“Burn it. Dump it in the lake. Soak it in the fuel.”
There’d been whispers coming out of her lips as if she’d been chanting a prayer to herself. She had been, sitting there, with her rear not touching the ground for the ground was cold, icy with snow that kept falling. Snow that settled atop of her head and in the strands of her hair as if to mesh through and conquer her scalp entirely so. It sat white and her lips dry from the cold moved along with his voice against her ear. Against her cheek and warm against her neck. Fingers that danced on her skin, ghost of a touch that only she could see or hear so that sometimes the constant string of, What do I do, where do I put it? What do I do? Where do I put it? Was broken only by her eerie little giggling sound. Because he was amusing her while she was thinking of how to dispose of the tenth bodies.
She kept them all inside of a freezer, deep below in the building where most of them ended up giving out their last breath. So that she could dispose of them as she wished, some of them lasted longer because their bodies had sustained less bleeding wounds before it was thrown in the freezer. Some other perished before the due date she had planned to put them out for the world to witness the beauty of a body that was well kept, white as porcelain, a taint that no living humans would veer achieve. But that with her hands, with his guidance she could put upon the ones that had no breath, no heartbeat. Imagine how the world would be if it stilled, silent for a moment with nothing but just the sight of bodies that were paused in their brief moments, in whatever it was the were doing. That was the beauty they were creating. Masterpieces, even better, we’re building an entire new genre of beauty.
Another giggle, soft, buried against her scarf but once her mouth was freed again came the chanting. Until a breeze swept by, her fists tightened in her pockets and she froze gaze straight ahead. It seemed she’d voiced it too loud, it seemed her rambling had been caught and it seemed someone was interested in what she’d been going on and on without any break, without any solution to it until the voice spoke, “Burn it. Dump it in the lake. Soak it in the fuel.”
& she froze. Not wanting to look up, so as to not let it be seen that the interruption was not welcome, even if it wasn’t unwelcome as well, it was just stilling her world. The way he’d said and she released her breath, feeling the presence now that she’d stopped chanting the words that had been on the tip of her tongue from the moment she stepped out of her place. The thought heavy on her mind, like a fog that would not dissipate until she finally found the way to exit out of it.
So that she remained silent after the stranger’s voice broke through her reverie, so that even he by her side, crouched to her level and looked for her because she would not look, not yet, maybe never. Because the more she thought of the words, the less appealing the idea was to her. Fire burnt, it soaked in everything, left nothing to admire, deteriorated the skin, made it charcoal black. An effect that was clearly not desired when she worked her fingers and the blade of her knife against veins that would drain them of blood. She did not desire for the tainted shadow that flames would not stop from creeping up the untarnished flesh she’d worked so hard to preserve. It irked her. Settled a bile low in her throat, made her pull a face at the mere idea of it. “That would destroy it all, then all of it would be gone, the proof of what I did, it would be gone. It is an awful solution.”
