Vermillion Part 1

1. 

 

She hit the water, the river, as it was violently penetrated by her body resolved to fill all of her crevices at once and crush every bone in her body in response. From such a height she would have seemed like a small pebble that dislodged itself from the bridge, from across the lake at the island any onlookers would only have seen the enormous structure sacrifice a piece of itself to the depths. In her universe her body was falling but in her mind she was floating in a world she could only see. Soaring through clouds and touching the tree tops with her finger tips, completely encased in joy. When she hit the river, she never knew. The detective, standing above her body found amongst the sludge on the shore, wearing the stench of the previous night’s self-loathing, scoffed at her bloated, broken frame. 

From the distance I am watching this from I can see all the commotion happening from every angle. The reporters trying to get a good shot of the body without showing too much, the onlookers trying to steal a glimpse that will fulfill their morbid curiosity and the police who, with their soulless glance appear completely indifferent to yet another suicide.

 When the chief told him about the incident Detective Tangello dealt with it with the same indifference which he had for the previous thirteen years, since he stepped knee deep into the putrid cesspool that was the city of Task, he has seen nothing to convince his hands not to strangle what his eyes see every day. He carries out his duties the same way a cleaner does as they are washing a toilet that’s full of shit, he does his job, but the only light left in his eyes is the gleam of the alcohol still in his system.

They crack a joke at the deceased girl’s expense and the two of them laugh, forgetting for the moment the young girl lying at their feet. All the memories she had of loved ones and friends, destroyed by the water. A pile of flesh filled with water is all that is left and the only people there who can regret for her are two men who simply do not care and a crowd of people who never saw her face. 

This city is alive; I can feel its circulatory system pumping every day. It beats slowly and precisely and without purpose. It’s too bad that all of these parasites are injecting drugs and slime straight into its heart, everything is covered in poison. 

I have forgotten every story ever told to me, I replaced them with a twisted satire of life, each situation written with comedic timing and every player a farce. Day by day I walk under the bridge and watch them all perform, they jump and glide through the air, screaming melodramatically, pushing, biting, clawing at each other trying desperately to prove to everyone that they are real, but they aren’t, the only real people I ever knew I killed in my dreams when I was a boy. It’s a living, breathing marathon of absurdity and I can never change the channel. 

Now I sit on this pathetically worn couch staring out the window, focusing my ears on the gentle hum of the refrigerator as it clicks over its routine. My eyes are fixed from the grotesque moving image in front me onto this letter I’m writing. The two prostitutes I paid for are going at it against my window. One with her bare ass pressed against it and the other pumping at her like he’s trying to slaughter her from the inside. I would never participate in this mocking performance of passion. Besides tonight my mind is elsewhere. My mind is on the pretty girl at the river with the face of an angel and hair that’s full of cigarette ash. I’m feeling a fatherly regret wash over me. I wonder, which of these prostitutes has the drugs and which one the family?

Why did I come here? 

These letters don’t comfort me much, I don’t regret what I did but the outcome was unfortunate. 

He gets off the chair and motions for them to finish, walks to the fridge and drinks the rest of the milk. The prostitutes shake themselves off and gather their things. He points to the money on the counter, a completely silent transaction. The male follows the female out the door and provokes him with a kiss face; he slams the door after them and locks it. He stands there for a moment with his back against the door lighting a cigarette for mock satisfaction. Remembering that there are no good women left, they are either owned and broken or sold and dying; marked by the city that infected them, branded with sorrow. His apartment smells like sex now but he likes it that way because outside smells like death. 

His cream coloured curtains wave in the breeze of his now open apartment window, still with the oily smudge she left behind. He looks out onto the smug city staring back at him. The dramatic high rises crowding in a cluster in the middle, holding each other it seems for structural integrity. The other buildings spilling out from them in a large fifty metre radius, slant away from the middle like an atomic bomb went off and they are all still rotting. The lights form in patches that look like a rash, all that he sees is alive, and from corner to corner he can see it pulsing. He would gladly stand here and watch it all burn to the ground, for as long as it takes he will wait it out, but first he needs to find out what that rotten smell is and decide whether he wants to fan it or get rid of it. He folds the three page letter in half and places it carefully in the top drawer of his desk. 

In the bathroom he looks at himself in the mirror, a handsome man by their standards with long blonde hair, a strong build and a powerful stance. He stares deeply into his own eyes, looking for where the similarities end. He can see only them. In his disappointment he retires for the night.