All the Names They Used for God

by Anjali Sachdeva

The winter before, Zachary read to her through the long hours, and sang while she played the guitar, and sometimes held on to her silently in their little bed, so quietly that she thought he was asleep until some slight movement made him hold her more tightly. Without him, the days are too long.

“And one other thing. You let me sleep in peace tonight.” “Don’t even have to say that,” he replies sulkily. “I’m not that kind of man.” “I didn’t know it was a kind.” She hauls the gun back up from the floor into the crook of her arm and lets the black exhaustion that has been tugging at her pull her under.

Bob flinched. He loved Fig Newtons. And the Discovery Channel. He’d thought Linda did, too; they had good conversations about the shows.

Within an hour he decided he might be in love with Terri or he might never want to see her again.

They are just so many stories patched together, so many forgotten days encased in bone and meat.

When these things have never happened to you, you think, I would rather die. But the truth is that it is not so easy to decide to die. And when, suddenly, you have the option to live again, that is not so easy either.

Looking at her makes it hard to think. Death is in her and through her and all around her, but she moves and breathes regardless.