An Unexpected Visitor

“There will be sleeping enough in the grave.”

- Benjamin Franklin

It's been 6 months since Marty died.

Since we were toddlers playing in the sandbox, they called us "attached at the hip", or rather "attached at the head" because we would come up with all kinds of creative trouble together. To name a favorite, chasing: we chased everything from garbage trucks to dogs and later, girls. Growing up, we were often mistaken for blood brothers with our identical dark hair, and it wasn't so far off from the mark. I've never been as close to someone as I have been to Marty. Not even to my parents or to my real brother. When someone who's always been a part of your life is suddenly not there anymore, something inside you gets damaged irreparably, like a gear that stops turning and can't ever function the same way again.

It's a chilly first day of December and I'm on my way home, my mind swamped with depressing thoughts. I'm alone, but that's mostly my own fault. Every day I've holed myself up in my room, ignoring phone calls and refusing parties until even my most persistent friends ceased trying to coax me out.  These days I prefer the solitude to social outings that I know I can't enjoy. Usually, I put off work and just sleep because when you sleep you don't think and when you don't think you don't feel depressed.

I hear someone call my name from behind and turn around in surprise. I haven't talked to anyone in a long while. It's Miranda, a girl in one of my classes. She’s a nice girl, I guess, a pretty girl.

“Hey,” she says, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, or from something else. “Uh, I was just wondering, I know of this really good pizzeria that just opened in the next town, so… if you’re free tonight…?”

I realize what she’s implying, but can’t even bring myself to feel flattered or excited – just dully dismayed. Why today, of all days? Something in the back of my mind urges that it’s a fine idea, that Miranda’s a good person and I should just get out and do something already; but I keep thinking what a horrible friend I would be to have dinner with a girl on the half-year anniversary of Marty’s death while he lies cold and alone in his grave.

“I, um, maybe not today,” I say with genuine regret. “I’ve got a bunch of papers to get done tonight and I have work tomorrow morning… sorry…”

“Oh… that’s alright.”

I can't even meet her eyes for fear of the disappointment I'll see in them, so I look ruefully down at my sneakers, heels fidgeting in the dirt.

“Well, if you change your mind, just call me before dinner, okay?”

“Yeah,” I mumble, though I know I’m not going to. I shove my hands into my pockets and head dejectedly for the direction of my house.

                                                            ***

An hour later I’m sitting at my desk, paperwork still untouched. I’ve been wondering if I should do something to commemorate Marty, but the thought of it just plunges me even deeper into melancholy. It doesn’t help at all that I remember today happens to be Friday – Marty and I always used to go out for a drink on Fridays, like a ritual.

            Finally, I get up and pull a can of beer out from the fridge. It feels lame, but I take a swig anyways and let the alcohol cushion my depressed spirits. This is what I would have been doing with Marty anyways, if he were still here. My tongue begins to loosen, but it doesn’t matter because there’s no one to hear anything I say. I rage angrily at the world for a while, for being cold and unfair, and maybe even shed a tear or two, though I don’t really remember. Eventually, I embrace the sleepiness that always brings relief and escape.

“Wish you were here,” I mutter to the air before my head hits the table and I pass into soothing oblivion.  

                                                            ***

A searing headache is what rouses me later. For some reason, my alcohol-induced nap feels much shorter than I’d hoped. I sigh tiredly. I'm not ready to face life again. I force myself to throw out the beer can and get started on my paperwork. I splash some cold water on my face to drive away the hangover, toweling my wet cheeks as I walk out of the bathroom – and nearly pass out again from shock. There’s a person in my room, leaning against the wall, as if he’s been waiting there for me for the whole time; and when I catch sight of that person’s face, I think I must have actually blacked out for two seconds.

“Oh my God! Marty?!” I nearly scream, because the lanky boy in my room is unmistakably my best friend Marty – who also happens to be dead. I can only wonder if I’m still drunk, or if I’m dreaming, or if I’ve finally, truly, lost it. I sit down unsteadily on the floor because it’s all too much for my pounding head to handle.

“In the flesh! Well, not quite,” says Marty with a wide grin. I gape at him in disbelief. The absurd thing is, he’s smiling and cracking jokes, just like he did before, and he looks very real and very much… alive.

“How? is this a dream?” I stutter. “A-are you a ghost?”

Marty just laughs and gives me the don't-ask-me eyebrows. “Does it matter? I’m here, aren’t I?” he says.

            And I realize that as weird as the whole situation is, it really doesn’t matter, because seeing him whole, lively, in front of me, overwhelms me with just how much I’ve missed him. He's wearing his favorite jeans and sweater combo, his black bangs sticking out from under the hood. It's as if nothing had changed since I'd last seen him alive. I have a sudden strong impulse to pull him into a hug, but a part of me is afraid that he’s actually not here at all, and that my arms will go right through him and he’ll disappear like the hallucination he can only be.

"Well don't just sit there, Tom," Marty says, reading my uncertain expression. He reaches for my hand to help me up and when I hesitantly grab it, his grip is firm and solid. "You look like you could use a little pick-me-up. Come on, let's go get some coffee."

I never imagined walking next to my deceased friend again, but for some inexplicable reason, it’s happening. It’s early winter and I’m freezing in my jacket, but Marty strolls along beside me seemingly comfortable in just his light hoodie. Even his breath doesn’t frost in the below-freezing air. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be breathing at all; but that hardly surprises me as much as it should, since this whole situation itself is already beyond logic.

Marty orders two hot caramel latte’s for us – our usual –  and we take a seat by the window. A million things I want to say throw themselves around in my mind, but I have trouble picking the right one to begin with.

“I…I’ve missed you, man,” I start, speaking carefully around the sudden catch in my throat.

Marty looks at me with a sad smile. “Me too. I’m sorry I just left you so suddenly like that.”

“No… I’m sorry, about what happened to you. It shouldn't have been that way.”

“Couldn’t have been helped, I guess," Marty shrugs, taking a sip from his steaming coffee. "It’s not so bad.”

“So… how are you? How’s, you know, wherever you are now?”

Marty chuckles in amusement. “Pretty boring, actually. Not so much to do. And what about you? Getting along alright without me?”

I don’t respond right away, because I know that frankly I haven’t been alright at all. Marty seems to know this already because he suddenly turns serious.

"Look, I have something to tell you." he looks me straight in the eye, all the lightness gone from his tone. “It’s too late for me, but it’s not too late for you, Tom,” Marty says. “You’ve still got a life to live. You’re wasting it if you just lock yourself in your room and sleep all the time. Now you know how short life can be, so all the more reason to take advantage of it while you can. Go out and have fun, hang with friends, live again. Do the things I never got to do. It’ll make things much better, believe me.”

I look up at him sheepishly. "I guess you're right. I've been pretty pathetic lately, haven't I?"
"A bit," Marty teases, but his eyes are sympathetic. "It's my fault for putting you through all this. I just want you to be your happy old self again, instead of doing nothing. Trust me, you do plenty of that when you're dead." He rolls his eyes. "Promise me you'll take more than ten steps out of your room from now on, okay?"
"Promise," I laugh, and Marty seems to believe me because he has on a satisfied expression.
 “And besides," he says, wiggling his eyebrows knowingly. "I do believe you have a dinner appointment tonight that I’m keeping you from right now. You should get going before it gets any later.”

Marty and I walk out of the coffee shop together, arms slung around each others shoulders like the old times. It’s as if something dark and heavy has been lifted off of me and I can finally breathe easily again. Little-by-little, the broken gear inside of me creaks back into motion. We wait side-by-side at the crosswalk just as the first delicate snowflakes begin to settle in our hair and on our noses.

The light soon switches to the walk sign. I walk across the white paint, and Marty is not beside me anymore. I'm not worried because I know that this is how it's supposed to be. When I get to the other side I look back, and Marty is waving to me from the other side of the road. I wave back. A bus drives by between us, a blur of grey, and when it passes, Marty is gone.

                                                            ***

I can’t recall exactly how it happens, but somehow the image of the road fragments and dissolves into nothing like a fading vision. When I blink away the blackness I’m back again in my room, everything as it had been before: my cheek is pressed against the still-unfinished papers on my desk, the empty beer can lying exactly where I’d left it when I’d fallen asleep. I glance over at the clock. It’s 5:05; I still have time. Smiling to myself, I grab my cell phone and punch in a number as I shrug on a decent shirt and quickly comb through my hair. She picks up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Miranda,” I say brightly. “So, uh, about that dinner date… I changed my mind.”