Oneiron

Without enzymes, there wouldn’t be any life. Enzymes speed up cellular chemical reactions, but you don’t need to . . .” “What is a weaction?” “Melinda. Melinda dear. Just think of it this way: bacteria and enzymes are invisible little things. You can’t see them with your eyes because they’re so small . . .” “Smawller than the spots on a ladybird?” “Much smaller. But they do very important work. They decompose things and clean things up. They keep everything in good order like street sweepers and garbage men. Decomposition is a part of the circle of life.” “Am I decomposing too?” “You aren’t decomposing, silly. People who’re alive don’t decompose. And whatever decomposes is replaced by something new as long as there’s life. Cells are born and cells die. You even drop dead skin all the time.” “No I don’t!” “Dear, everyone does. Do you remember that shampoo ad? The one with the man brushing dandruff off his shoulder before a date? Dandruff is dead skin cells too. It isn’t anything serious.” “I don’t have dandwuff. I weally don’t.” “No, no. I’m sure you don’t. I was just trying to explain decomposition. Dead things gradually decompose. When we die, bacteria and other things make us into dirt again. And dirt grows new life, for example beautiful sunflowers like the ones that grow on Bebbo’s grave. Melinda, dear, death is a perfectly natural thing. We’ve already talked about this.”

Melinda didn’t want to step into the room.

What if Grandma was swarming with bacteria? What if Grandma started decomposing while they were watching? What if Mom had misunderstood something?! And there was another thing. Something Mom didn’t know about. The spirit. Grandma’s spirit. It’s just Grandma’s shell. But where was the spirit now? Mom didn’t know. But she knew. Grandma’s spirit was up by the ceiling. And it might want to come down. It might rush inside Grandma through the hole cut in her throat. Grandma’s body would start to shake and bubble, and green goo would come out of her mouth. Her eyes would snap open but only the whites would show.

If Grandma’s spirit hadn’t made it to the spirit world . . .

Melinda grabbed her mother’s hand and closed her eyes as they walked into the room together. One step, two, three. Four. The first time a person walks up to a dead body, they usually feel dizzy. They feel a pressing need to turn and leave, accompanied by an uncontrollable desire to move closer. As if their internal organs were making the decision for them but constantly changing their mind. As if the dead body were a magnet, as if the approaching person’s stomach were cast full of iron. Something down there churns and presses. All their energy goes into looking, into bearing to look at the corpse. Bearing the irrational immobility, daring to be there, to move closer, daring to look and to be.

The edge of the bed hit Melinda’s leg. Her mother sobbed instead of crying out in terror. Melinda carefully opened one eye a crack. There Grandma lay, face expressionless. Melinda quickly glanced around. The curtains didn’t sway, and nothing was visible on the ceiling. No eyes stared back at her. Spirits had oval eyes you could see in the middle of the ball of mist. Spirits’ eyes were gaping and terrible. Melinda had seen them in a comic book. And she knew that spirits that had been driven out of their bodies were very miserable.

“What will happen to Gwandma now?” Melinda asked, holding back tears, and her mother didn’t understand why, why a girl who was normally so emotional tried to keep her face steady, lips pursed tight. Even she wasn’t trying to contain herself and just let the tears blind her. “Next we’ll go to the funeral parlor,” Melinda’s mother said to her daughter, in a voice thick with emotion. “We’ll choose Grandma a coffin and make the other practical arrangements.” “We aren’t taking her with us?” “No, of course not, dear. Grandma will stay here in hospital for just a bit longer.” “In that bed?” “I suppose they’ll give the bed to someone else, someone who’s still alive and needs a bed more than Grandma now.” “Where will they put Gwandma then?” “Well, they’ll take her to the morgue.” “What’s a mawgue?” “It’s a place where dead people are put for a little while.” “Oh, a gwave?” “No, graves are dug in the ground. A morgue is a little like a refrigerator.” “Why are they putting Gwandma in a wefwigewator?” “Do you remember, Melinda, when we talked about decomposing bacteria a little while ago . . . ?” “The ones that are smawller than the spots on a ladybird?” “Yes, those. We don’t want them to start their work yet, right? That’s why Grandma is being put in the morgue. The bacteria will be frozen there. They’ll hibernate. Like bears.” “And then they start moving again when Gwandma is in her gwave?” “Yes, exactly! Now let’s collect Grandma’s things to take with us. You unplug the lava lamp from the wall.” “No.” “Please.” “I don’t want to.” “Do you intend to leave it here?” “Yes.” “It’s such a nice lamp, though. Come along, please unplug it.” “I don’t want it.” “Melinda, stop! Unplug the lamp from the wall right now. Do you hear me?”

Explaining to her mother, who didn’t understand anything about spirits, why they couldn’t take the lamp was pointless. The electric blue wax bubbles that floated upwards had once been calming, and the blue shimmer of the lamp had been the only light that guarded Melinda’s nightmare-prone dreams, but now everything was irrevocably different. What if an oval set of eyes suddenly appeared in one of the bubbles, staring through the glass, blinking and begging: Help me, help me, help me . . .

In the afternoon, a few hours after Melinda and Melinda’s mother had visited the funeral parlor on Katerdijk Street, a man named Christoffel Dijkstra drove a hearse into