After I talked to Maura, I threw myself into my work. I put my shoulder to the wheel, or more specifically to the abdomens of numberless decedents, squeezing out numberless fluids like old tubes of paint, belching out corpse-gas you never really stop smelling. I studied and photographed and logged miles and ran hither and yon, and let Rich drive me until we forgot how hard we were both driving and took staggered vacations to each other without consulting about it, two Personal Days each.
We're big fans of Basic Self Care in our line of work. Taking a Mental Health Day as an ME means much more. We burn out fast. Sometimes we become cases for our contemporaries and paint the walls with our brains. I don't blame. There is no shame here, in the cold light of...
Ah, God, in the cold light of TWENTY THREE HUNDRED HOURS, ISN'T THIS FUCKING GODDAMN THING ON... DECEDENT IS A... WHITE MALE, APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN TOSSED DOWN A VENTILATOR SHAFT, AMERICAN HOTEL SECTION 8 HOUSING. MULTIPLE BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA, NECK BROKEN AT THE HANGMAN'S VERTEBRA, AND A CAST OF ALL-SINGING, ALL-DANCING INTERNAL HEMATOMAS.
IS THIS FUCKING THING ON? AH, GOD, ACROSS HIS BACK, ACROSS THE BACKS OF HIS LEGS, IT'S A COMIC-BOOK, A FUCKING COMIC-BOOK IN SKIN, IN BLOOD, IN INK, IN MEAT, AND AH GOD AH GOD... IT'S HERE, THIS BUILDING, AND THE GUY LOOKS LIKE
Me. But this... can't be... Why is this... How could this... I haven't moved there yet, this isn't for another three months...
Rich keeps a bottle of bourbon in his desk. He thinks I don't know. A shot. Please. Ah. Yeah. (coughs)
Let's review...
(I was seeing this in the panels, on the dead kid's back, and me in the panels was seeing me seeing, acting my reaction...)
I looked up from the panels on the dead kid's hide. Every single one, all the hanging racks of skin, draining away, gone as I watched, unknitting like a memory that should not exist. Then the file was closed, the drawer was closed. The case was open, but the light was swallowing my eyes. I had to rest, and more importantly, I had to remember how to dream...
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Copyright © 2009 by Edward Morris
First Electronic Edition—published 2009/2010
ISBN 978-0-9819882-9-0