​“Take the stairs,” I begged.
“Get some exercise.”
He laughed.
"I'm good!"
then pulled away,
probably creeped out
by the colleague who never talks,
suddenly gripping his hand.
 
But what else could I do?
Short of babbling
and reaching out for his face,
which I couldn’t even tell him,
existed no longer.
 
He walked away
in his white button-downs,
and empty space
above his neck,
waving at me as the doors closed.
“Enjoy your weekend!”
but I knew,
he won’t be coming in on Monday,
like everyone else
packed in that elevator,
going down together,
decapitated.
 
I rushed back to the office,
to the pantry,
to the sink--
to vomit
as loud as I could
so I don’t hear the crash.

One evening there are simply strings. Suspended from the sky, undulating on the currents of the air. Thin, ethereal tentacles like pendulous orange nerves draped between skyscrapers. Moving on the wind, but not just on the wind. Searching, groping of their own will. Like maggots in the dark. Their terminus is enshrouded far above, in the dark, in the clouds, the smog of the city. But look up, squint, and I can almost see. I feel the change in air pressure; the world stepping aside to allow for its presence.

I shut my eyes.

This is how it felt.

When the light comes, the strings retreat, but their presence lingers. Under the safety of the sun, I look out the window, into the sky. Of course it’s still there in the day, drifting silent derelict. So, no, not a nightmare; just nocturnal. Still there, just sleeping, hidden. Of course they are. Because even though things like this are supposed to only ever happen in the dark, they’re just as there in the light.

This is how it felt; I could still feel him, even when he wasn’t around. I allowed him to tell me what to do in the light just as much as the dark. It was in the light that I allowed his hand around my throat, squeezing so tight lightbulbs burst at the edges of my vision. Simplistic. Comforting. Everlasting nothing. It was easier that way.

You get to tell me what to do.

The strings come back when the night comes back, and something different happens this time. Something else comes with them, lowered on the end of a set of strings. A naked doll, a vague approximation of us. A marionette lowered onto our stage. Something about it tells me it’s smiling, even though it has no face. No gender. As featureless as an unfinished Ken doll. It remains slumped, awaiting command.

You get to tell me how to behave.

When something up there finally issues a command, it snaps to life. Its strings stretch taut with weight, and there is music in their tension. A deep thrumming like a plucked bass, barely registering. I can hear it, the song, and so can everyone else. They open doors and windows, they go outside. I can see it, a whole shower of strings descending now, and a field of anticipating arms rising in response.

I tell them not to do it.

But the arms are begging. Pleading. And the strings reach toward them in response, like wanting fingers. Like a lover in the dark. 
 
You get to tell me what to wear.

But there are horrid things lovers do to one another in the dark.

The strings strike, the lightning precision of a venomous snail. Tendrils tighten against tender flesh and it feels like his hand is at my throat again even though I know he’s long gone and I watch and try to breathe as the strings lift the listeners into the sky, the clouds, the fog, and then they are simply gone.

Just like he was, one day, simply gone. His face was there, and then gone, swallowed by darkness as he tumbled. 

You get to tell me who to see.

When they return, they are nude, and they are one, the strings and the people, their feet dangling inches above the ground, strings inserted themselves into orifices and around joints, twisting, manipulating.

This is how it felt when I let him decide everything.

You get to tell me when to speak.
​
When the thing in the clouds speaks, it is like a foghorn, a low, satisfied moan that echoes off the buildings. A shiver runs down the strings, and everyone attached to it moans in unison, just as he moaned, one final time, as he laid there at the bottom of the stairs.

Note: This story was previously published in Pyre Magazine.​