Grim

by D.J. Krimmer

Isabelle. My Izzy. For nine years, she’s been the breath in my lungs, the fire in my veins. A beacon in the darkness of this cruel world. I worshipped her body and soul, moving the moon and stars to bring her joy. What was gold? What was power? What was anything compared to the way her laughter warmed my heart? I did all of this gladly because I belonged to her.

Isabelle was my wife. Isabelle was my everything. Isabelle was my light in the dark. Now … she is not.

Heartbreak is a whoreson dog. And any doubts about my love for her were rendered insignificant when rage consumed me, blinding my reason and pushing me beyond the brink of sanity.

The ache of the unknowing was a physical weight. Stone upon stone heaped upon my chest as I waited to see if I would show signs of the very disease I had been sent to help eradicate.

Passion overcame me, sending me spiraling into rage. The results of my mania lay before me. My moist eyes caught a glimpse of the small knife Isabelle kept on her bedside table. For her protection, I insisted, not knowing she was safe in the arms of another. But death? Oh, cruel Death! I never wanted you to come for her. Murder, unintentional and borne from passion, lay doubly on my hands now. The hands that pull closer and closer to that gleaming silver knife.

Yet deep down, I know I can never truly wash away the stain of blood on my hands.

And the aftermath doesn’t heal. It haunts. Ruins do not heal. I am nothing, yet I still breathe. The words whisper tauntingly in my brain. Over and over and over again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I’m alone. Utterly, completely alone. And that breaks me.

I don’t need statues. I don’t need my name etched in gold. But I want someone to read my words one day and pause. Just for a moment. And think, She was here.

I freeze, just for a moment. Rarely do Mom and I say that we love each other, not because we don’t. It has just never been our dynamic. That was something Dad and I shared.

It’s not that I hate the job. I simply loathe the part where the living assume I care about their problems. Like they’re the only ones.

If they follow, they cross. If they refuse, they remain. Not alive. Stuck. Anchored by unfinished business, delusion, or plain old stubbornness. They are left to wander between the cracks of this world until they become nothing but noise in a hallway or a cold spot in someone else’s memory.

“I assure you, Ms. Sinclair, you are most certainly dead,”

“I can’t be dead. I have too much to do.”

You linger. Pointlessly. No function, no impact on the world around you. You become a ceaseless, passive observer of a story that has moved on without you. Now, I can make you cross over. My boss would prefer it actually.”

“Respectfully, Ms. Sinclair,” I sigh, ready to move this along, “get over yourself.”

Even in death, some names command obedience.

“Your boss from the underworld texts you?” “It’s timeless technology,” I deadpan. “And it’s the OtherWorld, not the underworld. I mean, it is below us, but Corporate didn’t like the optics. Now, I really must attend to this urgent matter—”

“I just died,” she snarls, voice rising. “I’d say that’s pretty fucking urgent too!”

“To you, yes,” I reply coolly. “It’s a personal crisis. But cosmically? It’...

I get the occasional resistant soul, but, hey, fear of the unknown and all that. I get it.

“I hate this atrocious era. Technology has turned into a curse. Ghost hunters, spirit videos, EMF readings posted to social media—it’s a circus. The moment a soul lingers too long, someone snaps a video. The footage gets filtered, slowed down, and then goes viral. It was all fun and games when the cat was in the vase. Now, the living are starting to ask questions they have no business asking. That’s when the Weaver Sisters get twitchy. And when they get twitchy, I get calls. I hate calls, Kane.”

I nearly drop my tombstone when I see her photo. I know her.

Her stormy-grey eyes were steady, unafraid, and as she looked right at me, I felt it rattle something loose in me. A thread pulled taut across ages, finally giving way.

Well, Poe only made nine bucks off “The Raven,” and look how that turned out.

Some people flinch at storms, but not me. I’ve always loved them. There’s something romantic about the way the sky unravels and demands attention. Storms don’t pretend to be anything but what they are. They come undone in a furiously loud sight. I admire that frankness.

Thunder reminds me that the world’s still turning.

And on nights like this, when the thunder hums in the walls and the wind sings through the chimney, it feels like the house remembers us both. Like it’s keeping the rhythm of two hearts—one gone too soon, one not far behind.

The sky splits open with a crack of lightning just as I push open the door. Rain spits gently against the porch, not yet a downpour, but steady. That kind of quiet, persistent rain that seeps into your bones before you even realize it.

Then—her eyes snap open. They are blue-grey storm clouds, unblinking and unnerving.

She’s sharp around the edges. Bright and breakable, but not broken.

Fate shrugs. “Because.” “Because what? What kind of answer is because?”

“Miss me, ma chère?” “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!” I scream, clawing at my chest.

“You’re not the first to say so. Though most people use slightly more creative adjectives. Now, until I return, you be a good girl and stay. Right. There.” Oh. Oh. He did not. I feel heat rise in my face—not from fear, but from rage. “Good girl?” I repeat, my fists clenching.

“Don’t have a praise kink either then, I take it?” He chuckles darkly.

“Time answers to no one. You got it.”

“I can’t afford to care about every soul’s story. Life matters to the living, but cosmically speaking, it’s only significant to the individual. We all go in the end, and the closing curtain drops when your story is told for the last time. So, live a life worth talking about. That’s all you can do.”

“It’s a fascinating physical condition. Your heart literally changes shape. Got its name because it looks surprisingly similar to the misshapen pot used to trap an octopus.”

“W-what are you doing?” “Surely, you’ve seen someone cry before,” I snap as another sob wracks through my body. “Yes, but why are you crying?! Stop it!” I glare at him through my watery gaze.

“Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Oh, of course.” Her gasp is so loud and so full of betrayal that I suspect she may be about to challenge me to a duel. “Put that down,” she hisses, “if you don’t plan on treating it with the respect it deserves.”

“Poe? Really? You fancy yourself a tragic, brooding figure, so naturally, you latch on to the king of tragic, brooding figures?”

“Oh, please.” I chuckle. “His entire shtick was melodrama. Oh no, my wife died; let me weep forlornly into my whiskey and write about birds and death! He’s the literary equivalent of an emo band lead singer who won’t stop writing songs about his high school ex.”

“Poe is the father of gothic literature, the architect of psychological horror. Without him, there is no H.P. Lovecraft, no Shirley Jackson, no Stephen King!”

“You think Poe was melodramatic,” she continues, voice softer now, more tired. “But you don’t get it. His writing wasn’t about death; it was about the fear of it. About the inevitability of loss. How grief wraps around your ribs and squeezes until there’s nothing left of you. How it turns you into a ghost long before you die.”

“Relax, Rue. These aren’t graves. They’re portals. We bury bodies to keep the memory alive. That’s fleeting, of course. But the intention is in the right place. And these places become passageways to travel in, around, and through. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to bend time and space. Be right back.”

“Shut up and hold me,” I say, voice low, challenging.

“My love,” she murmurs, kneeling beside him, “you were the greatest gift I was ever given.” His breath hitches, like some part of him knows she’s still there. “You were my home,” she continues, her voice tender, steady, even as the weight of finality settles around her. “And I know you think you’ll never be whole without me, but you will be. Not today, not tomorrow … but someday. And I will be so proud of you when you do.”

“Thank you for loving me,” she whispers. “For all the days we were given. For making me laugh when I didn’t think I could. For keeping your promises, even the little ones.”

The man at the bedside lets out a shaky breath, one that sounds like loss and love, wrapped into one. His hand remains on hers, though she isn’t there anymore.

Sad. Such a small, woefully inadequate word for what it really is.