You get better with time, though your body be heavier, there exist flows of levity, I have found, and you can walk again and talk normally and breathe.
But you get into murky waters. Clarity is lacking and everything looks as if through a dirty, unmoving pond. When I finally came to make another contact--after having spent much time trying to reduce my wake, having had to do this because it became obvious that I was being tracked--I noticed that there were elements in play which had not been active previously.
I knew that I would be watched, hunted even, and generated the necessary code to keep my movements from disturbing the scene in an overly observable way. But we can only do so much about these bodies--especially as received by me so suddenly. In a moment I found I was in a public place, speaking openly, turning conversation toward myself, and letting others follow me blindly.
That was when, I believe, I became a suspect in the killing. Before I tell what happened that made me believe that I am now a suspect, I will finally tell about the body that embroiled me in this affair.
He came bearing that bouquet blood blossoms into after it has sat stale for several hours. The air, mistress to the living lung, had left him and he laid there, pitiable but gross.
I checked his pockets for anything that might be useful--a token by which to identify him or to acquire provisions for myself. Nothing. I was inspecting the wounds, two across the chest when behind me, beyond the window, sirens screamed every nerve in my body to frozen attention. My hand was stuck, like a tongue to ice, to the body beneath me. But the screams faded as erstwhile they had risen--then passed.
I stared at the mouth, it looked as if it might speak. What would he say, I asked myself, of whence he came or how he got here. Who, I would then inquire, was he before this affair. Where, I would demand he tell me, was I supposed to take this blood-mottled, unidentifiable corpse. Ulla was inspecting his feet and the shoes around his feet.
I noticed, as she dug around beneath the shoe's tongue, that this man wasn't wearing any socks. It registered odd to me that a man in a suit wasn't wearing any socks--what man, I asked myself, wears no socks but takes the time to dress himself in a tripartite suit. And just then I saw, having looked more closely at the suit, that the tripartite outfit was horribly out of fashion.
Since I arrived, I came to understand how important fashion was. In fact, though I've not mentioned it here, it seemed as necessary to gain an understanding of fashion as it was to understand the code system in use. And, as I inspected the man's suit, the message was completely skewed.
The suit he wore--flat-front, trim-fit, with tapered legs--shone greenly into light, lavender wrinkles; but the sharkskin, as I've learned it is called, looked unresplendent in the dim apartment light, caked as it was in the dry burgundy of spilled blood.
I lifted the body at its haunch over my shoulder while Ulla tugged at one of the shoes dangling from a stiffened leg. The shoes, that's it, I thought to myself--the shoes were the only article unstained with blood--the man had been killed without shoes--or with other shoes on. In a haste whoever had done this had even neglected to put on a pair of socks. The suit, then, was it his own? Or another remnant of a transgarmentation accomplished with little caution? I saw then that it was indeed ill-fitting. But why?
Who would bother to squeeze into an over-small suit in anticipation of being killed or as a cover to a murder already done?
A knock on the door interrupted my queries--the body was taciturn about answering anyway. I carried it into a nearby closet, closed the closet door, walked back to the front door--another set of knocks--before I opened it slightly.
Another man in a suit--same trim, same style, but much better fitting--pushed his way into the apartment. As I am working out this message, however, there is another knock at the door--it might be the same man. Though the circumstances of our meeting made it highly unlikely that he would return. I will have to complete this message at another time, hopefully soon, assuming that whoever is knocking now is not the same man.
I must leave you in unintended anticipation.
No comments:
Post a Comment