The case of five murderers.

July 20th 2020 I stared at the stretched form in front of me as my gloved fingers traced the smooth skin which was the colour of death. I peered closely at her open blue eyes which still shone with a strange intensity and wiped off the little tears that clung to the corners of her eyes. She was very beautiful, with her soft features and beautiful auburn hair reaching out for her hips. I poked the long shrapnel which protruded from the centre of her heart, it seemed almost proper like thorns among roses; her, the rose and it, the thorn. My gaze shifted back to her face, there was a certain innocence about it which was almost addictive. Her lips were as cherry blossoms; red and full, the shrapnel had killed her instantly, rendering incomplete the sigh which left her lips parted open. I didn’t wish to cry, no, that would be a first but somehow I felt my eyes swimming for a reason I couldn’t fathom. Maybe it was because she was gone, but no, she was as unfamiliar as the next body i would examine. maybe it was her eyes, puffy and red from crying yes, but still it held on to its charm. I lifted my right hand to close her eyes, but half way through the journey I halted, somehow she looked more alive than she had ever been and her eyes, silent but watching let me dive deep into her being. The whispers came and I welcomed them as I had always done for the past fifteen years, for they were memories of each body which lay before me, a link to their life and an answer to their death. Hers’ clung to her body as though willing it to come back to life, they were almost chaotic with each pitch louder than the last and as always, I wondered how I wasn’t insane yet or maybe I was, who knows?. The whispers grew louder with excitement, each beckoning me to listen to their tale ‘here is how it started’ one told me ‘it started days ago, maybe ten’ another said ‘oh hush, it started the day she was born’ said the most impatient one ‘pay them no heed, close your eyes and listen, we are about to take you on a journey’ and before my very eyes, the whispers, like a diary, became motion pictures of her life. July 11th 2020 On this day the doctor confirmed that she was with a child. ‘Pregnant?’ said her class teacher who took her faint self to the clinic. He stared at her teenage frame, his shock mirroring hers ' how?’ he asked. Dumfounded, she stood with tears running down her eyes as she walked towards the exit. He followed her, offering calm words of reassurance she couldn’t hear, it was as though her ears were drowning, for she heard nothing, it was as though, she was dead for she felt nothing. She felt aimless as she circled round the park for the 6th time that hour, the teacher left after the 3rd time leaving her in solitude. ‘What would mama say’ she thought, she would probably be sober enough to listen on the 8th month ‘what I am to do? . Tired, she sat on a bench, with her auburn hair swaying around her immaculate frame. The father of this child, she had no clue. It was too dark to see the beast that pounded away her virginity and left her with a child. Definitely, she knew it was one of mama’s clients; maybe it was Damien, the one who lived in a fancy house with his fancy wife and two kids, no, it couldn’t be for the beast –as she preferred to call him- had hair on his head. Maybe it was Simon, he had always looked at her funny, no, this wasn’t right either; for his braces would have caused much more damage than the teeth marks had done. She had lost herself that night, oh she did, for before my very eyes I saw her life crumble. She cried as loud as her voice would let her but mama didn’t come to her aid, not like she had ever come. She was as close as the adjoining room but she was as far away as her drinks carried her, sailing her on a cruise of oblivion. July 12th 2020. Tired and stiff-necked from spending the night on the bench in the park, she walked slowly, thankful for the first time that Mama didn’t notice her absence ‘pat? Are you back already?’ mama’s slurry voice said ‘is that my Father’s name?’ she retorted, her sadness slowly fading into the warm notes of anger. She stomped into Mama’s room, her tiredness forgotten while bracing herself to face the tired and worn out older version of herself. She found her passed out on the blue rug, nursing a bottle of whiskey in her embrace and somehow she envied the bottle. ‘When last have i felt Mama’s embrace? What did it smell like? Did it do all i hoped it could? Would it wipe away years of neglect? Maybe it would tell her who her Father was’ she thought as she inched closer to Mama. Slowly, she lay on the rug making sure her hair was out of the way. She stared at the face very much like her own and wished she knew what it felt like to see that face shine with maternal love. She removed the bottle and placed her head where it had been. Sighing, she breathed into the stuffy, whiskey smell of Mama. She smiled, elated for as far as she could remember this was the closest she had ever been to Mama. Closing her eyes, she dreamt of a life without Mama’s drunken rage and her Father’s absence, a life without having to starve for days or resort to begging for food, a life without the scars that tattooed her back from the beatings she received from Mama’s clients who poorly tried to play the Father figure. Mama turned her back to her, bringing her musing to an end, even in her sleep, Mama still rejected her. Accompanied by this thought, she cried herself to sleep. July 13th 2020 He said she looked a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day and she believed. Why wouldn’t she?, if he had said her mama was as sober as a nun, she would have still believed for his lips spun tales coated in raw honey which soothed her nerves and made her heart beat a tad faster. Although that was when they were twelve, she still felt her heart beat the exact same way they had when he said those words five years ago right before she had her first kiss. ‘It has been ages’ he said, his lips housing a smile that showed off his dimples. Have you ever had this feeling where you’ve only met someone for a few minutes but you feel like you have known them forever? No, I haven’t either but that was the way she felt as Jason and her strode into the local dinner with her, grateful for his attention and him, recounting his experiences with a contagious liveliness. She felt that this was it, the love she had seen in movies, the one she was sure that was to come to her eventually and backed up by its accompanying ecstasy, she lived that night more than she had in her entire life. July 14th 2020 It was as though the mysterious romantic blues she swore played in the background stopped the moment she said she was pregnant. His eyes became saucers and he moved away from the bed as though her hair had turned to snakes. The previous night had been wonderful; she took her first sip of a beer and threw it back out 3 seconds later, she relived the taste of his lips and traced the stars in the night sky like they had nothing better to do. He walked her up to her door and walked her right back to his truck 2 hours later, taking her to his home when the silence of hers’ became almost deafening. ‘I’m not back for good, I will be here long enough to attend pat’s wedding tomorrow’ he said, barely meeting her eyes. ‘I don’t want to start something......’he trailed off when he saw the tear clouds gathering in her eyes. ‘Please don’t misunderstand’ he said as she made her way towards the door, blinded by her tears. Her eyes searched through the liquor cabinet the moment she got home ‘what would she need to take to sail on the clouds Mama was on a daily.....whisky? Rum?’. Retreating to her room with the two bottles in her embrace, she searched for the cure to her pain at the bottom of both bottles. July 15th 2020 ‘did i misunderstand the look in his eyes?’ she thought through the almost blinding headache, maybe if she had looked close enough she would have seen the lust in his eyes or maybe she had but she didn’t understand. She felt tiny pebbles slip from underneath the sole of her trainers and heard them fall into the water beneath the cliff she stood on. She stared at the ripples it created, smiling at their short-lived beauty. She walked a bit closer to the cliff wondering how long it would take for Mama to discover that she was missing, maybe four months, when she had run short of liquor. The lady at the store, had she lived up till now, might have discovered a day after and probably Jason would, if he stopped by to say goodbye after the wedding. She rubbed her stomach and peered at the dark soulless water beneath, ‘I’m sorry’ she whispered to the life inside her. ‘I’m just like Mama, ripping the life off a child before even giving it a chance to bloom’ she said, her voice breaking into sobs. ‘Ninety percent of people who jump from a cliff regret it the moment their feet leaves the ground’ said a voice behind her, causing her to almost fall forward. The newcomer held on to her hand and together they fell back. ‘What a wonderful way to meet someone’ the new person said. She had a thick dark green hair which stopped just under her ears and coated with black lipstick were her lips which smiled from one ear to the other. The girl whose name was sally got up, dusted her bottom and stretched her hands towards her ‘you don’t fancy staying here forever, do you?’. Sally walked her back home, she kept her distance with her hands about her as though shielding herself from the unknown, from her distance she stared at the bamboo tree tattoo which ran down Sally’s left arm. ‘You look a little green princess’ sally said reaching out to touch her forehead. She shrunk from her touch ‘I had alcohol, I will be fine’ she said, ignoring the headache, she ran all the way home. July 16th 2020 She awoke with a start. ‘What was that rigid cold thing her head was on? Where was she?’ her confused expression question. She looked around and spotted from the bed, the familiar blue rug which lay on the ground. Her sigh of relief was immediately replaced with a pang ‘she was in Mama’s room’. She swept her hair off her face and stared at her Mama, she reached out and brushed her forehead lightly- they were cold. Accompanied with the thought of making Mama a cup of tea she strode downstairs hoping there would be as much as a bag of tea left. With a tray of steaming cup of tea and days old bagel she found in the fridge she strode into Mama’s room with a warm feeling within her. Setting the tray on a peeling brown stool close by, she held Mama's shoulders and shook it a little at first, then more firmly after a few seconds of no response. 'Mama' she said for what felt like the hundredth time that second. Slowly, she rose her head from Mama's chest after close to ten seconds of feeling no heart beat. Mama was gone. Without as much as as thought, she ran all the way to the cliff praying to God that sally would be there. July 17th 2020 'Don't tell me you slept here said Sally to a curled up form of her. She stretched like a cat while taking in her surroundings, she squinted her puffy eyes to focus, as though trying to recall a fuzzy event 'Mama' she said when it finally hit her. Tears clogged her being, almost suffocating her. She tried to move but everywhere hurt, her heart included. 'my baby' she muttered standing up suddenly, startling a confused Sally 'whoa there tiger' sally said 'do you need .......' sally started to say but paused to catch her midway to her fall. She awoke to Sally gentling pressing a cold wet towel on her forehead 'you have a fever' sally said, replacing the towel with an even colder one. She shivered and as her stomach rumbled, she thought of her baby as she stroked her tummy. 'Right, you would need food seeing that you went all cave girl last night and slept in the open. What was that about?' 'Mama's gone' she said, with tears as if on cue, falling freely from her eyes. With a full tummy and in a slightly less bereaved mood, she told Sally first about Jason, chuckling a little when Sally threatened to set his car on fire and frowning a bit when sally commented on her beauty for when Mama wasn't on booze, she was spitting facts about life and on one occasion she said 'beauty brings you nothing but trouble, look what it did to me'. Next, more slowly than the previous topic, she told her about the pregnancy. Sally cussed for close to a minute while she watched her bewildered for never had anyone gotten angry on her behalf -well save for that lady from the store, God bless her soul. And after sally took two Swigs of vodka to calm down, she told her to get an abortion. 'It's simple' sally said, 'I know a doctor, it would take a day to arrange......don't worry about the money he won't ask for it, at least not after he hears your story' July 18th 2020 ‘Bless me Father for I am about to sin’ she said the minute her knees touched the ground. The priest made a surprised sound but she carried on, wanting to say it all before she lost courage. She started from the first moment she could remember. With a voice betraying the turmoil in her she recounted the moments leading to her present predicament. She felt weak but she wouldn’t cry ‘it is enough that I’m airing my linens in public, would I also give up my dignity? Though I doubt I have any left’ she thought. She carried on, pausing only for a few seconds to catch a breath, ignorant of the turmoil she stirred in the Priests mind ‘ maybe we could discuss this face to face’ He said, ‘I would ask the steward to get ready a warm bath and a nice meal’. When she declined, he spoke to her calmly like a father would and after he was done, she bid him adieu. July 19th 2020 On this day she looked like a dream, her hair and yellow summer dress played with the wind while she stood outside of the hospital wearing a confused look as the priest’s word echoed in her thoughts, ‘am i better off keeping the child? Would the child end up like me?’ she thought with tears rolling down her cheeks. Oblivious of her surrounding, she traced and retraced her steps- two steps forward and two steps backwards- when suddenly, the ground beneath her shook, she turned just in time to see the car on the other side of the road burst into flames and just in time, for a shrapnel to fly straight into her heart. July 20th 2020 I blinked and it was all gone; her smile, her pain, her memories and youth. I was still in the lab, accompanied by my solace, the ticking clock adjacent to where I stood and the breath-taking beauty whose life and death I had just witnessed. I pulled the sheet back on her face and walked back to my table but not before I lightly caressed her hair and let a few drops of my tears fall freely. ‘her death to an onlooker would be ruled out as an accident, just another unfortunate victim of a car explosion, a simple case of wrong place at the wrong time’ I wrote on my report book, pausing briefly to take a sip from the already cold coffee ‘but was it really?, would we rule out such a major incident as minor?, maybe her mom was her killer; had she made the right choices the events leading to her death would have been avoided. Or maybe it was Jason; if he had loved her hard enough she wouldn’t have wanted an abortion in the first place. It could also have been sally, who advised her to procure an abortion, thus giving her a reason to be at the hospital at that time. Should we also point fingers at the priest who if not for his advice she wouldn’t have stood outside of the hospital, contemplating for an extended period of time. Finally should we blame the car owner? It was his car that exploded, wasn’t it?.