Deep Breaths

“Deep breaths, deep breaths,” Joni mumbles to herself, eyes closed and bouncing on the balls of her feet outside of her apartment door. Her conflicted heart tells her to go in while also bonding her shoes like glue to the hallway floor.

It’s hard to argue that she’s done something wrong when the hugs and kisses she receives from her loved ones are all solid-bodied and warm. They feel so alive and love her just the same as they did when she was younger, when they were alive. She can gather them all together in one room and they’ll talk, laugh, and play with one another just as a normal family will. A real family. Even Fireball plays with her and lies at the foot of her bed when she sleeps, just like he used to.

Amid her troubled walk home, Joni had stopped at the department store, the goodies she bought for her dog and family swinging loosely at her side. She grips the bag tight as she stops bouncing on her feet, thinking it just feels right to go in, despite everything.

On the outside, the beings inside her home are living and breathing to Joni in every way. They keep her great company at home, just the way she hoped they would, and their easy familiarity to the real things have helped fill those empty spaces within her.

Except, the empty spaces have never fully filled. Not to mention that Joni suddenly wants more than what she brought back. Thanks to Wes, she thinks, almost bitter but too belatedly giddy.

Her heart burns hot at the thought of him. It also tightens in shame and she thinks, What do I do? About all of this? I want to hide it, but…

How long can I hide it?

Seeing as she has no way to answer her own bothersome questions, Joni pushes the thought away and decides without any second thoughts to just go inside. Though, just as she’s unlocking her door, she hears a voice at her back that makes her jump and whirl around.

“Ms. F? Ms. F! I’m so glad I could catch you!”

“Maya…” Joni says, unable to hide her displeasure as well as she wishes to.

“I came over yesterday, around 5 or 6, but no answer!”

That, Joni confirms. Yes, I heard you knocking. She thinks and says, “Oh yeah? Shame I missed you. I came home maybe an hour after that and was free the rest of the night! Maybe another time.”

Maya flinches hard and blinks multiple times, puzzled. Her big eyes widen enough to touch her straight black bangs as she asks, “Why not right now? Are you busy?”

Joni nods, making a face she hopes is convincingly sorrowful. “I have a private lesson to teach and a couple of freelance projects I’m working, both due by the end of the month, so I’ll likely be working the whole day. You’d think business would slow down considering the state of things, but I guess people still have things they’d like to say and advertise, and more money than they know what to do with before it’s no use at all.” Joni plays up the shrug she gives Maya.

The young woman about five years her junior seems unsatisfied with Joni’s turning her down and asks again, “What? Okay, well… Why do you even continue working? Why keep taking jobs? As you said, saving up money now won’t do you much good!”

“Isn’t it the same reason you continue to take my online classes? Or why filmmakers, authors, and painters are putting out their life’s work left and right?

“It’s our dream.” Joni says, her left hand tightening on the doorknob. “It’s our last chance to really be ourselves, doing exactly what we want to and wish we could have always done. Unfinished projects we never had the motivation to finish. This is the most motivating time in anyone’s life! Of course I’m gonna keep working. Drawing is what I do.

“It’s what I need to keep on living.”

“Huh. To keep on living, you say?” Maya hums while Joni swallows. “I hear you, but I’ll tell you what. I need what you have, but I can’t get it myself, and you know that. We both know that.” Maya moves in closer. She’s taller than Joni by a only a couple inches, but it’s enough. Intimidating. “But the whole world doesn’t know that. Yet.”

Joni breathes deeply and takes a second to collect herself before asking what she already knows. “So. What? You’re gonna tell—”

“I’ll tell the whole damn world that you’ve committed the ultimate taboo, and not for just one person, it seems.” Maya looks down at the shopping bag in Joni’s hand and back up again. “Common beggars, the Feds, the news, everyone will be at your doorstep before you can even act pitiful enough to hang yourself, and all because you didn’t extend the special service to your loyal student.”

Maya bats her eyelashes and produces the ugliest smirk Joni has ever seen. Joni sneers but knows she’s been cornered. Maya knows it too. She’s smug when Joni asks, with her hand thrust out, palm up, “Picture.”

Obedient, and visibly desperate, Maya rummages quickly through her small brown purse until she pulls a printed photograph free with care. She stares with longing at the picture and plants a kiss on it before handing it over. Joni sees that the back of the photo is covered corner to corner with words scribbled in blue ink.

Maya’s memories of that person.

Joni sighs. Maya has already been warned of the fact that the individual doesn’t come back exactly the same in terms of behavior, but there was no talking her down once the talking got started. Her mind was made up, like Joni’s was that night.

Despite what she knows now, Joni understands and grumbles internally, Might as well make this work somehow. She’d known she couldn’t really turn the girl away, anyhow, not after she’d caught onto Joni’s special situation during a lesson three-some weeks ago.

It was a pretty crazy evening that night.

Joni was in the living room sitting at her work desk. She hadn’t had the chance to move it into the bedroom yet but had been meaning to ever since her family had returned to her life. Her parents were in the kitchen, chatting over some spaghetti that Joni’s mom had made, as requested by her father.

Glad they’re over there, Joni thought, making sure every few seconds or so that neither of them showed up in frame for any of her three students to see. Her back was facing the couch and the TV. Her parents practically lived in the kitchen, so there was little risk of them crossing the room to practice being couch potatoes. And while she couldn’t do anything about Fireball’s whereabouts, she didn’t let it concern her. If Fireball did come darting by, that would be easy enough to explain:

“I got a dog!”

“Oh, really? Nice!”

End of story.

But if her previously long-dead parents just happened to walk past the frame, Joni didn’t think there would be sufficient excuses to explain that kind of mind-boggling occurrence away.

“Alright, any questions?” Joni asked her students Ash, Will, and Maya. They were all college students who refused to drop her class amid the world-ending news like their peers did.

“I’ve invested too much time into this to just stop now! I’ll graduate before the world ends, if it’s the last thing I do.” Ash had said.

Maya similarly claimed it would be a waste to let everything go now. Meanwhile, Will was fiery hot. “I paid for this shit! I’d better finish it.”

Joni had had to laugh at that and agree. “Totally understandable,” she’d said.

Now, her students denied having questions, thanked her in turn, and logged off the online meeting platform to enjoy the remainder of their Tuesday night. Except, “Wait, wait, wait! Ms. F., I actually do have a question. Can we stay on a little longer?”

“Oh? You got lucky! I was just about to ex out.” Joni said, chuckling. She was always able to turn on the easygoing charm behind the camera. Working for home was genuinely the best decision she’d ever made.

“I know, I’m sorry. The question popped into my head last second. It’s about the project due next week.”

Joni was all ears. “Okay, I’m listening. Go ahead.”

But just as Maya started asking her question, Joni saw the girl’s mouth fall open and her eyes nearly bug out of their sockets. Huh? Joni thought. She wondered for a split second if Maya’s camera had frozen at a really unfortunate moment, but she realized quickly that Maya’s ever-growing eyes seemed to be witnessing an act of horror.

W-Where is she looking? Joni wondered, and then Maya was pointing. Behind me?!

Joni whipped around in her seat and almost folded her body backward over the desk and into the computer screen. On the couch behind her, a penciled-in head was materializing in midair at a tortuous speed. It was so slow Joni could see each strand of hair being crafted as if by her charcoal pencil.

She could only see a little bit where the high back of the couch was concerned, but the blank screen on the television filled in the rest that wasn’t able to be seen from the front. To anyone else—no, to Joni, even—the sight truly was horrifying. But still, she felt her eyes fill immediately to the brim with prickly hot tears.

“Grandma!” She shouted in whisper and almost got up for a closer look until she heard Maya’s sharp gasp from the computer screen.

“Wh-Wh-What is going on here?!” The girl cried, startling Joni who’d forgotten for a second that she was there.

Oh no. Joni realized, knowing that too obvious of an expression was showing on her face. She was caught. Her first instinct was to shake her head and shout out, “I-I-It’s not what you think!!” while knowing full well that this line never worked and it almost always was what they thought.

Instead, Joni turned her body fully toward the computer screen and squared her shoulders. She asked Maya with a serious tone to her voice, “What do you think is happening?”

For a split second, Maya looked surprised that the question was turned on her. Her eyes left Joni’s face and rested on the scene unfolding in the background. “It’s…” she started and trailed off, concentration and confusion all over her face. Finally, her eyes flicked back to Joni as she answered, “Someone—Someone new is coming to life… No, someone real is coming back to life.”

She paused, narrowed her eyes, “It looks like a sketch. You… made that thing, didn’t you?”

Joni didn’t answer right away. Instead, she tried not to viscerally react to Maya using the word ‘thing’ to describe her grandmother. Against her silence, Maya grew bolder and leaned forward into the screen to scream at Joni, “Didn’t you?!”

Joni bit hard on her lip. She knew no half-assed lie would make Maya believe otherwise and so, she told the truth.

“Yes.” She said, her voice steady and strong. “I drew her.”

Though Maya had caught on, Joni could see the utter shock grow on her face. “B-But how? It’s appearing.”

Joni glanced back. Her grandmother’s shoulders had just finished materializing and now her triceps were very slowly growing downward. Joni nodded her head.

“My grandma is appearing,” she corrected. “It’s my ability. I drew her… and then I wished her alive.”