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One

“What are you doing?” 

Samira’s question, more of a terse and tired demand, jolted Prasad from his mirror gazing. In her yellow evening dress, she sprawled over the tea green flannel of his sick bed; all angles and lanky limbs. One arm rested on his round end table, while the other embedded itself in his duvet. Her foot, still in its shoe, tapped an empty rhythm on his oriental rug.

 The casements were open, so she stuck her head out into the night; vast dark brown hair spilling from its bun and collecting leaves and flowers from the purple wisteria that hung from the sill. The breeze chased the smell of sickness from the room. 

He hummed, and continued to poke at his new fangs.

“Stop that,” she said, “they’re not going away.” 

“You’d think they’d look a little more intimidating.” 

She barked a laugh from her corner. “Well, you’re stuck with them.” She hummed, thoughtfully. “And everything else, I suppose.”

“What’s that mean?” 

“Everything about your appearance will stick.” She waved one hand about in the lazy affect of a mystic. “Forever.”

Prasad frowned. “Oh.” He sent another look at the floor length triple mirror. Sallow skin and puffy, bruised eyes glared back at him. “That was rude of you.”

“What?”

“I’m going to look consumptive for the rest of eternity. You couldn’t give me an hour or two to make myself presentable?”

 “You were dying,” she said, “is it my fault you fell sick?” 

He gave her a blank stare. “Most things are your fault, Samira,” he said, “I wouldn’t put it past you.” 

Samira shot up, her eyes wide and lips pursed into a thin furious line. “Finnágan, you absolute—you dreadful—moron!” 

He laughed, sharp and derisive, and caught the Persian pillow that Samira catapulted at him. 
Prasad turned the cushion carefully, white feather down peered out at him from a long tear in its side. His hands stung from how hard it had flown. He sunk into the short armchair that rested in front of his mirror, pillow to his chest, and pouted. 

“Dearest Damhnait,” he said, “are you trying to kill me? Again?”

“Yes,” she said, “you should be thankful. I could’ve embraced Caoimhe.” 

“’Embrace?’ Is that what it’s called?” He scoffed. “It didn’t feel like one. And why Caoimhe, of all people?” 

“Because she hates you.” 

“The woman’s in her 90s. She hates everything and everyone to ever exist. I should hope you'd suffer an eternity of that.” 

Samira returned to her pile of flannel; high in her throat, she made an gravely offended noise. “She doesn’t hate me.” 

“Guaranteed she does, fervently.” 

“You’re insufferable.” 

He smiled. “Yes, I know.”

Two

The night was frigid, screaming with snow, but he still trudged through the slush, to breathe the new air. 

Prasad inspected the dark, eyebrows drawn and lips turned. His father’s brass pocket watch refused to warm under his finger tips. Mother always told him to stop fiddling with it, but he was never one for listening. Thank God for that. 

“Thank God for Thomas Holmes,” he said, without much thought, voice dry and bitter. “Thank God for the Egyptians. And their Gods. And for the body, so easily preserved. Amen.” 

Had the stars always been this close? Prasad slid to the steps of the funeral home. 

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• Integer fermentum est vitae dui pretium fermentum. Fusce quis velit vel sem pellentesque iaculis congue non lorem.
• Aliquam vulputate lacus consequat, volutpat ex ut, blandit lacus. Sed egestas risus ut gravida blandit.
• In vitae nisi eu mi suscipit semper in eget justo.
• Sed feugiat dictum posuere. Suspendisse et accumsan leo. Phasellus mollis placerat libero, non euismod diam sodales eget.