6 // 365

                Sven’s jaw clenched as the plane began to rock against the wind; he hated flights. He glanced around the cabin and was surprised that no one had taken any notice of the turbulence. They’re all the same; they all have the same beliefs: “it won’t be me, I can’t die,” he thought bitterly. He hated the arrogance of anyone who wasn’t immortal and he found it ironic that his immortality was the only way he had learned not to take day-to-day life for granted. He reigned in his emotions; after all, the plane wasn’t headed for disaster yet. 

Sven struggled to refocus his attention on the tall, thin blonde who was sleeping serenely next to him.  He forced himself to picture his future with Jacie in an attempt to relieve his ever-growing fear. If he was lucky, he’d have ten years of a moderately normal and happy marriage before she started noticing the way his hair didn’t turn gray or the way the small wrinkles that would appear beside her eyes didn’t show on him. After the good years, there would be one year of bad. Sven would spend his time thinking of ways to make Jacie hate him, so that it was easier for her to move on when he abandoned her. At first, this life was hard for him but he had grown accustomed to it with time. 

                The plane swayed again and Sven felt his stomach drop when the seat belt light flickered on. He hurriedly shook Jacie awake and helped her buckle herself into the seat. Jacie laced her fingers through Sven’s and he smiled at her in a false form of reassurance. After years of outliving of others, Sven knew the look of dread that was etched onto the flight attendants faces. Sven wasn’t worried about the impending crash for himself, but he could almost taste the fear that was dripping from Jacie. Her face had gone white by the time the captain’s voice broke the eerie silence to issue the crash landing warning.  

                Sven had been beside many people that he loved as they succumbed to an illness; but he always found sudden death the worse. He couldn’t help but wonder if Jacie was thinking of him in her final moments, or if her last thoughts had taken her back to her childhood with her family; or maybe to her first high school love. Sven tried not to look at his wife; for some reason the last time he saw her would be the only time he would remember and he refused to forever be scarred with the look frozen on Jacie’s face as she died. 

                “I’ll hold your hand the entire time,” he whispered. Jacie didn’t look up at him and he was grateful; instead, she squeezed her fingers around his in acknowledgement. It was the very least he could do; he wasn’t going to die with her and she could wait forever by heavens gates, he would never appear. By now, Sven was used to being the sole survivor and devastation plagued him.  

                The plane slammed into the rocky hillside and left a long, straight scar on the land. Sven had held Jacie’s hand as her life was crushed from her and he had looked away just as the light left her eyes. He crawled from the wreckage and took in the scene; he sat down next to the rubbish and listened intently for muffled screams. There weren’t any, and if he had really asked himself he knew he would have had to admit that there would be none. Sven didn’t cry over Jacie as he disappeared into the forest. Even with a life of immortality there wasn’t time for grief; after all, he’d be pronounced dead within the next 48 hours. He had to build an entire new life.

5 // 365

Vera hated to be home; even with Connor so close she knew that she was there alone. The only noise that would make its way from Connor’s room and melt down the hallway to find Vera’s ears was the soft beep of Connor’s heart monitor followed by the breathy swish of his respirator. For seven years, Vera had watched the man she loved fade away. She was sure that his body was hollow now and that his soul had left her long ago. It had been a week since the last time she had found herself sitting in the dark purple chair by his bed side with her hands folded in desperate prayers and she was almost ashamed. People expected her to be there with him, just as frozen in time and in this house as her husband was. Things were different in the beginning; when Connor could still talk to her and squeeze her hand in reassurance. Vera had spent countless hours sitting in the chair then. She was there as Connor spent the last of his time reassuring her that he was going to get better and she was there when his soothing promises to her turned into pleas for death to God. His suffering had seemed endless, but even his cries of pain were comforting to her because it meant that his heart was still beating. Eventually, Connor closed his eyes and never opened them again. Vera refused to give up though. She stayed perched in the chair for two years, rarely moving; If Connor was going to open his eyes, the first person to see his slate gray irises would be his wife. Vera had only now come to terms with the fact that it was her own selfishness that had kept Conner’s comatose body in her home when she should have long ago given him peace. Vera had spent the last seven days skimming old photo albums and forcing buried memories of happiness to resurface while the sound of Connor’s laugh in home movies played in the background. She was well aware that saying goodbye would break her in two, but she couldn’t hold onto an empty casing of who Connor used to be. Tears slipped from her hazel eyes as her fingers glided over the pages and she lost herself in the past.

A shadow of someone who was once a man watched Vera from beside her on the couch. As she touched each photo, his own recollection of the event would spring forth and his heart would shatter when the tears brimmed at her eyes. Connor’s soul had been detached for over two years with the inability to leave his body that had yet to die. At first, the resentment towards Vera’s helplessness to let him go that filled him was overwhelming, and he spent days following her through the house begging for her to turn the machines off. The frustration of not being heard was causing hatred to grow within him, but the more he heard Vera’s prayers for him the more he began to love her again. His re-found love for her made his urges to leave her dwindle slowly away and he found joy in being able to stand beside her in even silently.  He would sit with his wife as she drank coffee in the mornings and as she read herself to sleep at night, sometimes in the chair next to Connor’s bed. He had memorized things about her that he had never noticed before: the way she closed her eyes when she heard her favorite song begin or the way she could sit for hours while starring at the rain outside. He loved to watch his wife as she ran her bath water and lit lavender candles. She would undress in front of the mirror, fretting over her aging body, and then she would slip beneath white bubbles. He knew it was an attempt for relaxation but she always ended up crying. Connor had learned to spend his days by watching Vera live, but he had never given thought to loneliness that she must have felt. 

Vera closed the album abruptly and stood. Connor felt the change in her and panic rushed him. He followed her down the hall and towards his bedroom.  He couldn’t let her say goodbye yet. 

“Vera, stop!” his voice was cracking.  Vera paused in his doorway and Connor rushed passed her; positioning himself protectively between her and his body. 

“Don’t do this. It can be like this. I’m alright living this way, Vera. I love you and I know that you love me. Don’t say goodbye. Please…” He knew she couldn’t hear him, but he had to try. She walked through him and hesitated by his bedside. She bent down and whispered, “I love you, Connor. I have to do this though; I have to move on now.” 

“I can’t move on, Vera. I’m not ready to die.” 

Vera kissed Connor and pressed her forehead into his as she said goodbye. She reached down and picked up the power strip that had kept Connor in her life for so long now. She curled her fingers around it and pulled it into the bed with her as she slipped beneath the blankets beside her husband. Her finger hovered above the button and Connor filled with dread. 

“Vera, Vera! Don’t do this. I can’t be without you—…” Darkness surrounded him as he heard Vera begin to sob.