Mira Corpora by Jeff Jackson Page B

handful of neon yellow pills and I swallow them without asking what they’ll do. They tingle on my tongue and dissolve in a quick fizz.
    Gert-Jan strokes my shoulder. He tousles his fingers through my hair. He leans in to kiss my lips. “You are a sad person,” he says. “But I promise you will never feel any more pain.”

    Ignore the dead body on the floor. It’s just earning a living. Gert-Jan instructs the partygoers to step over it as they ferry rounds of drinks from the kitchen to the den. Everyone is careful not to disturb the body’s composure. It lies face-down in a puddle created by the unplugged refrigerator. Its skinny arms are bound behind its back with black bandanas. The tag around its neck reads “My Name Is Jeff.” The body is mine, technically speaking. But let’s not get hung up on unnecessary details.
    The body is in its typical corpse pose. One of them, anyway. Its white T-shirt is soaked and ideally transparent. Its mouth emits discreet bubbles in the puddled water. Its eyes are open but unmoving. They’re perfectly dull, which takes more skill than you might imagine. The body isn’t paying much attention to the party. I’m there but I’m not there, which is as close as I can come to describing the situation without devolving into metaphysics.
    The body’s eyes register a new shape swimming in front of them. A middle-aged woman with bushy chestnut curls and tiny sparrow hands. She stares intently at the body. She occasionally bends low to study its nonexistent expression. There is eye contact, of a sort. The body can’t tell whether the woman wants to
buy it or not. Her gaze has an unfocused intensity that would be hard to read even in the best of circumstances.
    A clock chimes in the next room. Corpse time is over. Too bad. It’s always been one of the body’s favorite tasks. Gert-Jan unties the body and arranges it into a more traditionally enticing pose: Seated on the floor, hair ruffled over its eyes, arms tightly hugging its scuffed pink knees. “This is for your own good,” Gert-Jan likes to remind the body. He hands it another yellow pill which it dutifully swallows.
    The main room of the brownstone has a shimmering crimson glow. The walls have been painted silver. Red scarves are draped over the lamps to lend the place an even more exotic atmosphere. It makes the dozen people hovering over the body look like crew members on a low-budget slasher film. Grips and gaffers, maybe. Someone throws an empty wine glass into the cold black fireplace, but nobody bothers to react.
    Gert-Jan announces the opening of an auction. Someone shouts out a price. Another person counters with a higher offer. The middle-aged woman remains silent, seated on the leather couch with her back to the others. Another bid. Gert-Jan announces that none of them is satisfactory. Goddamn insulting, really. He reminds everyone of the body’s tender age, the distinct opportunities afforded by such barely corrupted flesh, et cetera. His accent ices the words with a superfluous layer of innuendo.
    The final round of offers. While others volley a sequence of escalating digits, the body clandestinely focuses its attention in the direction of the middle-aged woman. Something sets her apart from the usual clientele. Her matronly wool sweater, stud earrings, and plaid skirt are hopelessly conservative. Her permed curls are decades out of fashion. But those aren’t the real aberrations. It’s how she acts so sober. Or maybe so nervous. She keeps straightening her skirt, smoothing the tight pleats with her palms then tugging primly at the hem. The body registers all this
somewhere at the tingling cortex level. Call it a vague feeling of unease. If that’s even close to the right emotion.
    We’ve got a winner. An emaciated grandfather in cowboy boots jabs two fingers into the air. It’s either a sardonic gesture of victory or an aggressive