CONTENT WARNING

The Woman in Room #118

by Au-Co Tran

I stood in front of the building’s glass doors and took out my phone to confirm the address Viv had sent: 496 E 23rd St, #118. 

“A goddamn senior home?” I muttered as I punched in the code Viv had attached in the email. 

My dopamine levels dropped as soon as I stepped into the lobby. There was something of the morgue in the air. The frosted sconce light fixtures and the creamy white wallpapers were trying a bit too hard to create a comforting ambience for the bereaved. 

The hallway leading to #118 seemed to go on and on as a stillness enveloped me so completely, I thought I’d gone deaf. Only the rhythmic rattle of the jar of M&Ms in my pocket broke the silence. 

The door to #118 seemed the only bare door in the hallway. No welcome mat. No dirty flip flops warped into the shape of their owner’s feet. No array of small pots filled with dusty succulents. Nothing to hint at what kind of person lived inside. Except one thing. 

I could smell the tiger balm before I even picked the lock. It took me back to the long bus rides in Việt Nam full of carsick folks who figured the only way to quell the nausea was to douse themselves with tiger balm. Three things always happened in succession on those bus rides: the smell of tiger balm, the raspy sounds of people retching into plastic bags, and lastly, the smell of vomit filling up the closed airspace of the bus. 

When the door to #118 opened, the sickly sweetness of tiger balm hit me in the face like the rotting corpse of a cat stuck in the vents. It fused with smells of cooking and dirty laundry that clung to every surface in the place. However, it was refreshingly lacking in vomit. 

The apartment was a picture of organized chaos. Books rose up in towers from the carpeted floor where there weren’t already overfilled shelves. Empty plastic containers peeked out from cupboards; washed Ziploc bags turned inside out hung on the faucet to dry. There were white rectangles on the walls where the paint hadn’t been yellowed by years of grime and dust; pictures must have hung there until quite recently. 

The surface of the Formica table was scratched and scarred like it had been used primarily as a chopping board instead of a place to eat. Next to it was a solitary folding chair. I fished the bottle of M&Ms from my pocket and placed it at the center of the table. There was something vaguely familiar about this place. The way the books were arranged, crammed into every crevice; the interior design aesthetic that suggested the owner had never met a trash bag they liked nor a piece of trash they disliked. 

The only light came from the lamp on the kitchen counter with a scandalizingly pink lampshade. I crept toward the partially drawn curtains separating the bedroom nook from the rest of the apartment and leaned in. I could see nothing except the silhouette of a figure asleep on the bed, curled up on the far edge as if making room for someone who would never come. 

It would be so easy to stick a syringe filled with potassium chloride through the fabric of her sock, into the sole of her foot. Cardiac arrest, then death, all in a few minutes. But the client had specific instructions. Clients always tried to imbue meaning into the job. A quip. A thing. Something poetic and tragic.

But what they didn’t know was that there was no poetry in death. No meaning. Nothing in this world had meaning, least of all the manner in which we died. This was just another day at the office. Efficiency was all that mattered, not theatrics. 

“They’re paying extra money for this,” Viv had said. 

Of course, they were. 

I crept back into the living room. On the counter, by the lamp, stood a couple pill bottles. Cholesterol, high blood pressure, muscle relaxers, and sleeping pills. Several of the labels warned against using heavy machinery after ingestion. 

Maybe if I waited long enough, she’d finish herself off. 

I sat down on the dining table chair and waited. 

The silence was deafening. It turned the air solid, like a pillow pressing down against my face as a voice whispered to me to stay still and go to sleep. 

Viv said the client requested that the target be informed of her murder before it actually happened, like some kind of trial. It was always people who didn’t have the balls to do the job themselves that demanded so much. 

The client specified M&Ms as well. It wasn’t the strangest thing I’d use to kill someone. As long as I didn’t have to eat it, I didn’t care. 

“Did they specify how we should use the M&Ms?” I had asked. “Or did they trust us to know how to do our jobs there?” 

Viv shrugged. “Don’t think it matters as long as it’s M&Ms.” 

In the end, I chose wolfsbane. Poison was always my preferred method. It was clean, quick. Guns bored me; physical exertion depressed me. The fights never looked as cool in real life as they did in the movies. Real fights were messier, too much clawing beyond the frame for a camera to keep up. 

I had coated the shell of the M&Ms in caramelized wolfsbane extract—you could caramelize almost anything if you knew how—adding a second shell so thin and clear, it was almost imperceptible. 

I stared at the bottle now. The poisoned shell added a shine to the M&Ms that seemed to glow in the light, equal parts mesmerizing and nauseating. 

I hadn’t eaten M&Ms in nearly twenty years. But I could still feel the broken edges of the hard shells grinding against my teeth as if it was only yesterday. 

We always had peanut M&Ms around my mother’s house when I was a kid. In jars, bowls, Ziploc bags. She was addicted to them the way others were addicted to cigarettes. Every few days, she’d send me to the convenience store a block away to buy a family sized bag. 

That last day, I had gotten regular M&Ms because the peanut ones were out. The store owner assured me they were getting a new delivery in a couple days. She said, “Tell mama I’ll call when it arrives.” I left the store armed with the woman’s assurance. 

My mother accepted the regular M&Ms without a word and placed it on the kitchen table. Then she drove us to Costco, which was unusual because we only went once every two months to stock up on necessities. But I didn’t question it; I never questioned. I didn’t question why, on that day, the only thing we bought was the 17 oz jar of peanut M&Ms so heavy, I had to carry it with both hands. 

When we got home, she sat me down at the kitchen table, the jar between us, and asked, “What kind of M&Ms are these?”

I looked at her, perplexed, and said, “Peanut M&Ms, mama.” 

She smiled at me. 

“Good girl.” 

A cool relief washed over me. 

She picked up the bag of regular M&Ms from earlier and tore off one of the corners, then tipped a few out into the palm of her hand. She popped them in her mouth, and the shells clicked together against her cheek. 

My mother was a classic Vietnamese beauty. Well in her forties at the time, she was still able to turn heads in the streets. That day, over the tub of peanut M&Ms, she looked radiant. Her bright almond eyes, wild hair, and the glow of the afternoon sun against her skin made her seem otherworldly. 

I wanted nothing more than to be her. 

“Have some,” she said, dipping perfectly manicured fingers into the Costco jar and clawing out a handful of M&Ms. She dropped them onto the table and they clattered across the surface. Some rolled off onto the floor. 

“Leave them,” she said when I made to get up. “Eat.” 

I obediently put a couple in my mouth. I’d never really liked chocolate. 

“During the war,” my mother said, face puckering as she sucked air through her teeth to keep chocolate from flying out her mouth as she shoveled handfuls of the regular M&Ms into her face, “American medics gave soldiers who had mortal wounds M&Ms instead of morphine to save supplies.” 

I swallowed my chocolate and longed, desperately, for a glass of water. 

“An American G.I. loved me once,” she said wistfully, “He gave me peanut M&Ms after the last time we made love. He shipped out the next day.” 

I watched her, rubbing my tongue against the roof of my mouth trying to generate some saliva. 

“Eat, darling,” she said, taking out another handful of M&Ms from the jar and pushing them towards me. 

I put one in my mouth and sucked, hoping the melted chocolate would quench my thirst just a little. 

She continued, “Nothing compared to that first taste. They’re magic, M&Ms.” Her voice lowered dreamily. “They must be if they’re used to ease the pain of death.” She looked at me. “I wonder if they could have eased the pain of birth.” 

A knot formed at the center of my chest as I chewed and I couldn’t explain why. “Eat,” she repeated sharply, pushing the jar at me. Some rolled off the table and onto the floor before I could catch them. 

Suddenly, she was by my side, prying my mouth open. For a moment, I froze, stunned. Then I tried to push her away. My screams muffled. She yanked my hair and jerked my head back. I chewed as fast as I could to clear space for the M&Ms being shoved into my mouth. The inside of my cheeks, cut against my teeth and the edges of the candy shells, tore open when she slapped me, punched me, again and again. Drool, blood, chocolate avalanched from my lips like a waterfall. 

She released me when I began to cough violently, specks of brown flinging out. When my breathing slowed to shuddering gasps, she sat back down, panting, and repeated, “Eat.”

I didn’t move. 

She said, “You can eat on your own or I can force it down your throat.” 

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, then picked up a blue M&M that had rolled to a stop in front of me and put it in my mouth. 

Her eyes were bright. “You won’t get the wrong kind ever again, will you?”

I shook my head. 

“Good girl,” she smiled. 

It took me four hours to finish the whole jar. When the jar was empty, she made me get on my hands and knees to eat the ones on the floor. 

After a while, the candy tasted like nothing. 

When the M&Ms were gone, she got up, shook out a few sleeping pills from one of her bottles, tossed them in her mouth and washed them down with water. She turned off the lights, and went to bed without a word. 

I sat at the table for the rest of the night, not getting up even for a sip of water, not sleeping, just sitting, waiting. Because I hadn’t been dismissed. 

She gifted me many other scars. But nothing stuck like that jar of M&Ms. Now, I stretched my legs out and yawned. If it wasn’t for all this waiting, the M&Ms, the unpleasant flashback, this would have been an easy job. 

“Are you here to kill me?” a hoarse voice said. I jumped. 

The woman was standing by the curtains. An old baby blanket with a dark red stain dangled from her hand. 

A jolt of recognition rushed through me. Then, a cold panic flooded my veins. For a second, I was back at that table in front of that Costco jar of peanut M&Ms. Without her dentures, she was barely recognizable. When she closed her mouth, her lips sunk into her skull and sucked her face inwards. 

Her eyes were clouded. How long did it take for sleeping pills to wear off? How long before you were you again? 

“It really is you,” she said, twisting the blanket in her hands. 

Something in my peripheral caught my eye; I didn’t know how I missed it. On the floor, next to the dining table, was a stack of picture frames. At the top of the pile was a photo of three people. I saw myself around five years old, bangs plastered across my forehead. My hand, much too small, gripped hers. Beside us, with his arm around my shoulder, was Goofy. “Do you remember that trip to Disneyland?” she asked, watching me. 

I didn’t want to. But I did. I remembered every day of my childhood. 

“You lured me here,” I said, the violent urge to vomit boiling up. 

We were predator and prey. But who was what? I was frozen. She swayed as if on a boat bobbing in the middle of the ocean. 

“How are you?” I asked, not knowing what else to say. 

She shrugged and leaned against the wall. “Old. Changed.” 

“Not all changed,” I said, nodding towards the pills on the counter. 

She dismissed the remark with the flick of her hand. 

“Those are nothing.” Her concave mouth grimaced into a smile. 

My stomach turned.

“Don’t tell me you kept that for sentimental value,” I said, looking at the blanket clasped between her two palms as if in prayer. 

She looked down and fumbled with the edges. She held it in front of her by two corners so that her face was obscured. 

“It’s the only thing I have left of you,” she said. 

She examined the dark stain. “I could never get this stain out.” She rubbed the spot with a clean part of the blanket as if she hoped this time it would disappear. “Strawberry jam from Dalat, remember? You spilled it everywhere.” 

She walked over to the kitchen counter, and tossed the blanket on the table. I flinched. 

She reached for the plastic denture container on the counter and popped the teeth into her mouth, smacked her lips a couple of times. Her face rearranged itself. Her chest heaved with the physical exertion of walking. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice said, Get up, give her the chair. 

I leaned back, crossed my legs, and studied her. Her hair hung down to her waist in matted clumps, the tips yellow-orange from an old bleach job. Her cheeks were puffy and her clouded eyes were lined in wrinkles. Peeking out from under her hair, I saw the scars from botched facelifts carving out the contour of her cheekbones. 

“You’re beautiful,” she said between deep breaths. “You look just like—” 

“Who wants you dead?” I interrupted, knowing the answer. 

“You do,” she said. 

“I don’t think about you at all,” I said. I pushed the bottle of M&Ms towards her. “This is for you.” 

She moved closer and picked it up. A smirk on her lips. 

“You haven’t learned your lesson, bé. It’s still the wrong kind.” 

“Is it?” I hoped my voice exuded the indifference I was struggling to maintain. She looked at me, disappointed. “You know they are. I had requested it specifically.”

“It wasn’t in the memo,” I said. 

She smiled as she unscrewed the cap and poured the M&Ms onto the table. My skin crawled at her nearness, my heart in my throat, threatening to choke me. She ate one M&M at a time, slow and deliberate. 

When she began to cough, the air punching its way out of her chest was brutal and unforgiving. I handed her a nearly empty glass of water on the table. We touched when she took it from me, her soft fingers against my calloused ones. 

After a few minutes, the coughs subsided. She leaned back against the counter and panted. 

“Eat,” I said. There were only a handful left. 

She gathered what remained in the palm of her hand and tossed them in her mouth. The sound of her fake teeth grinding against the hard shell of the chocolate was nails against a chalkboard. 

She washed the last of the chocolate down with the water, then doubled over, palms flat against the table. 

“I’m sorry, bé,” she said so quietly, I almost didn’t hear. 

Her hand reached and closed around my own unexpectedly. I jerked it away.

We used to go to the flea market every Sunday when I was a child. Mariachi music played as we rifled through the broken things, my hand in hers. Her fingers always felt too loose around my own. I’d squeeze as hard as I could so I wouldn’t lose her in the crowd; I used to have nightmares about losing her. 

She collapsed onto her knees, struggling to breath. 

“Con gái của mẹ,” she gasped pathetically. “Mẹ xin lỗi con.” 

I stood up so quickly, the chair fell over with a loud bang. She vomited at my feet, narrowly missing my shoes. 

“Con bé xinh đẹp dễ thương của mẹ,” she called out, her voice surprisingly strong. The Vietnamese words from her lips, gentle and loving, made me want to rip my skin from my body. I closed my eyes. 

“Bé ơi,” she called again and again, until an inhuman gurgling sound bubbled from her lips and distorted her words. Then she was still. 

I opened the door, and stepped out into the clean air of the hallway. The last thing I saw before the door closed were her wide shining eyes on me, hands stretched out, nails jagged and broken. The baby blanket had fallen partially over her face, the stain hidden under the folds. 

I leaned against the wall just outside #118. The doleful lights painted me in gloom, but a buoyancy bloomed at the pit of my stomach. 

I turned my head towards the end of the hallway where the EXIT sign glowed. The carpet stretched out beyond that EXIT sign, beyond the walls of this building full of waiting and dying, beyond the past, beyond the scars and the hatred, beyond anything I’d ever known.