Blue Soul

Blue Soul

ACT I

As I stood over the partially beheaded body of a young girl, I wondered if it was real. Her neck, split and slick with blood, was cut to the vertabrae. That certainly seemed real. I peered into the dank, gaping hole in her neck, as if this was normal. As if it had no effect on me.
"She looks like a Pez Dispenser."
I said that out loud.

Delusional moments of clarity are all I have. That was one of them. Moments where the real becomes real hard, and where insanity challenges the mental armor I think I have in place. Whats left is an assumption, or maybe a distortion, of the real. But, delusion is much sexier than reality anyway, and it's a much better defense mechanism, so I let the moment go.

I walked outside to get some fresh air. I opened the door and I stepped into the the real world.
Hands holding microphones high- fiving hands hiding guns. Reporters mingling with the masses, positioning themselves amongst the deviants and the distraught, the have-nots but want-alls, the unsocialized but habitualized.
Cameras beseiged me.
"Detective! Detective! Do you have a suspect!"
"Do you have any information!"
"Can you tell us more?"
"Can you save yourself!"
I made that last one up. But it's a valid question.
Everyone waiting to see the body. What they got instead was a view of an overheated and underfed investigator. Not quite a corpse, but, to be sure, killed by this job a long time ago.
"Move it, and stay behind the tape!" I shouted, while trying to hide my disdain. As if there really was a moral high ground for me to take; I just called a murder victim a pez dispenser.

ACT TWO

I own several exfoliants; sea salts, sugar scrubs, pretty much anything Bath and Body has to offer. I find myself scrubbing my skin a lot. It absorbs the smells, immerses my body in them, until they burn into my mind. The putrid, defeated flesh,the shrimp tails and diapers festering in the garbage, the jaundiced, smoke painted walls, these smells all cling to me like my sins. I have a lot of sins. So I keep scrubbing. But It never goes away.
I stepped out of the shower and heard the phone ring. It rings differently when someone has died. No details yet. I dressed and rushed out the door, not quite sure why I hurried. Cops are strange that way. We rush to the scene in a swirl of adrenaline and testosterone, so we can see and be seen. Reality mingles with myth as we become caricatures of ourselves, stepping into character as the the lights go down and the crime scene tape goes up.
"What do we got?" I ask the Sergeant.
"Babies," was all he said.
Babies? I didn't ask for more. I just walked into the house, as my conscience was pulling me back, begging me not to hurt it again.
Too late.
Grown men's tears mixing with the blood of children.
A tiny, bloody fingerprint on a doorknob.
One child tried to escape. I wonder what would have happened if he made it. No matter; his reality would have killed him anyway.

ACT THREE

There is always a heaviness in a crime scene. It's an oppressiveness that makes you feel like you are walking in water, tripped up and trapped by the negative energy that has no place to go. It's as if you are walking around a room, looking for something you will never find, but you know is there. What I did find today was a woman hanging from the ceiling fan. I think she was looking for something too.


ACT FOUR

I never cared for fish as pets. So I didn't think much of the benign looking creature simmering in it's tank, other than to remind myself to avoid shaking powder in it's home when I fingerprinted the tank. Our latest victim was killed in this living room. But I guess that's a misnomer now. The fish was my only witness. I've had worse. Even through the haze of water molecules the fish had a clearer view of what happened than we ever will.
Days passed,the scene grew silent, and the fish began to wither and decay. The room was thick. I felt helpless, like I was the one drowning. I wanted to save the fish. I couldn't stop staring at it, and it at me, the obvious symbolism bearing down on me with the weight of a lead blanket. Animal control was finally called. My sergeant took credit for saving the fish, but that's normal. Police need to control and we were failing here.

Sometimes, it gets to the point where you need to stop. Just stop. But delusion is like a drug. It comes on easy and is impossible to leave behind.

THE END

I sit on my deck, stirring a gin and tonic. After successive days of no sleep, it's hard to find the energy to do anything, even drink. But I find a way. Gin makes you forget why you are where you are, but not necessarily where you should be. So it works sometimes. Tonight I hope for the best.
The sky is the color of calm. Blue so soft and cool I want to reach up and touch it, wake it up, like poking my finger in an undisturbed pool.
The city surrounding me is
tempered and smooth,a leisurely pace permeating the evening. Its all very ambiguous. An unburdened sense of hope and a prayer for the living, competing with the impending darkness of my reality. I never liked to take sides, so I remain, content with my fleeting moment of lucidity, waiting.
I won't wait long.