I spend my days looking at old files. Yellow paper. Thick dust. Mostly I organize reports on how people used to die from things we don’t even have names for anymore. It is a quiet life. I like quiet because my childhood was very loud. It was hospitals and beeping machines and doctors with cold hands who liked to cut me open. I have more stitches on my body than a cheap baseball. I am a walking map of every mistake my organs ever made.
I am sitting on my couch when it happens. I am eating a bowl of cereal that tastes like wet cardboard. My side starts to itch. It is not a normal itch. It is not a bug bite or a dry patch of skin. It feels like a zipper is being pulled down from the inside of my ribcage. I look down. My old appendix scar from when I was six is opening up. There is no blood. There is no pain. It just zips open like a little coin purse made of skin.
I drop my spoon. It hits the floor with a wet thud. I look into the hole in my side. It is dark and pink and wet in there. But something is poking out. It looks like the corner of a piece of paper. I reach in with two fingers. My heart is hitting my ribs like a trapped bird. I pull. It is a small square of paper. It is damp. It smells like copper and old libraries.
I unfold it. The handwriting is messy. It is big and bubbly. It is my handwriting. It is exactly how I used to write when I was seven years old. The note says: Benny from 4B forgets his keys. He climbs the fire escape at midnight. The iron is rusty. He falls. He sounds like a bag of wet gravel when he hits the street.
I stare at the paper. Benny lives next door. Benny is a jerk who plays loud music and leaves his trash in the hallway. I think this is a joke. I think maybe I am finally losing my mind. I try to poke my finger back into the hole in my side. The scar has closed up. It is smooth and white again. It looks like nothing ever happened.
I wait. I stay up all night. I sit by the window. At exactly 12:02 AM, I hear it. The fire escape clangs. I see a shadow moving up the metal stairs. It is Benny. He is humming a song. Then there is a screech of metal. A snap. A long, quiet second of nothing. Then a sound so heavy and wet it makes my stomach turn over. I look down. Benny is on the sidewalk. He is folded like a card table. He looks exactly like the note said he would.
I should be screaming. I should be calling the police. But I am just looking at my skin. I am looking at my arms. My legs. My stomach. I have forty-two surgical scars. I am a library of things that haven’t happened yet.
Two days later, my knee scar opens up. This one was from a bicycle accident when I was ten. It zips open while I am at the grocery store. I have to duck into the bathroom. I sit on the toilet and pull a wet, folded note out of my kneecap. This one says: Victor at the deli chokes on a pickle. His face turns the color of a grape. Nobody helps him because they think he is laughing.
I go to the deli. I try to stop him. I see Victor. He is a nice guy with a big mustache. He is eating a sandwich. I open my mouth to say something, but my throat closes up. It feels like someone filled my neck with dry sand. I can’t speak. I can only watch. Victor takes a bite. He coughs. He starts to turn purple. Then blue. Then a deep, dark grape color. People are smiling. They think he is telling a funny joke. He falls over the counter.
I feel a strange hum in my bones. It isn’t just fear anymore. It is something bigger. It is like I am finally useful. I am an archivist, right? That is my job. I keep records. Now, my body is the record. I am the file cabinet for the whole neighborhood.
I go home and take off my clothes. I stand in front of the mirror. I look at the long scar on my chest. That one was from heart surgery when I was a baby. It is the biggest one. It is the master file. I wait for it to open. I want to know. I want to see the big picture.
I start to laugh. It is a high, shaky sound. It sounds like a teakettle. I am laughing because this is the most honest my body has ever been. All those years, doctors were putting things into me. Tubes and wires and metal staples. I thought they were fixing me. But they were just preparing the pages. They were clearing space for the ink.
My shoulder scar opens. It is a tiny one. I pull out a sliver of paper. It says: Sarah from the park. A bee stings her tongue. Her throat swells up like a panicked pufferfish.
I don’t even try to save Sarah. What is the point? The ink is already dry. The paper is already inside my meat. It is a perfect system. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Every death is a little story. Every story has a home inside of me.
I start to feel a deep, heavy heat in my chest. The big scar. The heart surgery scar. It starts to tingle. It starts to pull. It feels like a heavy curtain is about to be drawn back. I am not scared. I am awestruck. I am standing in my tiny, messy bathroom, but I feel like I am standing on the edge of the world.
I am a vessel. I am a biological book. I think about all the people out there. Millions of them. All of them walking around with stories waiting to be written. But I am the only one who gets to carry them. I am the only one who knows the rhythm of the end.
The chest scar begins to zip. It is slow. It is grand. I see the white paper peeking out. It is a big sheet this time. It isn’t a scrap. It is a scroll. I reach out with shaking hands. My fingers are sticky. I touch the paper. It feels warm. It feels like it is pulsing.
I pull it out. It keeps coming. It is feet long. It is yards long. It is covered in my seven-year-old handwriting. Thousands of names. Thousands of dates. I see the whole city. I see the fire in the apartment down the street. I see the bridge collapse in three years. I see the way the world grows quiet when the big sickness comes.
I am holding the future in my hands. It is wet and it smells like me. I look in the mirror and I don’t see Elias the archivist anymore. I see a temple. I see a monument. My skin is just a cover for the greatest story ever told.
I sit on the floor. The paper is piled around me like white snow. I start to read. I read about Maren and Miles and Leo. I read about how the lights go out. I read about the way the stars will look when there is no one left to see them.
I feel a coldness in my chest where the paper used to be. It is a hollow feeling. But it is a good hollow. It is the feeling of a job well done. I am empty now. I am just a shell. But the story is out. The story is here with me on the bathroom tile.
I look at the last line of the long scroll. It is written in gold ink. Not blue or black like the others. Gold. It says: Elias watches the world turn to paper. He smiles because he is finally part of the archive.
I look at my hands. They are turning thin. They are turning white. I touch my face. My skin feels like vellum. It feels like parchment. I am not dying. I am being filed away. I am becoming the thing I always loved.
I lie down on the pile of notes. I close my eyes. I can feel the words underneath me. I can feel the ink soaking into my back. It is so quiet now. The most beautiful, heavy quiet. I am just a page in a very big book. And finally, someone is turning the page.