a new day to come

“But I was so careful!” I shouted at myself.

Cold sweat began to form on my brow. I quickly wiped it. The sweat began to form again. This ass seemed to want to take his time. I wiped my forehead again. I felt a seizure starting to brew up in my head, the flashing blue and red lights were nauseating me. I closed my eyes tightly and controlled my breathing.

If Maya were to wake up, everything would go to shit. I quickly squashed the thought and forced my heart to settle.

It really doesn’t matter what happens, I told myself, you can handle anything. You always have, and you always will. Just bide your time.

I needed to prepare. I dug through Maya’s purse for her license, then I dug through her glove compartment for her registration. Thank god for human predictability. I looked at the license carefully for telltale distinctions, we were almost identical. I wore her glasses and I wrapped my hair in a bun. I doubted the cop would look that carefully.

A flashlight shone right into the sideview mirror, nearly blinding me. The cop finally stepped out of his vehicle.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he began.

“Hello,” I squeaked out, in my most childish, most humble of voices.

“Ma’am, the reason I pulled you over was because your left brake light was out and you will need to repair that.”

“oh, my gosh!” my relief was genuine.

He smiled at me, “haha don’t worry. You weren’t speeding or anything. I just wasn’t sure if you knew.”

“Oh, ok. Thank you!”

“No worries, ma’am. Let me just see your license and registration please.”

I handed over my information and waited while he went back to his car and pulled up records. I waited for 5 minutes.

I saw another cop car pull in behind him, lights a-flashing. I saw them talking.

I didn’t know what it meant. If Maya were to wake up, everything would go to shit. Everything. Why were they talking? What did the other cop want? Was there a missing persons report on her already? That’s impossible, she hadn’t been gone longer than three hours. Her phone hadn’t even rung, no one was expecting her.

The cops continued. It had been 10 minutes. If Maya were to wake, everything would go to shit.

15 minutes. The other cop drove away. My cop came back to me, laughing. A cool chill washed over me. It must have been relief.

“’Ere you go, ma’am,” he said, returning the paperwork, “Now, listen, I’m not going to give you a ticket or anything, just a request for repair order, ok? No points, no fines, just get that light fixed within 30 days and you’re good, mmkay?”

“Yes, sir!” I exclaimed. My eyes watered immediately. “Thank you!”

“No worries, you have a safe trip now, y’hear?”

“Yes sir, thank you!”

I drove off slowly, trying to be polite and inconspicuous to the cop. I waited a good 3 miles I sped up. By that time, the tears were flowing like rainfall. Maya hadn’t woken up.



I drove into a deep and dark path in the woods. The rocky trail sloped steeply. I was wondering if the GPS had gone haywire on me. It didn’t look like there would be much satellite reception with all of these tall, tall trees. I saw a dead end approaching me. These were the coordinates for HOME on Maya’s GPS. Something had to be wrong. I prepared to reverse out, but the house suddenly came into focus. It was an A-Frame Cedar house with many large windows, seemingly built into the woods and one with nature.

I wasn’t at a dead end, just a sharp turn that led into a comfortably paved driveway.

It was 8 pm, and every window was pitch dark. There were no cars in the driveway, no one was home. I was grateful to have been spared committing even more crimes.

I popped the trunk of the red Ford Escape and dragged her dead weight body out, pulled her up the steps, and rested her against two Asian styled doors. I fished through her keys, but succeeded on the first try.

The house was magnificent. Beautiful Asian architecture and decore. The entire house was zen.

But I didn’t have time to enjoy it. I had never killed a person before. I had never even cooked with raw meat before. I didn’t know how I would do this.

I pulled in Maya’s body into the kitchen. She was still comfortably unconscious. I dressed myself in trash bags, wore the kitchen cleaning gloves, and grabbed the knife. I said bismillah and I jabbed it into where I thought her jugular was. The spray of blood was phenomenal. I quickly wiped it from my eyes and from my face and retreated to a corner where I couldn’t see what I had done. I hurled the contents of my stomach. And I cried. I cried for what seemed like hours.

When I was able to stand without falling, I ran out of the kitchen by way of the dining room so I wouldn’t see her. I tripped on the plastic bags I wore and rammed my head into the corner of the wall. I don’t know how long it had been when I woke. The world darkened every time I stood, so I crawled, looking into every door until I found a bathroom and I washed up.

The morning events rushed back to me and a merciless sadness smothered me. Had it really come to this? Murder? I wasn’t even sure if she was dead yet. I hoped she wasn’t suffering. God I hoped she wasn’t suffering. I slid onto the floor of the restroom and cried again. And cried and cried and cried. This was not what I wanted to do. This was not how I wanted to be.

But I didn’t have time to plan. When I saw her this morning at the bookstore, when I saw how she looked almost exactly like me, I knew what I had to do.

I needed to be dead to the world. I needed to hide as someone else. And I wouldn’t just live for the sake of living. My existence was not so valuable to this world it was worth another’s life. It was what I knew and who I knew, that mandated this sin against God.

I thought about Michael and resolved myself again. I stood, I walked back into the kitchen, and I forced myself to look at her body. The blood flow and settled to a slow stream. Her face was gray, I knew she was dead.

I fished into the freezer for a vegetable bag and applied it to the goose egg on my forehead. And with that I began to plan. I dragged Maya’s dead body into the bathtub and washed it clean, with soap and then with bleach. I bandaged her wound and dressed her in a long white robe. I put make up on her face. I changed the bags and gloves I wore and took her twice as heavy body back into the trunk of her car.

The drive back to my old house was incident free. I quickly rested her body on my bed and covered her with a blanket. I left my entire identity in my drawers and throughout my house. I covered my bedside table with a beautiful scarf and lit a pillar candle on top of it.

The candle would take maybe a day or two before it would reach the fabric and ignite the room. But I didn’t expect Tariq and his men to track me down before Friday. I had time.

I returned to the Asian Feng Shui house and began my life as Maya. For now.