging. She grew so big that her skin split open as she broke through the ceiling of the building, everything crashing down around the three of them. She liked that they looked scared.
She ate them both in two bites. First Maggie, then Jake.
The mess she had made seemed a lot bigger once CJ had shrunken back down to her usual size. There was a lot of blood on the floor, and the drywall looked like snow. She wondered if she should clean it up. She didn’t - but she pitied the janitor.
Covered in blood and stretched out skin, she walked to the empty football field. In the very center, she tipped her head back and cried until it flooded all of the stands. With gentle hands, she lifted handfuls of the water, wiping everything away. When she was done, music started playing over the loudspeakers, foggy and crackling. Swimming in salt, she sang along:
I give my love and all my love to you, my love
I feast on love, a beast for love, release my love
