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The Weight of a Woman’s Body 

Andi Boyd

Al Jenkins was walking home from buying a Slim Jim and a pack of Marlboros when the girl’s body landed upon him. It made no sound as it edged closer, so Al neither felt, nor smelled, nor touched anything until his head was thrust with force against the cement. She had fallen no fewer than six stories. There is no verification of whether she had climbed atop the small storage area at the top of the building first, nor whether she could be said to have stepped or jumped from the edge. No matter the measure, when she fell upon Al she was dead upon impact. Al, on the other hand, was only knocked unconscious. While the girl ceased to have a single thought, Al had a moment of awareness prior to his waking. In the moments before his eyes tried to trace colors coming from the surrounding environment, he felt the weight of her body upon him, the touch of hair upon the nape of his neck. It brought him without force to a memory of Marla—the first he fell in love with. The thinness of Marla’s body, the frailty of the one currently upon him, were unmistakably almost the same. His still pumping heart that could spray up to thirty feet if cut at the right valve, might have sprayed to forty in that moment. Had he the ability to use his tongue, he might have said, I miss you or Come back to me or I am sorry, all three of which might have also had meaning several moments prior had the body upon him heard. But neither tongue of one nor ears of the other currently functioned. Instead, Al will slip eventually back into consciousness. He will of course experience shock at the event, and instead of saying anything appropriate upon regaining use of his tongue, will pad around the ground where he fell to find a squashed pack of Marlboros. He will look at the girl, shake his head, and say, “Damn, my smokes.”