“You know I’m not dead, right?” she says and I answer,

“Yeah, I know you’re not dead,” but I don’t mention the grave dust on her blouse or the four-inch hole where her left eye ought to be.

“Because if I were dead,” she says, “I wouldn’t be moving like this, right?” and I answer,

“No, you wouldn’t be moving if you were dead because you’d be…dead,” and she says,

“So, in a way, I’m more alive than a coma victim, right? I can move. I can think, I think, so I must not be dead,” and I answer,

“No, you must not be dead,” and there’s a pause where I hope she doesn’t notice I’m staring at a fat white maggot taking a picnic on the tattered edge of flesh around what used to be her eyelid and she says,

“You still think I’m pretty, right? Like this, right?” and I answer,

“Yeah, babe, I still think you’re pretty, considering…y’know,” and that’s where it goes wrong and she says,

“Considering I’m dead! Right?” and I answer,

“Yeah…yeah, considering you’re…uh, dead.” And then she’s crying (at least I think that fleshy goop oozing out of her good eye used to be tears) and I’m thinking,

Man, flowers and chocolate ain’t fixing this, and she says,

“Can I have a hug?” and I answer,

“Yeah, babe, just don’t bite me,” and the maggot hangs on for a joyride when she throws her arms around my neck and she says,

“Just a nibble?” and I push her off, like,

“No! What’s wrong with you?” and she says,

“But, baby, I’m hungry!” and I answer,

“Baby, you can’t be hungry, you’re dead!” and she says,

“But you said I wasn’t dead!” and I say,

“Well, yeah, but you said you were, and I thought you were, like,over it!”

And then there’s more of those fleshy-goopy tears and I say,

“Look, look, if you’re hungry, we’ll go and buy you a cheeseburger or something,” and she says,

“I can’t go anywhere like this. My hair’s all a mess.”

and she sits down on her gravestone (Maggie P. Williams, 1987-2009, May You Rest In Peace) and says,

“I won’t be like this forever, right?” and I answer,

“Well, no, you’ll probably rot away in a year or a few,” and she says,

“Besides, you should like me like this. You like those kinds of movies,” and I answer,

“What movies?” and she says,

“The ones with the zo…the ones like me,” and I answer,

“Well, yeah, but I never wanted to be in one” and that maggot is trying to wriggle up her nostril and she says,

“What are you staring at?” and I fumble for an answer with

“Hey, at least you’ve got your figure!” and she says,

“Now you’re making fun of me. I bet you think I’m fat,”

and just before she bites my throat, I answer,

“Nah, babe.”

“…I think you’re wasting away.”