How About Them Apples? (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
applespice) wrote2011-03-29 07:57 pm
applespice) wrote2011-03-29 07:57 pm
LJ Idol - Week 19 - Mirage
The corpse was discovered just before daybreak, draped across the lush green grass like a sleeping angel. There was some confusion surrounding the time that the body actually appeared on the lawn, for it lay immediately adjacent to a house that had been hosting a large and raucous party for several hours prior to (and during, and even slightly after) the gruesome discovery. Many people admitted to having seen the girl on the grass throughout the course of the night, but had figured her a happy casualty of the bacchanalia and gone on their way.
None of these witnesses could pin down an exact time to seeing her (and it was suspected, if not spoken aloud, that some of them were simply caught up in the excitement of the thing and weren't entirely truthful in their accounts), and so the discovery was attributed to a member of the band, who had wandered out at around five fifteen in the morning and attempted to wake her. It was at this point that he noticed that she didn't have a pulse.
The news quickly circulated. Before long, a knot of people were clustered around the pale figure, breathless with fear and a kind of morbid excitement.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” said a girl in a thrilling whisper. She wore shredded green tights and held her thin, nicotine-stained fingers to her mouth.
“You’ve never been a funeral?” someone else inquired.
“That doesn’t count,” the girl said decisively. “It isn’t the same.”
A bobbing wave went through the group as everyone nodded. Most had leaned over the powdered, preserved corpses of distant relatives in pillow-lined boxes, their noses full of the cloying scent of funeral wreaths. This was different – more dignified, somehow. Each person in the cluster felt a certain respect for the dead girl at their feet. She brought mortality to them in a way dead grandparents and great-aunts never had, and each of them seemed to momentarily felt the cold flurry of its wings. Several began speaking at once in an attempt to break the dark spell.
"Does anybody know who she is?"
"I thought I saw her with you on the front porch, isn't that right?"
"Did she come with anyone else?"
All of these questions were answered in the negative. Nobody knew her. No one had sat with her on the front porch. Certainly nobody had come in with her. She seemed to have materialized out of thin air, a fairy-tale princess transported to them by the magic of her last breath.
“Should we call the police?” someone asked tentatively. There was a general murmur of assent, though no one moved to carry out the deed. All of them remained fixed, their eyes on the body that gleamed faintly in the grass. It was as though they feared she might fade into the dewy morning like a phantom if they turned their eyes away.
Finally, a shiver of movement broke the concentration. A young man in a battered straw fedora pulled his cell phone from his pocket and determinedly dialed it. He looked off over the rooftops and young, shivering suburban trees, as though determined not to meet the vigilant eyes of his fellows. He didn't move away, though; he couldn't resist the charm of such a captive audience.
The call was brief and relatively uninteresting. The best part was when the young man said, "We've found a dead body," in a tone that he obviously intended to be nonchalant, but came out as though he imagined himself as some kind of hard-bitten TV detective. One of the girls at the back of the group tittered nervously.
When it was all over, the young man turned to the rest of them, and they gathered in around him with expressions that were somehow both curious and conspiratorial. "They're on their way," he said. This time he got the tone right, but his eager face belied his enthusiasm.
There was a sudden swell of talk, like a breaking wave, and then silence again. Eyes full of meaning sought each other in the crowd, then turned to the body, then flicked away again. The moment of reverent focus was gone, but the fascination remained. Some people stepped gingerly closer, and the bravest knelt to get a better look.
"She's pretty," a girl with a blonde mohawk said. And she was. She wore a short, lacy party dress, the color of champagne bubbles. She had long, honey colored hair and a delicate face. On one of her fingers, she wore a ring shaped like a butterfly.
This was all people could remember, when later asked. They had stared and stared and stared at her, but could only ever faintly remember what she looked like. It was like trying to remember a dream, and scraps of it seemed to be continually floating away from them.
The ambulance and police cars arrived ten minutes later. Statements were given, reports written, and the staccato lightning of camera flashes flickered over the grass as the first blades of daylight sliced across the sky. Then, almost ceremoniously, like an honor guard, they placed the body on a stretcher and bore it grimly away. The partygoers watched with hungry eyes until the last of the taillights turned the corner and rushed away.
No one ever figured out who she was. No one ever claimed her. She faded quickly into a story to interest dates or relatives, a macabre token of the speaker's worldliness and wild ways. They talked about her romantically, dramatically, hanging meaning and wonder and mystery on the fragile shell of their memories. They built her up like an idol of mist, powerful and vague. She was the smoke that curled from their cigarettes, the tension that hung between their words, the pale-blue moment just before the summer sun breaks across the morning sky. Almost solid, almost someone, but not quite.
None of these witnesses could pin down an exact time to seeing her (and it was suspected, if not spoken aloud, that some of them were simply caught up in the excitement of the thing and weren't entirely truthful in their accounts), and so the discovery was attributed to a member of the band, who had wandered out at around five fifteen in the morning and attempted to wake her. It was at this point that he noticed that she didn't have a pulse.
The news quickly circulated. Before long, a knot of people were clustered around the pale figure, breathless with fear and a kind of morbid excitement.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” said a girl in a thrilling whisper. She wore shredded green tights and held her thin, nicotine-stained fingers to her mouth.
“You’ve never been a funeral?” someone else inquired.
“That doesn’t count,” the girl said decisively. “It isn’t the same.”
A bobbing wave went through the group as everyone nodded. Most had leaned over the powdered, preserved corpses of distant relatives in pillow-lined boxes, their noses full of the cloying scent of funeral wreaths. This was different – more dignified, somehow. Each person in the cluster felt a certain respect for the dead girl at their feet. She brought mortality to them in a way dead grandparents and great-aunts never had, and each of them seemed to momentarily felt the cold flurry of its wings. Several began speaking at once in an attempt to break the dark spell.
"Does anybody know who she is?"
"I thought I saw her with you on the front porch, isn't that right?"
"Did she come with anyone else?"
All of these questions were answered in the negative. Nobody knew her. No one had sat with her on the front porch. Certainly nobody had come in with her. She seemed to have materialized out of thin air, a fairy-tale princess transported to them by the magic of her last breath.
“Should we call the police?” someone asked tentatively. There was a general murmur of assent, though no one moved to carry out the deed. All of them remained fixed, their eyes on the body that gleamed faintly in the grass. It was as though they feared she might fade into the dewy morning like a phantom if they turned their eyes away.
Finally, a shiver of movement broke the concentration. A young man in a battered straw fedora pulled his cell phone from his pocket and determinedly dialed it. He looked off over the rooftops and young, shivering suburban trees, as though determined not to meet the vigilant eyes of his fellows. He didn't move away, though; he couldn't resist the charm of such a captive audience.
The call was brief and relatively uninteresting. The best part was when the young man said, "We've found a dead body," in a tone that he obviously intended to be nonchalant, but came out as though he imagined himself as some kind of hard-bitten TV detective. One of the girls at the back of the group tittered nervously.
When it was all over, the young man turned to the rest of them, and they gathered in around him with expressions that were somehow both curious and conspiratorial. "They're on their way," he said. This time he got the tone right, but his eager face belied his enthusiasm.
There was a sudden swell of talk, like a breaking wave, and then silence again. Eyes full of meaning sought each other in the crowd, then turned to the body, then flicked away again. The moment of reverent focus was gone, but the fascination remained. Some people stepped gingerly closer, and the bravest knelt to get a better look.
"She's pretty," a girl with a blonde mohawk said. And she was. She wore a short, lacy party dress, the color of champagne bubbles. She had long, honey colored hair and a delicate face. On one of her fingers, she wore a ring shaped like a butterfly.
This was all people could remember, when later asked. They had stared and stared and stared at her, but could only ever faintly remember what she looked like. It was like trying to remember a dream, and scraps of it seemed to be continually floating away from them.
The ambulance and police cars arrived ten minutes later. Statements were given, reports written, and the staccato lightning of camera flashes flickered over the grass as the first blades of daylight sliced across the sky. Then, almost ceremoniously, like an honor guard, they placed the body on a stretcher and bore it grimly away. The partygoers watched with hungry eyes until the last of the taillights turned the corner and rushed away.
No one ever figured out who she was. No one ever claimed her. She faded quickly into a story to interest dates or relatives, a macabre token of the speaker's worldliness and wild ways. They talked about her romantically, dramatically, hanging meaning and wonder and mystery on the fragile shell of their memories. They built her up like an idol of mist, powerful and vague. She was the smoke that curled from their cigarettes, the tension that hung between their words, the pale-blue moment just before the summer sun breaks across the morning sky. Almost solid, almost someone, but not quite.
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