Alive and Dead in Ohio by Jimmy Frohman

Some refer to my death as a certainty, using words like remembrance and memoriam. Others talk about me like I’m still here, chumming around at my old home bar, The Spokenfore. My buddy Elliot buys me a Sam Adams and drives me home after I have one too many. The bartender keeps my debit card because, as always, I forget to close out my tab.

It’s an odd feeling. I can’t go inside the house. I linger on the porch, watching my old life play without me. My wife misses me. I see her flipping through my old cookbooks, not cooking but touching the food-speckled pages of lasagne bolognese and stracotto. She doesn’t cry, but I wonder if she is trying to remember something just out of reach. My kids seem to have already forgotten me, as their new dad slides right into the space I left behind. I never met him, but I watch him fly my son around the house like an airplane. That used to be our game. New Dad and I have the same glasses. Same beard.

My mom barely remembers the adult version of me. Last time I knocked on her door, I peeked inside only to see she unpacked all my baby pictures. She hung them on every wall and propped them on every table. Some, she scattered across the floor like confetti. My dad steps on them like swathes of carpet from couch to bed and back. Her routine hasn’t changed. Soap operas, cigarettes, coffee, dinner. I can knock all day, and she’ll never answer the door. 

My job at the fishery still pays me for the work I do. For eight hours a day, I lop the heads off carp and walleye. That flat blade chopping through flesh and bone could be the work of a machine—or the dead. The fish smell used to stick to me like a shadow, coating my clothes and hair, but not anymore. Gloria, my coworker of a decade, still does the descaling way better than I do. She is a little older than the last time we spoke, but even she hasn’t shown proof that she knows I’m still next to her. She was always one to keep her head down. 

After work—that’s where my real problem lies. I am too dead for home. Too alive to float away. I return to The Spokenfore, instead. Elliot buys me a drink or two. We don’t talk. I watch college football on the TVs until he drives me home. I hang around my old front door, watching the goodnights and the goodmornings. 

Then I return to the fishery where my name is still on the schedule. 

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JIMMY FROHMAN — Jimmy is a writer from Youngstown, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two children. He spends his days as a technical writer and writing instructor. His writing explores the boundaries of horror, folklore, and the uncanny nature of American life. You can find his previously published work at Macabre Magazine and upcoming at Neon & Smoke. 

Art by ABEL JOHNSON THUNDIL — Abel is a research scholar at the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Central University of Kerala, India. He has written a novel and an anthology of poems. His works have appeared in The Hooghly Review, Terror House Magazine, Lothlorien poetry journal, etc. When he is not working on his PhD or writing, he loves to create art, although Flash Frog is the first venue where he has presented his work publicly.