Unity Is Loading (2023)
She was profoundly comforted by the knowledge that Joseph was inside her. Over the course of each day, her intestines would absorb as much of him as they could. Then he would be in her blood.
BY ELIZABETH FALCON
IMAGE BY EBRU KUR
On Saturday morning, Alice drank the last of her dog’s ashes in a slurry of strawberries, coconut milk, and avocado. She hated that he had been cooped up in a cardboard box on her nightstand all this time, like some sort of foot powder, but she couldn’t bear the thought of spreading and then abandoning his ashes somewhere. He’d always wanted to be where she was. She wanted to keep him close.
Online, she had read about people baking their loved one’s ashes into cookies, cakes, or muffins. There were the occasional reports of grittiness, though, and Alice didn’t like that. She also didn’t like the idea of subjecting Joseph to an oven again. Instead, every day for two weeks, she blended a tablespoon of Joseph into her regular morning smoothie. Joseph was a Border Terrier. His ashes amounted to less than a cup of grey powder. She had been disappointed at how little of him was left after the cremation process, for which she had paid extra to ensure he was cremated privately, not mixed in with other people’s pets. Her thinking was that if she blended him into a smoothie, she could drink him down quickly, through a straw, and therefore bypass any grittiness. Each time she finished her smoothie, she swished some water in the cup to take up any of the residue sticking to the sides and drank that, too. Then she did it a second time, just to be sure none of him was wasted.
She was profoundly comforted by the knowledge that Joseph was inside her. Over the course of each day, her intestines would absorb as much of him as they could. Then he would be in her blood. She wasn’t sure how long the various mineral properties in his cremated bone dust would stay in her system, but she hoped some of it would be permanent, that trace elements of him would incorporate themselves into her body. The calcium of his bones absorbed by hers. A mineral union.
Joseph’s death, even though he was old and she’d seen it coming, hit Alice hard. Afterward, everywhere she looked seemed to contain a vacuum, as if space was inverted by his absence. The hardwood floor, the couch, her bed, the backyard—it was like there was a black hole perpetually swirling in her peripheral vision. She grieved for weeks, then months. The intensity of her grief surprised her, sometimes overwhelmed her. She would feel embarrassed when people asked why she was so sad all these months later. But then she felt guilty for her embarrassment. Then angry. Why shouldn’t she grieve deeply? If Joseph had been her human companion, no one would question it.
It wasn’t until Alice had finished drinking the last of Joseph that she finally attained a state of acceptance. Not that she didn’t still miss his sweet eyes or his goofy snuffles or the feel of his wiry hair under her hand. She missed his confident trot as he pulled her by the leash around the neighbourhood, deciding the route they would take on their daily walks. She ached for his warm dog smell on her skin, on the couch cushions. She even missed his ear-piercing bark every time someone came near the house. But now she could miss these things without feeling gutted. Now he was occupying that formerly hollow, aching space she had been holding inside her for so long.
Alice had been drinking breakfast smoothies for years but she did not drink one on Sunday morning. Nor on Monday morning. Nor for the rest of the week. Each morning, she would open the freezer and look at bags of frozen strawberries and mangos, but her hand would reach for the bacon or breakfast sausage instead. The avocados withered on the countertop, the bananas browned. Never in her life had she ever eaten so much meat as she did that first week after consuming the last of Joseph. And her aversion to her regular diet wasn’t just at breakfast time. Throughout the days, she found herself bypassing all her favourite plant-based foods and gravitating toward meat, bread, and cheese. The exception was carrots. It seemed she could never get enough carrots. Her energy began to fluctuate: she would be wildly energized—hyper, even—for periods of thirty to forty-five minutes, and then slide into a lethargic stupor where she fought off sleep for an hour or two. She faintly recalled reading somewhere that too much meat will clog a person’s energy channels. She tried to adjust her diet by eating more carrots and restricting her meat intake to only twice a day.
On Friday at the office, Alice’s boss appeared in her open doorway and knocked gently on its frame.
“Knock knock,” he said.
“You know you don’t have to say ‘knock knock’ if you actually knock, right?” Alice didn’t look up from the email she was typing. Over the years, Karl had been a pretty decent boss: protective, supportive, if a bit uptight, and sometimes critical. Despite reminding herself on a regular basis that his intentions were good, she still found him intensely annoying.
“Righty-O,” he said, stepping in. “Hey, I was just coming by to see how you’re doing?”
She turned down the corners of her mouth, still typing. “Fine, I guess. What do you mean?”
“Um, well,” he hesitated, reached out and toyed with the business card holder on her desk. “I mean, is everything okay?”
“Why?”
He sighed, picked up the card holder and then put it down again. She looked up and met his eyes. She was startled by his worried expression.
“You’ve been acting a bit funny the last few days. Like, sometimes you seem great, but then later you look like you’re barely able to keep your eyes open. Are you on some kind of… medication?”
Alice let out a small laugh. “You think I’m on drugs?”
Karl frowned. “No, well… no. I just think something’s off with you.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You know you can talk to me, right? If there was something wrong?”
“Seriously Karl, I’m totally fine. I’ve just been eating differently so my energy levels are a bit up and down.”
“It’s not just your energy levels, Alice. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re looking a bit jaundiced lately. I realize it’s none of my business but I want you to know that if you need anything–time off, a sympathetic ear, help with anything–I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”
Alice felt something inside her shift. Her muscles tensed involuntarily. She pressed her lips politely. “Well, I appreciate that, Karl, but your concern is unfounded.”
He squinted his eyes at her. “You’d be more convincing if you gave me a real smile. You used to be so much cheerier.”
Alice envisioned picking up the heavy stapler on her desk and throwing it at him. How satisfying it would be to see him cower from it, a wounded, uncomprehending expression on his face. Instead, she pulled her lips back from her teeth and arranged her own face into a soft, friendly smile. The kind of smile she would make for a photograph.
“That’s better!” Karl returned the smile, genuinely, and tapped her desk twice with his fingertips. When he turned to leave, Alice let her smile slide into a sneer.
Her mind kicked into high gear. She pulled out the small mirror she kept in her top drawer. Her skin did look a bit yellow. What if Karl was on to something? What if she had some kind of cancer or other illness? A darker, more distressing thought occurred to her: what if something in Joseph’s ashes was toxic? When Alice had researched eating cremated ashes, she had not specified what species she was interested in, simply “can people eat cremains?” The internet response to that question was, generally, yes. In fact, the first article to come up was titled “There’s No Medical Reason Not To Bake Your Grandpa’s Ashes Into A Sugar Cookie And Eat It.” But were canine cremains different than human cremains? Joseph had eaten a primarily fish-based diet. Did he have a concentration of mercury in his bones? Quickly, she typed “are dog’s ashes toxic?” into her internet search engine. A few articles about the overfertilization effect ashes have on plants appeared. She typed “can I eat my dog’s ashes?” and scrolled past articles about potentially harmful side effects when a dog eats fireplace ashes. “How much mercury is in canine cremains?” yielded no results. Alice leaned back in her chair and stared blankly at the computer screen. She took a few deep breaths, forced herself to consider the situation logically. She decided she was being silly. There was no substantive difference between a cremated human body and a dog’s. She probably just needed to exercise more. Cut back on the meat. She got up, gathered her things, and left the office.
On the drive home, Alice had an epiphany. It was the carrots! All that excess vitamin A in her system was turning her skin orange. She remembered that when her mother went on some 1980s fad diet, she ate carrots until the palms of her hands looked like they were stained with dye. Alice glanced at the palms of her hands. They were orange. The wave of relief made her giddy. She wanted to move her body. She wanted fresh air.
She turned into the parking lot of the dog park she drove past every day but had never been to. Joseph liked other dogs but not their owners. The one time she had taken him to an off-leash park, he had growled and snapped at the owner of a Standard Poodle he had befriended. After that, Alice had only let him off his leash in places where no one else was around.
She parked and got out of her car, immediately invigorated by the cold, blustery afternoon. As she walked toward the duck pond in the middle of the grounds, a young Golden Retriever ran up to her. She hadn’t had much exposure to dogs since Joseph died, found it painful to interact with them, but it felt good when the dog jumped up onto her legs, his back end wiggling furiously. She liked the way he smelled. She ruffled the sleek fur on his neck and head.
“Hi, pal! Do you want to play?”
She began play-chasing the young dog. Soon after, another dog ran up. This one was smaller, some kind of Spaniel cross. The Spaniel barked shrilly as it ran toward them but quickly got into the game, alternately chasing and then being chased by Alice and the Retriever. Alice laughed as she ran from one dog and then lunged at the other. Laughed for real, feeling more alive than she had in a very long time. After several minutes they heard someone yelling.
“Buddy! Buddy, come here!”
The Retriever froze and looked over at a middle aged man who was walking determinedly towards them carrying a leash and a throwing stick.
From the opposite direction, a singsong voice called, “Pookie! Come on, girl!” A woman was approaching, slapping her thigh with her hand. “Come on, Pookie!”
Panting, Alice looked at her playmates. Pookie? Buddy? What kind of assholes did these dogs have to go home to? The dogs looked back at her, their tongues hanging out of their mouths. She grinned at them.
“Buddy! Come!” The man’s tone sharpened, deepened. Buddy looked at his owner again but didn’t make a move to obey.
The woman was only a few feet away. “Is that your dog?” she called to the man.
“Yes.” He glanced briefly at the woman, then back to the Retriever. “Buddy, now!”
“Where’s your dog?” the woman asked Alice.
The man was on them now. He grabbed at the Retriever’s collar but the Retriever ducked out of his grasp. Alice didn’t like the man’s face or the sour smell he gave off. When he reached his arm to grab at the Retriever again, Alice growled. Lightning fast, she bent down and bit the man’s bicep. She felt the fabric of the man’s light jacket yield to the more solid muscle beneath.
The woman screamed. The man reflexively pushed Alice back, hard. Alice stumbled and fell on her ass. The dogs sprang into action, barking and jumping chaotically between Alice and the man. Alice touched her mouth, as if making sure her lips were still there. Then she scrambled to her feet. She looked at the shocked faces of the man and the woman. She looked at the confused and excited expressions of the dogs. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. Had she actually just bitten him? It was outrageous, and yet, she felt completely justified. More than that, she felt exhilarated.
“What the fuck!?” yelled the man.
“She’s crazy!” said the woman.
Alice’s giggle erupted over her fingers. The Spaniel and the Retriever were still watching her with rapt attention. She locked eyes with the man and emitted a single short, piercing bark before she turned and ran, laughing all the way to her car.
Elizabeth Falcon is a short fiction writer based out of northern Alberta. Her stories have appeared in various magazines including The Dalhousie Review, New Forum, 34 Orchard, and FreeFall.
Image: Unity Is Loading (Ebru Kur, 2023)
Edited for publication by Ariesha Mais, as part of the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing Program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation.