On the TV there is a man, a tall yet shriveled one. He runs a funeral store. Customers go in with nothing but grief, and come out with grief and a shiny new casket. A rosy corpse pumped full of fluids. The funeral business is mainly fluids, TV tells me. They try to leave the body when you stop breathing. Turns you yellow. Orange. Red. No worries--a few gloved men with surgeon masks can make you normal again. 

The rest is window dressing—a mahogany price bump here, some themed cushions there. Listening to family members argue which music should play. Last wishes can get awfully complicated. Burial spots too. There is much banality in the afterlife. The men don’t get tired of death though. Death is rest and death is peace and death keeps them up at night. Keeps me up too. There’s a light bulb in my closet. It flickers but stays on. Lately, I’ve been falling asleep with that tangerine glow.

Every Monday I walk down to Alba Market. It’s another store, not a funeral one. This one sells carbs. It’s shelves are stacked with chocolate-encased cookies, Skinny Pop popcorn, and competing cereal brands. Miles of Doritos.  Every kind of calorie is stuffed into plastic bags and bottles. Maybe a basket every other aisle. If you brought more than twenty, you could get the wine. I don’t. I come to Alba with a ten dollar bill in my back pocket. I leave with two donuts. Chocolate. Glazed.

Sometimes the cashier knows my name. “Hi Victor,” he will say. Mumbled, but it counts. Sometimes he does not. He is another tall man, with broad, hair-covered shoulders. Bushy eyebrows. On each wrist is a ‘WWJD’ bracelet. Behind him is a clock always two minutes late. The walls of his store are blank. A mural was there once. Then it was painted over, and a “COMING SOON: NEW MURAL” sign added. The sign has been there almost two years now. Without a drop of new paint. 

When it gets over ninety degrees, the cashier wears a stained tank top and smokes a pipe. He’s what all the TV men pretend to be. A big old tough guy. If this was an old fashioned movie, he’d grab me by the scruff. Say I’m the runt of the pack. It’s true. But this is real life, and a store with security cameras. He refrains. My response is never changing. “Thank you.” Then leave. Head down. I don’t want to anger the tall cashier.

When I used to count the calories on the bags-bottles-baskets, I’d fly home. A few steps in, and my boots would leave the sidewalk. It wasn’t bad. No more accidentally stepping into poison oak, for one. Or tripping over dead leaves. I’d never consider myself a saint, but flying was holy. I always thought I’d look best from afar. If you only craned your neck a little. Had sunglasses on. When you’re blurry, people fill in the blanks. It’s easy to become something more. When I was full of nothing, I could fill up a mind. You could say you’d seen an angel. It would be a lie, but you’d at least have a reason to say it. 

Still, there is so much garbage in the air. Pollution and whatnot. I never put effort into flying, never chose it, and yet found myself disappointed. You look up at the sky, you only see blue. When one visits, you find wires, smoke, and scared birds. Not to mention the sun. That monster, the sun.

Eventually I started eating again, and got too heavy to fly. Dad said it was a good thing. The old academic. Too much tenure to quit, but too little funding to really enjoy the job. He named me after Icarus, in a roundabout way. An early form of Latin, called Etruscan, pinned Icarus’ name as Vikare in their translations. No one speaks Etruscan now. The correct pronunciation is long gone. But dad heard it as Victor, and mom was too morning-sick to argue. She used to tell me even when she threw up, she was praying for me. It’s a dead name. Dead language, dead person. Dead TV show. Dead me if I checked how much sugar is in those donuts.

There are sixty-three episodes of the funeral show. Each starts with a dead body, and how long they lived. If they’re lucky, the death scene only lasts a minute or so. An old man takes a wrong turn, seconds later we learn he lived till eighty. It’s all so sudden. I have seen sixty-three dead bodies. Fake ones. Good actors. I remember them all.

No cause of death is repeated. There are, after all, more than sixty-three ways to die. It makes sense. Sometimes when it’s late and the hallway lights are on, I try to calculate the worst one. It’s not possible. Even if it was, I can’t choose. I don’t get to choose. The donuts, with their original sin ingredients, could kill me. They could also help me live longer. A piece of celery could kill me the same way. Chewing so long that I won’t choke could kill me. I could have a rare disease. A visit to the doctor could kill me. I could get the wrong doctor. The wrong plane. Wrong city. I’m seventeen, and I don’t get to choose.

When you’re trying not to die, your eyes get big. All your second guesses turn to prophecies. Everyone notices. Linger on the curb for too long. Miles away, a car senses it. The car doesn’t go and chase you down. All it has to do is wait. That’s what all the dangerous things do. They wait. Maybe it’s a Tuesday morning. The sun blinds the driver’s eyes, and you end up on the ground. It’s so warm. Bits of concrete in your hair. Your phone is, miraculously, fine. Your knees, not so much. At night you dream of radiators and traffic lights. A million things to think of when you close your eyes, and now all you’ve got is cars. Every breath led you to this moment. Every step, another second given to all the things that want to hurt you. All the people that want to kill you.

My mother is religious. Not devout, but she believes in the Bible. Says grace before dinner. Wears a cross necklace to fancy parties. Before I became afraid, I went to a Catholic school. I don’t know what she thought would happen. I didn’t make many friends, and I didn’t try to. It’s easier to eat lunch in a hallway. Or not eat. Measure your stomach until it’s paper thin enough to fly. Stare at stained glass windows in the little chapel. All the saints are remembered by how they died. Arrows, snakes, and flames being the main culprits. Fluids everywhere. Never anything peaceful. I’m sure teachers got tired of me asking about the afterlife. Students too. Maybe that was why they kept giving different answers. 

The donuts have begun to melt in their plastic bags. It’s another mini heat wave. They’ll likely be mush by the time I’m home. Dad would say it’s fine. At least I wasn’t closer to the sun. But the sun found me still. I spend a good three-quarters of my life at home. Watching TV. Eating donuts and salt-vinegar chips. Occasionally pacing. Because I know on the other side of the door is the sun. Waiting. As I cross the street, I remember Icarus was also warned not to fly too low.