Lady Possum [short story]

old short story from 2023 or thereabouts

Lady Possum

     We were driving on the back roads, taking little note of the surrounding area. For all I knew, the monotonous menagerie of forestry looked just as uninteresting in daylight as it did while enveloped in darkness. Josie was taking her turn behind the wheel, and I was just a minute away from entering a real deep sleep. There hadn’t been any travelers besides us on the road for hours now, human or otherwise.

     Then I was awakened by a thud.

    “Shit,” said Josie as she hammered her foot on the brake pedal, “Shit, oh, God.”
    
    “What,” I asked her, jostled and fresh from my nap, “are you shitting over?”
    
    “You felt it. I hit something.”
    
    “Oh, no, I didn’t notice. Just woke me up, is all.”


    She unbuckled herself and slid out of the driver’s seat, absolutely frantic—for what reason, I couldn’t understand.

    “I just hope it’s okay,” she said between labored, panicked breaths.
    
    “The car’s fine, Josie.”
    
    “No, what I hit.”
    
     “You probably just hit a bad bump or a pothole, Josie. You’ve seen how these roads’ve been. Real lovingly maintained.”
    
     “Oh, Lord!” she cried out from in front of the car.
    
     “What?”
    
     “Come look for yourself, Mike. Oh, oh my, God almighty.”

    I unbuckled myself without urgency and lumbered out of my seat. Positioning myself in front of the car, I saw the subject of her horror: a possum, lying at the wheel, belly-up. I chuckled, and the look of shock on her face only intensified.


    “Oh, Josephine, you silly, silly bird,” I said, “it’s playing dead.”
    
“He’s bleeding, Mike.”


    I looked down again at the possum. A crimson puddle oozed out from beneath the animal. I let out another laugh, but it was stilted and awkward, stained with an acute sense of embarrassment.

    “Oh, it sure is. How’d I miss that?”

    Josie diverted her attention away from the possum. Her eyes, wide as the dark forest that stretched beyond us, turned to me, unblinking. A stream of tears careened down her red face, and she gripped her hair out of stress, bunches of brown strands peeking through her work-worn fingers.

    “Mike!” she said, flailing her arms up and down. “This is serious! What are we going to do with it?”
    
     “We? If my memory serves me correctly, and it should since it’d just been a minute, you were the one driving.”
    
     “How can you be so cruel? He’s suffering, do something!”
    
     “All right, all right,” I said, wandering off to the trunk of the car to retrieve my shotgun, the only something I could think to do. In my efforts to pop it open, the car scooted forward just enough to hear a visceral crunch.


    “Michael!” Josie screamed. “Jesus Christ! Is that your idea of putting him out of his misery?”

     In her hysterics, I ambled back over to Josie, and, after a moment of deliberation, placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. I sighed.

     “You forgot to put the car in park, honey.”

     I climbed into the driver’s side of the car, backing it up and parking it as she should’ve done. I exited the car once more and walked back to the road.

Josie stooped over the possum. She scooped it up, cradling it like a baby. Holding it tight against herself, the blood steeped into the pastel florals of her dress, the same dress I bought her no less than a week ago. She didn’t seem to notice and wrapped her arms around me. She cried into my shoulder, the possum trapped between us. The animal’s blood transferred onto the linen of my white dress shirt, and my arms hung at my side in hesitation before reluctantly reciprocating her embrace. It was starting to smell, and the putrid odor of death wafted out into the air between us.


    “He’s dead. I'm responsible," she said between sobs, "for the death of an innocent creature."
    
“I think it might’ve been a lady possum, actually.”
    
“It’s not an anything anymore, Mike.”


    She broke off from me, too upset to catch the corpse as it fell onto the cracked asphalt beneath us.

    “Oh, God,” she said, picking up the possum once more, handling it as if it were a raggedy stuffed toy. “You know, we have to make this right.”
    
“What,” I said, too stunned to probe her.
    
“It needs a proper memorial.”
    
“Oh, Josie, Josie. Josie. I know you’re all upset. But it’s a possum. They’re just about predestined to become roadkill. We need to get gone. Now.”
    
“Michael, what if it was me?”
    
“What?”
    
“What if we were possums, and some selfish man hit me with his car, and just let me lay out in the road?"
    
    I started walking towards the car as she followed behind.
    
    “We aren’t possums, we’re people,” I said, as I got inside the car and turned the ignition. “And you’re the one who hit it.”
    
“Yes, exactly! We’re people!”
    
“Okay,” I said, gesturing towards the passenger seat, “then get in the car, like a person.”

    I moved the car back onto the road. Josie stood in my way, her stance wide and her arms crossed. I beat my fist on the car horn. She wouldn’t budge.

    “Get in the car, goddammit! I don’t want to play right now.”
    
“Good Lord, Michael! Can’t you compromise?”
    
“I’m compromising right now by not leaving your stubborn ass behind. Get in the car!”

    “No! I’m not getting in the car!”

    I revved the engine, and Josie leaped out of my way. I took off. I operated under the assumption she might come to her senses and run after the car, but she stood her ground. Soon, her and the possum became indistinguishable blips in the darkness of my rear-view mirror. “Be that way, then,” I thought.

    I sped down the little nowhere road, hoping to crawl my way out of the sticks. I must’ve passed about one thousand of the same type tree as I drove on, all of them nothing more than blurry impressions gliding by my window. Soon, though, the pressing need to relieve myself became unbearable. Frantically, my eyes combed the landscape, scouring for a roadside oasis, and, after driving past untouched woodland for half an hour straight, I spotted a small diner a little ways off of the road. There was no proper parking, just an allocated lot of run-down grass next to the establishment. I pulled over and parked my car. Before heading on in, I inspected myself in the rear-view mirror to check how embarrassingly filthy I must be. I tried to fix what I could, rearranging strands of misaligned hair with hands coated in residual blood, but my efforts were pointless.


    “Well,” I said to myself, examining the dried blood stains on my shirt, “worse looking people roll through places like these, surely.”

    The diner had appeared deceptively small from the road, or maybe the interior just seemed spacious because there were no guests present, aside from myself. A tiny bell was stationed above the entrance. It rang as I stumbled through the entryway, alerting the owner to my presence. With just one foot through the door, the fella had already sniffed out my intentions.

    “You’ll have to buy something first,” he said from behind the counter, turning around to face me. “Shitter’s for customers.” He paused as his eyes scanned me up and down. “Jesus, rough night, huh?”
    
     I ignored him, not by intention, but because I was using all of my limited mental stamina to get a read on my new surroundings. The floor’d been done in alternating black and white ceramic tile. Real tasteful, sure. There were some awful comfortable looking stools set-up in front of the counter, but, frankly, I didn’t want the nosy-seeming man behind said counter to ask me about my business. I settled for one of the polychromatic pleather booths—the one farthest from the front, next to a window.

    After taking my seat, the lone man, still at the counter, repeated himself, “Will you have anything, son?”

    “Sorry. Uh.” I took a moment to do some much needed mental bookkeeping before committing to any order. “A coffee. Slice of pie’d be nice, too.”

    “What type of pie?”
    
    “Whichever type you can bring me the fastest, sir.”
    
    “Good!”

    He smiled and tossed over the restroom key. I scrambled to catch it. The keys clinked when they met the tile, and the sound of my failure resonated throughout the empty diner.


    “It’s over there on the right, son,” he said, laughing, as I crouched down to retrieve the key. “You’d best wash up good while you’re in there,” he continued while I attempted to heave myself off of the floor. “Course, with the way you’re smelling, you need more than hand soap. If it weren’t so late out, I’d douse you down with my pressure washer, free of charge.”

    “Thanks,” I said, finally up on my feet. I began my way over to the fabled restroom.

     “It’s all in good humor, feller,”  he said, grinning, as I passed the counter. “By the way, I have to fix the coffee and the pie.”
    
      I stopped walking, and briefly stared at the man. “I have to wait?”
    
      “Well, I can’t keep anything fresh if there’s no customers.”

      “Okay,” I said. “That’s alright. I could use some rest.” I pressed on to the shitter, as he had called it.

    I finished my business and returned to my booth. My eyelids hung down like buckets of sand secured only by a single length of straw rope. Fighting the urge to let the rope snap, to let the sand spill out and collapse on the table before me, got harder and harder. I gazed out the window. There wasn’t a bit of light outside—couldn’t even see the damn trees I’d become so bored of. Myself and the interior around me reflected clear as day against the expansive void.

In the reflection, I saw the image of a woman sitting in the vacant seat parallel to mine. I looked forward, and the seat remained unoccupied. I shook my head and checked the window, the visage of the woman ever-present.

    It was Josie, Josie from several years ago. But, she hardly looked any different, now that I could see it was her. I can’t even say she looked all that younger; or, I suppose what I mean to say is that the real Josie didn’t look all that older. She dressed about the same, kept her hair about the same, had the same ruddy complexion. Ah, and she had on another floral outfit. I remembered it well, now that I was looking right at it. They’ve always suited her. On closer inspection, though, the differences between the two Josies were real clear. She was missing the perpetually heavy eyebags and dark circles I had become accustomed to—she was missing her expression of general resignation, the cloud of complacency that shrouded her demeanor. She was gregarious, and funny—oh, God, Josie used to be funny? I dug around in my brain to try and figure out when I knew this Josie.

I realized she was from when we were just getting acquainted, and every detail the outing came flooding back to me. There was a milkshake on the table, and, oh! I remember. I knocked it over, right onto her clean, prim dress.


    “Oh, I’m sorry, Josephine,” I said, “I’m such a mess. Let me clean you up.”
    
“It’s alright, Michael.” She started patting away the ice cream with a paper napkin. “You aren’t a mess, you just made a mess.”

“But chocolate stains real bad, don’t it?”

She dug her fingers into the pool of spilt milkshake and smeared some of the liquid onto my shirt.

“Ah, well,” she said. “Now, we’re matching. Don’t feel so bad.”


I snapped out of my exhaustion induced hallucination as the owner came over to the booth with my coffee.

“Still waiting on the pie. You need any cream or sugar?” he asked, setting the saucer down.

“Naw,” I said, “I take it black, always.”

“Mhm,” he said. He paused for a moment, looking at the seat across from mine, and then back at me. Fella must’ve been lonely as hell if he was willing to tolerate the stench on my clothes, and I gave him an invitatory nod out of pity. He sat down. “My parents are like that. All the older folks in my family have it black. I’ve never known why that is.”

“Mine too,”  I said, taking my first sip, already regretting my stint with friendliness.

“We come from similar folks, I suppose.”

I took another sip.

“Is it good?” he asked.

    “Mhm,” I said, and sipped again. The flavor was familiar, but I had a real hard time figuring why that was. “Weird question,” I prompted, pointing at the cup, “but did you put eggshells in this?”

    “Sure did. You looked like you needed the full treatment.”

    “Aw, hell, I don’t need anything. Thank you, though,” I said. “My momma fixed it that way.”

    I started thinking.

    I remembered the scene. It was just a few days ago, mid-morning, before noon. We sat at our kitchen table. Josie was in the new sundress, the bright yellow linen in its original state, clean and crisp. I kept insisting that she wait until the evening to unwrap her gift, but she was awfully curious. I ended up obliging her. We were working on a jigsaw puzzle together, blotches of tender morning sun passing through the sheer curtains of our kitchen window, illuminating the pieces. I’d been looking out the window, through the little crack in the curtains, enjoying the perceptible sliver of our backyard garden.

“This is nice, Michael,” she said.

“Mhm.”

    The telephone started ringing–brrring, brrring, brrring. It seemed far more shrill now, much louder than I remember it sounding at the moment.

    “Ah,” I said, “It’s probably someone sending you birthday wishes, honey. You better go humor them.”

    She stood up, pushing in her chair, and reached for the phone.

    “Hello,” she said. Pause. “Yes, this is she.”

    The house fell silent and the air around us stiffened as Josephine listened to the person on the other line.

    “Mike,” she said, turning towards me, holding the receiver against her chest, “It’s about your mother.”

    “You okay, son?”

    “Yes. Just tired. Waiting for the caffeine to hit so I can get back on the road.”

    “Where are you heading at this hour, anyway, all alone?”

    I could’ve told him anything. I could’ve concocted up a million different, half-believable lies to shut him up and save me from ever telling this stranger the truth, admitting why I was on this awful, God-forsaken trip. But I didn’t.

    “I don’t know,” I said.

    “You don’t know? How do you not know?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Okay, you don’t know. You know what I know?”

    “What?”

    “I know a lie when I hear one. Son, what’s the matter?”

    I panicked. How could I get him to stop badgering me? I looked down at the blood on my shirt.

    “I killed someone.”

    “I know bull when I hear it, too.”

    I can’t say that it’s entirely bull.

   
    I was sitting outside of the room. The door opened, and out came Josie. She approached me, and sighed.

“Please, go see her.”

    I didn’t say anything.

    “Michael,” she said, bending over and taking the seat next to mine, “I know it’s hard.” She readjusted her position, and her hand reached over to meet mine. I yanked my arm away before they could touch.

    “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

    “She’s your mother.”

    “And she’s not your mother,” I said. “So what does it matter to you?”

    “Is that really what you think?”

    “If  I didn’t think it, I wouldn’t have said it.”

    She stood up, and reentered the room. I remained in the chair, hunched over, clasping my hands. The fluorescent tubes above me flickered ceaselessly, consistently, as if they were trying to rhythmically match the low, ambient hum of the quiet hallway. I focused on the humming, for however long, until it was once again interrupted by the click of the door closing behind Josephine.

    “Talk to her, Michael. Now.”

    I set an assortment of bills down at the table and ran out of the diner.

    It was near daybreak. Josephine was where I left her, sitting in the middle of the road, caressing the possum like it was a cherished artifact of her childhood, although in this case it wasn't a tattered toy, but a dead animal beginning to actively decompose. I was sick but not because of the possum. Her dress was coated in dirt and blood. I got out of the car, and we approached each other. I stood there in silence, stupefied and unable to speak.

    “Honey,” I said, trailing off before I could finish the thought.

    Her eyes dug into me with their gaze of total antipathy. They tore me apart, like I’d been put in one of those culinary contraptions both momma and Josie always used, dividing me into bite-sized proportional slivers of Michael and laying me out on toasted rye, entombing me in Saran Wrap so I’ll stay fresh for the guests. She didn’t really feel that way. She couldn’t. She could never hate no one. But if she ever decided to start, I’m the best candidate she could ask for. Goddammit, what are those slicers called, anyway? I never even thought to ask her, neither of them. And now I might never know.


    “Don’t get started,” she said, “I don’t want to hear it.”

    “Sorry,” I said, pausing. I looked down at her hand, and noticed she was gripping a small cross, fashioned out of fallen twigs and twine. “Will you let me help you bury it?”

    Her face contorted out of complete confusion, but her rage was subsiding.

    “You’re out of your damned gourd, Michael,” she said, “And I must be out of mine. Give me your knife, and bring me the shovel.”

    I did as she wished, fishing out my small hunting knife from my pocket before heading back over to the car. By the time I’d gotten the shovel, she used the knife to carve the date down her makeshift grave-marker. On the lateral stick she inscribed, in all capitals, LADY POSSUM.

“Lady possum,” I said, smiling.


    “Let’s go, Michael.”


    We walked out to the forest, trying to find her final resting place. Our steps were slow, methodical. Josie picked wildflowers along the way, collecting an assorted bouquet.

As the dawn rose over the horizon, the morning light passed through the foliage, through the trees. I stopped us, for a moment, to observe a grand oak. I was astonished by the leaves, turning vibrant green as beams of sunlight passed through them, and its trunk, winding and tangled, showed all of its age and glory. And, next to it, was a fresh pine sapling, no more than a foot tall. All of the trees were different—the shape of the leaves, the condition of the bark, the width of the trunk, and the shadow they cast down on the world beneath them were all one-of-a-kind. Each tree was its own.

Josie tugged on my hand, and we kept going.

    She settled for a patch of barren dirt adjacent to an ancient stump. No words passed between us, but I knew to start digging. After a few minutes of labor, I made a sufficiently deep grave, and she gently lowered the possum down.

I forgot about the blood and the stench on our clothes, and the time that had passed, and the gas left in our car, and the money left in my wallet. All I could think about was her and the possum. I squatted down and replaced the dirt by hand, feeling the soft soil sift through my fingers. I flopped back onto my ass, and laid in front of our work—her work, really. Josie stuck the grave marker into the loose dirt and set the assortment of flowers down on the mound.
    
“Josie,” I said, beginning to stammer out a coherent thought.

    “Stop! I’m not going to forgive you. I can’t forgive you, so don’t waste your breath, Michael.”

    “I wasn’t gonna apologize,” I said, trying to ease the tension. “I was gonna ask what that slicer thing you use to cut up boiled eggs is called.”

    She did a doubletake, laughing.

    “What are you going on about? Oh, why did I even expect an apology from you?”

“Well, I figure you’re fixing to leave me after this.”

“Oh, Mike,” she said, “you absolute idiot.”

“Am I wrong?” I asked with a glimmer of misplaced hope.

“No! No, no! Michael! It’s over. It’s been over.”

“Oh,” I said. It was quiet, again, for God knows how long. I didn’t know what
to say. What can you say to that?

    “Thank you,” I said, finally. “Sincerely, thank you.”

    “For what?”

    “For staying this long. Hell, I couldn’t do the same for you,” I said. “Not even for a single night.”

    “No kidding, Mike.”