"I'm lonely," she says.

I ignore her.

"I know you can hear me. At least look at me. You used to like looking at me."

I refuse, remembering instead the accursed day we met—

It was at a yard sale. Late afternoon. Birds chirping. Masked strangers mumbling to each other, counting money, pawing through knickknacks heaped upon plastic tables flying handwritten paper banners announcing: $5, $10, $25...

While the owner, dressed in black, hangs ever-present over our shoulders, whispering factoids enticing us to buy:

"Italian original."

"It costs three times as much on eBay."

"That, friend, belonged to my dear late Natasha."

I find nothing of interest.

"Perhaps I could show you something a little more special?" he asks me, imploring with his sunken eyes.

In empathy I agree.

He leads me to his garage, ruffles around in a box and pulls out a knife: a gorgeous hunting blade ornated with a carved wooden handle.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Ten dollars," he says—then, before I can say anything, corrects himself: "No, no. Five."

The knife is worth much more than five dollars.

Much more than ten.

I pay him.

Three nights later, I'm awoken by the sound of a woman's voice. "Fred? Frederick!"

Rubbing my eyes, I see: no one.

The room is empty save for the wandering moonlight.

"Fred, look at me."

The voice, I realise, is coming from the knife. I pick it up, and in the moonlit glow—drop it—

for reflected in its polished blade I had seen a woman's face!

I rub my eyes and return to the knife, telling myself it couldn't be; but a hallucination, a mnemonic relic of an unremembered dream...

I pick it up—

and there she is. "You're not Frederick," she says.

"I—I'm Norman," I say.

"I suppose you'll do. Will you love me?"

"Who are you?"

"Natasha."

—now, weeks later: "Norman, I'm lonely. Look at me. Talk to me!"

I've tried burying the knife, throwing it into the river, but her infernal voice defies physics.

"Talk to me!"

I've had to dig it up; dive for it.

"Talk to me!"

"Fine," I yell finally. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Finding me a friend."

"You know I—"

"It's lonely in here all by myself."

I ignore her.

"So talk to me, Norman!"

"Find me a friend or talk to me. Friend or talk!"

"Fine!"

When the deed is done—the knife driven into her chest, the blood released, the body cold—I bury her, clean the knife and go home.

"Thank you, Norman," says Natasha.

"What the fuck?" says Lorna. "Where the hell am I?"

"Hello?"

"Hello!"

"I don't like my new friend," says Natasha a few days later. "Find me another."

"Murderer!" Lorna shouts at me. "Get over yourself, Lori," says Natasha. "Fuck you, freak," Lorna snaps back, and all the while my headache grows.

Until I can take no more!

—plunging the knife into my heart:

FADE OUT.

FADE IN:

Two-dimensionally polygamous,

sharply I glisten.