I live on an old street in the middle of Detroit City. It’s a two-block stretch of Victorian mansions with a passageway of cobblestones—not old—between them put down for effect. They give the historic homes legitimacy. It’s an empty house in the middle of the day. I came home early after my boss told me my services were no longer needed. He handed me a small box that might as well been a hole six feet deep. I stared into it knowing my entire life could fit.
I gathered my things in silence, carried my coffin through the halls of closed office suites. There was no fanfare or consolation, a wave, or salute.
My shoes were new. The soles still slick. I could feel my feet slipping on the office carpet, the stiff Italian leather pinching my toes. When I got home I took them off. I went for a walk in my suit, barefoot. The cobblestones cradled in the grooves of my arches. They rolled together like smooth joints dislocating with every step. It’s dangerous to walk with tender soles exposed to jagged bottle caps and shards of glass. I welcomed any sensation to strip away the numbness. I stopped at the overpass and watched the cars speeding underneath, surveyed the cage wall designed to keep people safe.
They say when people die from jumping off heights, their shoes pop off upon impact.
A car honking startled me. I turned and met the torn paper gaze of a cherub, maybe Cupid, smiling. The angelic figure’s faded pink sash slightly peeling off an old brick wall layered with several other damaged images I couldn’t make out—yet all survive—hidden behind what must have felt like rejection at first.
Lauren Budrow is a licensed funeral director and Assistant Professor at Wayne State University's Mortuary Science program in Detroit. She graduated from Spalding University's MFA in Writing program in 2018 with a concentration in poetry. Her poems often morph into flash fiction stories that contain themes of isolation and loss. She has been published in Chiron Review. Lauren lives in downtown Detroit with her husband, dog, and cat.