Necrosis of Good Will

Inconspicuously removed from her nose at a time when there wasn’t an audience to witness much less touch the evidence left behind, a grave of Miriam’s dry mucous had accumulated under her driver’s seat. She knew the habit was gross but the car was hers to be gross in. Screw it. She was indifferent, until now.

“Oh god, No!!!” writhed her gut.

Inhale.

Flushed blood rockets exploded in her raised cheekbones as she watched a stranger lower himself into her car and drag his hands under the frame of the driver’s seat in an attempt to find the lever capable of adjusting space for his legs. She swallowed a glob of spit viscous enough to abate her stomach’s urge to abort itself through her throat.

Exhale.

The seat seamlessly retracted to accommodate his height, and his hands resurfaced unscathed, no vestige of her nose. Slowly, Miriam’s jaw loosened its death bite aided by the lubricant oozing from the stranger’s polite apathy towards the filthy state of her car. There was a chance his fingers had felt irregular bumps underneath the seat but in the process had deemed them unworthy of being pried at. Not his to question. Oblivious maybe. The console was caked in dust and grime and the floorboard was muddied with sand and dried leaves, but those forms of neglect were acceptable. The mucous grave not.

Miriam was allowing the stranger to explore her car in hopes that he would buy it. Cash would liberate her in ways the vehicle no longer could, so the time to depart with the thing that had seen her cry and laugh and carried her sober and buzzed had come. Shame dilated her pupils as she quelled the pricking remorse over not having taken better care of her eighteen year old Subaru Impreza. If the car were to assume sentience, would it choke itself in tears and relay with chronological specificity the times it had sputtered in mechanics a need for an oil change or a desire to have its fabric scrubbed with a mix of vinegar and water? The car’s health had rapidly declined in the two years that she had owned it. Miriam had not cared, but in the face of passing it on, she wish she had. Poor car. Sigh, what a poignant cliché, she would miss it in its absence.

Breaking her glum daze, the stranger asked to see the engine. Miriam motioned in the direction of the clasp linked to the hood. The stranger followed her orders and exited the car. Once he had gently raised the hood, the stranger began to dissect the sedan. She watched his hands prod at the caps containing the different engine fluids she still couldn’t all name.

“Ugh, god” Miriam held back the urge to gently push his hands away, lightly shut the hood, bid him farewell, and drive off with no deal. But, cash, she needed dreaded cash.

“In your ad, you mentioned that the car had a slight jolt due to a misfiring in the second cylinder, but by the looks of the fluids in here, you really need an oil change. Rather you need all these fluids to be flushed out. Also, I noticed your driver’s side window doesn’t work,” mentioned the stranger with poker face inflection.

Miriam nodded in agreement. She knew it had been well over a year since the last oil change. He continued to dig around as Miriam felt his judgment being deflected by the nuance of gender roles. Her aloofness surrounding the maintenance of the car would be forgiven at a couple bats of her eyelids or the slightest quiver of her lower lip. But the court Miriam answered to didn’t care she was pretty. Her inner critic began to boil the emaciated half child of her personality, her character. In a chokehold, it was being held hostage and forced to answer for the times it was too weak to demand an oil change over eating out, over sleeping.

Inhale.

“Really, you had months on months to get this car looked at, fucking idiot. Now you’re never going to sell it. Who would want this piece of shit,” her inner critic screamed.

“Chill out. Get it together. It’s fine. That’s why I put the price of the car so low. We’re okay,” Miriam tried to tune herself out, but it was hard. Often overthinking to the point of paralysis. The left brain waterboarding the right.

“Character is forged in tiny decisions. A tapestry knit by small goods that result in a shield against big bads. A boring shield that prioritizes oil changes over buying a slice of Gouda, watching Broad City. You’re hopeless, dude.”

Exhale.

“Ma’m, I’m really interested in this car. But, I will only pay 900 for it. There’s a lot of problems with it that were not listed in the ad.” said the stranger.

Bitter relief glazed her enamel as Miriam replied, “No, the price is fixed. Thanks for your time. Bye sir.”

They shook hands. Miriam climbed inside her car and began the commute to her mother’s house from the Walmart parking lot she had agreed to meet the stranger at. The sedan sputtering every few miles.

This housing arrangement was recent. Miriam and her mom had lived separately since her senior year of high school, but as Baby Boomers love to gloat, “kids always return to the nest.” Miriam proof.

“He was only willing to pay 900$ for the car” said Miriam.

“No, that’s too low. I’m glad you didn’t let it go” echoed her mom a woman in her mid-fifties. An organic extension of a Mac desktop for 50 to 70 working hours out of each week. Not by choice but desperation in the face of no savings for retirement. Divorce, mismanaged funds, life all had displaced her.

Miriam wasn’t quite sure of her mom’s exact age or birthdate. She had been around for it for 23 years, but every time it got close, she would pendulate with great hesitation between June 11th and June 7th. Either way, it didn’t really matter considering her family celebrated birthweeks and not just birthdays. Maybe one day she would know it concretely, but the time to ask for clarification had long passed. A secret necrosing due to systemic avoidance. So much in her life necrosing due to systemic avoidance.

“Yeah, it was a low price. I think I can definitely get $1,100 if I wash it up a little.”

Miriam’s chest tightened. She felt thankful the stranger had not bought her Subaru. She could wash it, dress it, check its teeth, and floss them before seeing it off. Slithering further into a rabbit hole, Miriam wondered,

“Is this how people sorta feel when they embalm a loved one they didn’t really bother to care for when it was alive? Do they brush it’s teeth one last time? — Ew, that’s gross. Kinda sweet though. Intimate. Have any of my exes ever brushed my teeth? Do morticians sell different embalming packages — ‘for 25$ more we’ll include a haircut and blowout. how would you wanna be seen if you were in an open casket?’”

“Miriam, cleaning it will probably go along way” assured her mom.

“You’re right.” Miriam’s eyes took an extra second to lazily trace the outline of her mother’s jaw. It was stoic and beautiful. If her jaw were to ever be crushed, she was sure Phoenician dye used to elevate mundane cloth to royal garb would spill from her marrow and tongue. Miriam had considered crushing it before. Out of spite. Out of rage. Out of boredom. It had been the origin of many vespid comments that over years had slit her underarm, waist, thighs, and aspirations with brutal sentencing. She bore the stitches and bandaged them with self-deprecating humor and a psychiatrist, but once every few months, they still bled.

“Bzzzz, bzzzzz”

A new prospect buyer had messaged Miriam about the car.

“Oh boy, maybe this time they won’t haggle me for a lower price. But don’t worry, mom. I’m going to get the cash and pay the mortgage one way or another,” she called back while walking towards the backyard to see a fumbling Monarch inspect the blooming patch of Butterfly Weed.

Her mother smiled, but Miriam didn’t see it.

The End

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