SOUL CYCLE

For the first time in his life, Saul was alone.  Why me? he thought, wrestling with God as he sat watching Jeopardy on his pink suede couch.  The void of Judy’s absence made their tiny Queens apartment feel cavernous.  Tonight, Saul’s only company was the wife-shaped crater fossilized onto the cushion beside a growing pile of laundry.  Suddenly aware of his rotten sadness in the reflection of the TV, Saul picked up the laundry basket and walked out the door. 

The air in the laundromat smelled like metal and Dial soap—a welcome respite from the familiar smells of Judy’s lemon verbena still lingering in the apartment.  The fluorescent lights in the laundromat made Saul’s movements look quick and jittery, like he was stuck inside of a 1920s film at the wrong frame rate.   

He emptied his laundry into the machine, dumped in some soap and quarters and walked across the room. From his orange plastic seat bolted to the floor, he watched his T-shirts and blankets swirl behind the circular glass window.  Within minutes, his mind was transported out of the laundromat and into total stillness. Mesmerized, Saul began to hear a familiar voice drift towards him. In his sleepy, grieving delirium, Saul’s dead wife was humming his name. Or at least, that’s who Saul thought he heard—Saul, my dearest! 

As the noises in the room faded, the world narrowed in on Saul and the machine.  Can they hear her, too? He looked to his left at a woman counting quarters. “Did you hear that?” 

“What, sweetheart?”  

The woman smiled at him through yellow teeth.  Saul turned to the manager, a middle-aged balding Russian man, who was leaning against the counter of fabric softeners.

“Sir, can you hear that?”  Saul asked him, gesturing towards the machine.  It’s the one with my dead wife’s voice in it.  

The machine clicked.  The manager let out a sigh.  

“Sir, that clicking means your clothing is ready to dry.  If you need more quarters...” 

Saul felt the room blur around him like fogged glass on a fishbowl.  He knelt down and pressed his ear against the machine. Come on, Judy.  Show, them, baby.  But the only sound behind the glass was dripping water.  Saul hung his head and groaned. 

“You lost your socks, sweetie?” The yellow-toothed woman smiled even wider.

“No, it’s my wife.  She’s gone.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The lady placed her wrinkled hand on Saul’s shoulder.

Saul dropped to his knees at the foot of the machine, as if praying before an altar. 

“It’s okay, I know she’s in there.”

The yellow-toothed lady went pale.  Saul threw his arms around the machine and clung to it like a life raft, as if his embrace would summon Judy’s soul back to life.  Hours passed in the laundromat as Saul swam in and out of dreams where he and Judy were astronauts floating in space. As Saul screamed to Judy through a silent void, his trance was pierced by an angry voice.

“Get off my floor! You have frightened all of my customers! You need to leave!”

Saul lay still on the cold linoleum, longingly stroking the glass face of the machine, sobbing.

“Please…” he whimpered. “If I could just take her home with me.” 

“The washer?” the manager paused and scratched his head, feeling pity for the pathetic man on his floor.  “Fine, take it. You carry it! That piece of junk is going to crap out soon.” 

Saul rose to his feet with tears in his eyes.  Breathing heavily, Saul shoved his foot under the frame of the machine and prepared to carry his wife home.  

“This is much heavier than I expected.”