Short Prose Another Awkward Situation Elizabeth Connaughton So you are riding the train from New York to Baltimore and the gently rocking motion causes you to close your magazine, lean your head against the window and fall asleep. You dream of a field of magnolia trees. They are as tall as skyscrapers and equally spaced in rows. At the top of each tree is a brightly colored ribbon, and you are swinging in wide circles from tree to tree, like a graceful chimp and then you notice the whole magnolia forest is full of people swinging. You all wave to each other as you pass by. One man, who looks like the boy you loved circa 1983, gives you a high five and the sting in your fingers wakes you up.           When you wake up, you're not sure where you are and you see the landscape moving steadily past you in the fogged up window and then you notice a handsome man sitting beside you. You try to check your mouth for drool, but your hand is still tingling and you can't seem to lift either arm. You try to shift in your seat so your knee or thigh or elbow will brush up against the man and maybe he will lift his head from his book and smile at you. But you cannot shift. Your whole body is asleep, but you are awake. You are definitely awake. There is the conductor leaning over a seat a few rows ahead. The clicking of his hole puncher. The smell of a cinnamon roll and coffee and the rush of cold as the door between trains hushes open, then closes.           And then in the hush of the door and the thud of a dropped suitcase, in a tiny black hole beneath your brain, you realize you are dead. You have died in your sleep from something unbeknownst to you but what will later be discovered, after some medical intern has sawed into your skull, a cerebral hemorrhage.           So you are dead but aware enough to notice the handsome man next to you and you find this puzzling because it goes against your preconceived notions of death. Though now you're not exactly sure what your notions of death were. Honestly, you never really stopped to consider what it would be like to be dead. And you think back to that time in the bathtub when you were shaving your legs while two aromatherapy candles flickered on the side of the tub next to the tile. How you had thought about the razor slipping out of your hand and accidentally slicing your wrist. But you didn't really think about death then. You wondered much more about what would make you have such a thought and did you secretly want to kill yourself and should you call that therapist your friend has been seeing, the one who wants your friend to forgive herself more. Yes, you should forgive yourself more.           But are you in any position to forgive yourself now? Is anyone going to forgive you? Jesus? And you feel silly for ever having had those thoughts of the universe being connected and how you1re made of the same energy as a blade of grass. Energy. What a stupid word. Like justice and freedom and faith. Okay, maybe not faith. Maybe you should rethink that. Though you fear if there is a God, He probably would have shown up by now and you feel a pang of disappointment, like you've been stood up on some blind date.           It sure is a good thing you're dead or you might end up talking to thi man and he would see what a complete neurotic woman you are and then he would leave. Not to mention what he would think if he figured out you were dead. Or worse, what if he was clueless and you had to be the one to tell him? How awkward! When would be a good time? After sex? Can you still have sex? And then the black hole opens wide before you because you figure you probably can't have sex anymore. When was the last time you had sex? You definitely did not have enough. If you get reincarnated, you will try to have more sex in your next life. How long will you have to wait though? Is thirteen a respectable age? If only you could get to your purse and grab the pen sticking out of the side pocket next to the unfinished crossword. Then you could write this resolution down somewhere on yourself, and you wouldn't forget, even after your parents in your next life tell you that sex is something only married adults share.           Of course, there is always the possibility you are having a breakdown. Should you say something to the handsome man? Can you? You try: "Pardon me, but do I seem dead to you?" And your voice ricochets around your dark skull. Thunder in a canyon. The man does not respond. You are definitely being punished. You remember a story of a man who was trapped up to his neck in a frozen lake for eternity and a branch heavy with grapes hung next to his face and the lake's surface just beneath his chin was not ice but cold water. Each time he stretched his mouth toward food or drink, they shrank from him and remained perpetually out of reach.           Yes, you are definitely being punished. But, for what? You think back on your life. Stolen gum. Infidelities. Lies. But your big, punishable sins elude you like trying to think of your favorite movie right on the spot when someone asks you. The blackness in your skull widens, and you look outside the window and the power lines fly past like dancers performing a perfectly timed routine. You would have liked to have been a dancer. Instead you were in advertising and sold stuffed crust pizza to people who probably did not need more cheese in their diet. You will miss cheese.           You hope you don't smell. Surely you won't decompose in public. You shake off the thought and study the man sitting next to you. He is reading a book with diagrams of insects. You want him to feel your stare. He will look at you any moment now and smile or raise an eyebrow curiously and you will tell your children one day that you met like this on the train. He will say, "Your mother thought she was dead." And you will interrupt him, saying not to besmirch your name in front of the kids.           That is odd, you think. You never used the word 'besmirch' in your life. Of this one thing you are certain. You may not know if you are dead or alive but by God, you know your vocabulary! Where did it come from? Your cab ride to the train station? No besmirching there. Maybe a lame tip but all you had was two ones and a five. Before that, you had been at your grandmother's house eating breakfast and promising to return soon. Your black pants feel tight and you wish you could unbutton them. What you really wish is that the handsome man sitting next to you would unbutton them. But he just stares at his bugs. You never imagined one day you would be hoping the stranger sitting next to you was a necrophiliac.           What is most embarrassing is the stranger will figure it out. Even if he gets off at Wilmington, he will read the paper or see it on TV that he was riding next to a dead woman on the train. And you will never be able to overcome exposing so naked a part of yourself. Dying next to a stranger is like crying next to one. But this is certainly worse.           But what if he doesn't recognize you? What if they show that picture from four years ago that your parents love? You are sitting on a park bench with your hair blowing off your face. Your hair was dyed red then. You thought it would be cool to have red hair just once. The stranger will see that picture of you and have no idea this was the woman he was sitting next to on the train. He will live the rest of his life unaffected and now you are sad. Not because you will never get married or have children to have your name besmirched in front of. Not because you will never again feel the rise of goose bumps from a song you're hearing for the first time. And not because you have been stood up by God. No. You are sad because this stranger will never know you, and because after thirty-two years of life, this one fact is the shape of your regret. (Elizabeth Connaughton entered the graduate writing program at Sarah Lawrence in the fall of 1998. After four workshops, one pregnancy and thirteen months of struggling to raise a well-adjusted yet dapper son, Elizabeth has just submitted her thesis in completion of her MFA. "Another Awkward Situation" is from her thesis.)