At 7:15 this morning the body of a young woman was discovered in the 5th floor stairwell of an apartment building on Maple Ave. The woman, in her early twenties, described by police as a "known prostitute" in the area, had died due to "violent external forces." Identification of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of the next of kin, although, as one officer on the scene noted, "She's a common whore. I doubt she's got any relatives who give a rat's fart whether she's dead or alive." The officer, thin and sweaty in the close stairwell, then loosed a heavy gob of phlegm which landed sloppily next to the whore's bleached mane, matted as it was with a cake of dried blood. Police fear, in light of recent attacks in the area, that there may be a single assailant hunting prostitutes in the downtown core. "Young women, especially those working the streets, should take certain precautions," an officer (balding, with a paunch bolted onto the front of a body that was once athletic) who acted as spokesman for the investigating team. Then, without elaborating on what specific precautions might be taken, he bent down and began to remove the cheap, gaudy jewellery which adorned the corpse. He did this slowly, methodically, fingers perspiring under latex, unclasping a gold chain, ten-carat electroplate over nickel, from behind her neck. From the right ear a pearl (real, gift from a regular trick) dangling from a gilt hoop was removed, tagged and placed in its own transparent plastic bag. This ritual is not unfamiliar to the policeman. Has performed this duty many times before, each instance stooping over an anonymous sheath of flesh rent by some terrific force. Each time he has cocooned his heart deeper until he feels he cannot be touched by it, this unfeeling cataloguing of human detritus. Yet this time he comes to the left ear and there is the same pearl dangling from gilt hoop, twin to that which he has just removed from the right ear and he stops. A tremor pulses briefly through his outstretched hand, an annoyance. Like the thin, callous, dismissive officer he sweats, salty rings staining pale blue shirt, creases dissolving in his humidity. A vein throbs compulsively in his left temple. A shudder passes across him, almost toppling his crouched form and |
then he bolts straight up. Before he can fight it off there is a tearing, a ripping bursting scraaaaw inside his panting ribs and he cannot control it. One sob, and then another and suddenly a Niagara of sobs escape him. He is pounding a gray, wire-haired fist into the graydull cinder block wall against which the whore's painted head almost rests. The other officers are as frozen still as the lifeless corpse at their feet. Slowly, the oldest of them unlocks himself and gently moves around the girl towards his keening friend. He winces as the wailing fills the column of stairs. Comforting words are spoken. A hand rests on quaking shoulders. A minute passes this way. Then the intensity of the weeping subsides. The officer turns, his face streaked with unmanly tears, and looks at the sergeant who has touched him and nods thanks. The hand falls away. The re-composing officer bends down again, the episode seemingly over, kisses gently the corpse's lips, then resumes the task of removing her cheap, gaudy jewellery. the other officers, shaken, returned to their tasks. The victim's body has been removed to the City Forensic Sciences Office, where the Coroner will determine the exact cause of death (slit open from top of sternum to base of pubic bone, organs removed and weighed, clenched teeth prized apart, legs too, genitals examined, fluids removed, hairs and fibres analysed, fingernails closely inspected then stitch, stitch, stitch, burned then urned.) The officers on the scene will finish their shifts and return to their respective homes, though not all directly. Some will stop off and pick up some groceries or a present for the wife or something for the kids. Some may, though one especially, will stop off at an anonymous bar and order too many doubles too pound out the memories. Eventually all which reach home, some to be greeted by their families, some, one especially to be greeted by a yawning, dark apartment overlooking a boarded shop and a dirty street, empty but for an unmade bed, a blinking TV set and a beckoning service revolver. And this report will make its way to the editor's desk where it will be judged (sliced open from headline to denouement, backbone removed, meaning dissected, weighed and tossed away, truth bled out, heart pumped dry and desiccated, crumbling to dust and blown away by a gust of pure reason) and found to be of dubiously emotional stuff. It will be... recomposed, then published, full with fact, empty of life. |