An Entity and Emily Doliva

It is early evening. The rush hour traffic echoed from downtown into Emily Doliva’s neighborhood. Cars whooshed through the rainy streets. Their headlights reflected in the open water pooling up on empty sidewalks. 

Emily stopped by the market on her way home from her job as a foreclosure administrator and picked up items needed to prepare dinner. 

She knows for sure that her boyfriend Kevin will like this one. He says he likes her cooking, but she is sure he only tells her that to appease her.

Emily pulls up to the walk-up she has rented for the past two years. She notices the same white cat she sees every day, dashing for cover behind the garbage cans. “I forgot to take the trash out again.” She thinks to herself.

Her job has her stressed.

Emily Doliva was a mortgage broker until the economy fell apart. She got laid off, but has now found a position cleaning up the mess that, in her own small way, she helped create. 

“I hate carrying trash down two flights of stairs; maybe I can get Kevin to do it.”

She met Kevin while playing softball for her new company’s softball team. He is short and brooding. But, when he relaxes, he reminds her of members of her extended family. He is of Irish descent, like her mother’s side.

He has black wavy hair and unkempt eyebrows. She makes a mental note to help him groom them before they go out with their friends Tim and Kayla this Saturday. Emily is looking forward to unwinding a bit. It has been far too long.

As she gathers up the groceries, her phone alerts her that she has a text message. “It figures I'd get one now.” 

Emily makes her way up the steps and reaches for the front door with the two free fingers on her right hand. Once she's in, she reaches around and kicks it closed with her left foot. She feels the cool breeze wafting through her townhouse from the slightly opened windows.  

  Her shoes make a squeaking noise as he’s walking across the wooden floor. As she approaches the kitchen, her cat, Mr. Belvedere surprises her as he runs past her feet. 

“I swear, the cat is trying to kill me.” she says under her breath.

Emily puts the groceries down on the island in the kitchen. She takes her wet umbrella and puts it in the bin next to the window.  When she looks at her phone, she reads the message. It’s from Kevin.

“Running a little late. Is there anything that I can pick up?” 

She texts back that she has what she needs. Emily’s a bit relieved. This will give her time to get everything prepared before he gets there.

She heads back into the hallway, takes off her coat and hangs it on the coat rack near the front door. Taking off her work shoes, Emily then puts on shoes designed for nurses. Then she heads back into the kitchen and gets the cutting board and knives for chopping up vegetables.

She turns on her iPad and starts listening to music. 

“A glass of wine sounds good.” Emily says to herself. 

She goes to the refrigerator. Emily gets a bottle of Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay and pours herself a glass. She spills out the grocery bag and starts chopping the onions and peppers.

She’s making spaghetti sauce using the recipe that Kevin’s sister gave her. Emily asked Kevin’s mother for the recipe, but his mom never could seem to give it to her.

Emily used to worry that Kevin’s mother didn't like her. But, after a while, she just chalked it up to the fact that some mothers think no woman is good enough for their son. Emily thought, "If my mom was around, she’d love Kevin."

Emily’s parents separated when she was six. Her dad had disappeared and her mother had passed away two years ago. She wished she had a long-lost sibling that would appear at her front door. Someone Emily could share her life with. Someone she could compare notes with. 

But there wasn’t anyone.

Just Kevin and her cat. They had “people” they went out with, but they were Kevin's acquaintances.

Emily opened up the cabinet and took out her large saucepan. She threw in the ground beef, onion, garlic, and green pepper. She then added diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste into the pan and stirred them in. Oregano, basil, salt, and pepper added for seasoning. 

“This will be good,'' she said to herself.

As Emily thought she could make, bottle and market her own brand of spaghetti sauce, she glimpsed a shadow quickly moving in the corner of her right eye. 

She glanced over to look, but saw nothing. She looked to her left and saw her cat lying on a chair. It couldn’t have been him. As she turned her attention back to the sauce, Emily could sense the air changing in the room. There is a heaviness.

She feels pressure on the back of her neck. Emily raised her hand to her head, as if to feel where the sensation was coming from. Her eyes closed involuntarily. Her head snapped back. She could feel her feet being lifted from the floor.

Through the darkness, she saw colors and electrical impulses. She could feel her body somehow spinning in the air. In a moment, she felt upside down. Blood rushed to her head. Then she felt upright. She could feel her hair was flying wildly. There was at once a sense of coolness, then a feeling of heat as if she was too close to light.

Emily screamed.

She felt herself screaming. She couldn’t hear anything. Preservation had overtaken confusion. Why is this happening? 

What is happening? Emily sensed herself rising to the ceiling. Then a free fall to the floor.

She lay still. There was a distance she felt. It was as if she were there, but detached. From somewhere she heard three beeps. A rush of chilly air enveloped her. Her brain was taking inventory of what was still operational. Faintly, she heard a voice. 

“Emily!?!” 

Photo by mododeolhar: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-white-minidress-3161051/