The most unforgivable thing I’ve done that didn’t involve sex or lying was today, I was wiping the track before the next train and this man was squelched black in bone tatters in the middle, and I heaved down my mop and a bucket of water and I mopped at red chunks at the edges of the track until they slid into the brown chunks pooling from him. The train whinged in as I drove home.

Another janitor once stayed six hours late on a Friday waiting for the cops and medics to call it a suicide and take the body, and that’s before he spent another two hours cleaning it. Today, Emma was pissed at me, and I don’t think she would’ve been home or my girlfriend another eight hours alone. She said it’d be the last time, the last time, then I did it again.

I didn’t see it as anything. She didn’t remember the day we met either, but when we got serious she said let’s pick one to celebrate our love forever, and I said okay, and she said one last year and I forgot it then, and yesterday.  

I told her this morning, after she yelled that I was careless and evil, our love to me was an every-day thing and if she wanted to really celebrate I could sure think of a real good way. I laughed but she didn’t. I left for work. Then the corpse, and the train I could’ve stopped from plowing it like, well, a living man. Then coming home, and Emma yelling more. I said I couldn’t think of anything about us I’d ever hate her for forgetting. She yelled that made me evil too. Yes, and I was yelling.

A guy died on the tracks, I yelled. He meant to. And I let the next train plow his corpse so you’d still love me. I’ll never forget our anniversary again because it’s yesterday, and if I forget today, the body and that crushing procession passing over it, then I’m evil.

I looked at her, waiting for something. I hoped she would forgive me. I waited for her to forgive me. I could do no good ever again for anyone until she forgave me. She did, without really meaning it, but she did. The whole world runs on love, and love runs on forgivenesses like this. It’s doomed and I forgive it.