Obituary
By Dainerys Machado Vento/Translated by Michelle Mirabella
I killed him. I hadn’t seen him in three years, two months, and I felt not even one ounce of regret for ending his existence. Three years and two months free of him whispering lustfully in my ear, describing which parts of my body were too juicy for his liking. The day I shot him point blank, I should really have forgotten him long before.
His awful jokes were burned in my brain, word for word: “a Cuban, a Mexican, and an Argentine walk into a bar… the Cuban says…” I never told him how pathetic it was hearing him tell other people’s jokes as if they were his own. He wanted applause, at all costs. Applause from his friends, my friends, his family, the neighbors. For someone who always wanted to be the center of attention, stealing other people’s jokes is the least of it. That’s why, when surrounded by others, he’d try to catch my eye, waiting to see me smile—“What do women and lemonade have in common?”; “What do you call single women over 30?” I’d look away, down at some detail on my worn-out shoes: I’d start counting the splinters lodged in the heel of my black patent leathers; I’d draw imaginary lines connecting the oldest scuff marks on the toe; I’d take great interest in the tiny pieces of sole that had come loose in the last few days.
I still don’t know why, after so many years of not seeing him, I hadn’t been able to scrub his roaring laughter from my mind. And I’ll never understand why I could still recall his scent of lemon and salt, the exact geography of the black beard that scratched me every time he kissed my forehead. Perhaps I once loved him more than I could admit to myself. Perhaps it was the mere possibility of having loved him once that was still tucked inside me. That’s why I was startled by the profound sense of calm I felt when I shot him.
I found myself reflected in the stillness of his eyes—eyes identical to mine. Two pairs, one before the other, staring at each other for the last time, for the first time at peace. He clearly knew what was coming and wasn’t planning to resist. In the absolute silence that surrounded us, I heard the memory of him barking orders: “sit down,” “take that shit off,” “open your eyes, look at me.” And I lifted my right hand, holding the pistol—a black SIG Sauer that felt weightless. I squeezed my eyes shut and fired without aiming. I knew the shot would blow his heart in two. When I opened my eyes, he was still there, motionless before me. I didn’t say even half a word to him. Not “you deserve it,” or “I should’ve done this long ago.” I knew he liked me to talk, to say something stupid at the worst possible moment. And I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction or any other. He would never hear me speak again.
As the echo of the shot dissipated, I finally saw him crumple, slowly, like a replay of one of those incredible goals he never got tired of watching. That was the only thing that crossed my mind: “I scored a damn goal, fuck, what a beautiful goal.” I turned my back to walk away. I could sense his blood spreading on the floor, following me. But I didn’t look back, because I wasn’t afraid. I kept walking.
What his friends thought of him no longer mattered. I wondered whether to say that aloud. To offer him some comfort in death; a new perspective on things as I walked away. But my lips didn’t move.
My therapist listened with that “keep talking” face. I’ve been to her office many times, sitting like this, across from her, and I know she’s putting together a thousand metaphors in her head to make sense of my stories. I’ve told her everything, and now it’s her turn. I want to hear what she has to say.
“Well that’s a symbolic dream, isn’t it? Where did you get the pistol?”
“I don’t know, it was in my hand the whole time, or it turned up when I needed it.”
“It’s likely that you’re finally letting him go, even though you’re not fully ready to talk about him yet.”
“I hope so. But it really scared me. It was so vivid. I still, right now, feel this certainty in my body that I killed him.”
“That’s normal. He was really important to you for many years, right?”
“In some way or another, he was the most important person in my life.”
“And what did you do when you woke up?”
“I looked him up on social media, to make sure he was still alive.”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing, not a word of him, like he’d disappeared from the face of the Earth. Which is weird because he loved posting photos of himself drinking beer.”
“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Years.”
“And you really want to know how he is?”
“I just want to know I didn’t kill him, that last night was a vivid dream and not a memory. That would make me feel better.”
“Did you look him up in the obituaries?”
“No, I didn’t think of that.”
“Give me a second, I’ll look and let’s talk about the feelings that came up from this dream. OK?”
“Yes, sounds good, thank you.”
Sitting across from me, my therapist uses the old laptop that’s always on her lap; her hands toss around on the keyboard like two fish starved for oxygen. She drags a finger on the mousepad. Familiar with those movements, I know she’s opening and closing tabs. She stops. She looks up, wide eyed. Obviously she’s not going to talk to me about Freud or Jung. But I want her to say something. Anything. Those seconds of silence drag on, and I start to feel guilty for the first time in a while. When she finally opens her mouth, I wake up. Or so I think. I think I woke up then. I have such a hard time recalling the details of my dreams.
