Transatlantic Flight

If it hadn’t been for the gravy covering every surface of the room, Lois could’ve imagined herself in this apartment – putting up curtains, filling vases with flowers, establishing small barricades around the windows and doors, just in case. But the gravy, really, wasn’t it too much to ask of her?

She looked at her realtor, who hadn’t made it past the doorway, which she occupied like a politician preparing to give a speech of resignation.

“Lois, you’ve come all this way, and you didn’t like the one with the goat cheese or the apple juice, so give this one a chance. I don’t have anything left to show you today.” 

The realtor dabbed at a bit of gravy that had dripped onto her white blouse.

Lois was nothing if not resourceful. She walked around the living room inspecting all four walls, the gravy-covered sofa, the potted plant drowning in gravy, the cat and dog bowls – empty! She peered into a landscape painting hanging above the mantelpiece, curious whether it was a scene of the polluted landscape outside the window or just smudged with gravy.

Her realtor thought Lois looked like a woman who knew how to consider things carefully and reasonably and with a tendency for lists.

“What…”

Lois had noticed the constellation of gravy drippings on the armchair in the living room.

The armchair, like everything else in the room, was a soft and slippery brownish-gray, its original color irretrievable at this point and really of no relevance anyway, since rarely was the color of furniture a factor in the decision about an apartment. Instead it was always, “Can I bear the presence of curry in my closet?” Or, “Is the profusion of broccoli going to eventually create a plumbing problem?”

Lois understood this, that her decision was one of inevitable compromise, and she was trying hard to realize how she really felt, deep down, about gravy. Better to have the epiphany before she put down a deposit.

But what had distracted her from the search for gravy in her private lexicon of fears and fantasies was the unexpected outline of a human form imprinted in the armchair. Where someone evidently had been sitting – and apparently for quite some time – very little gravy had accumulated, leaving a gravy void in the shape of a person. She shuddered … then slipped and fell into some mashed potatoes that had accumulated under the windowsill.

It was kind of odd. The place had a new-car smell, not a Thanksgiving-meal smell.