S H O RT S TO R I E S F R O M T H E G LO B A L C LA S S R O O M |
2014
brush lies crooked where I’d spat it out next to the crumpled, bloody heap.
The sight of the corpse makes me smile. It is an achievement, beyond the dull amusements the others had served,
purely to rouse the thrilling mirth of the chase. Tonight, I will cast the last link in the chain, create my final
masterpiece. Too long have the stories ended without us getting the chance to make our final mark, to leave at our
own behest; far better to leave early a winner than to stay long enough to become the loser.
I drop heavily to my knees beside the body. Deftly, I ease a hand beneath the taut sinews of its neck, and use the other
to force the chin back, leaving exposed the raw red smile drawn across its throat. At the pressure, it gapes into a
derisive grin, a stream of heavy ichor seeping out. I lay hold of the paintbrush and tenderly brush it back. Smirking, I
sweep the brush across my palm, finding the blood thin and still tepid: I have at least three more hours yet.
The first brushstroke is pathetic: although straight, reaching from the low ceiling down along the plaster to the
bottom corner of the wall, its consistency is uneven, the blood clumping with the plaster, and the tint of deep wine
fades away early on. I snarl in frustration, then head back to the body for another try.
By the time I have half a side coated in a smooth sheen, my watch declares it almost dawn. My pace quickens, and
I begin to fall into a familiar rhythm: painting stroke after stroke, wall after wall, until the red envelops the entire
room; making delicate incisions with my dive knife when the flow peters out, from wrist to clavicle, from ankle to
hip; my heels clicking briskly as I stride back and forth and back and forth across the dark marble.
Jesper does not even know that I own these heels. As far as he is concerned, I am still a picture of pure, unadulterated
innocence, prancing around in a frilly white frock with a garland of flowers around my tiny little head.
Then again, he is not concerned with much.
Jesper, regrettably, is my father. We have been estranged for so long that I have begun to refer to him by his first
name, and he by my last. I think he is more comfortable imagining me as a faceless entity, another mindless cog in
the rotting, defective machine that is his life.
It started when my mother died. After that, he grew uninterested in life and absorbed in his work. Whole days
would go by when neither of us would even acknowledge each other’s presence; if we did talk, conversations would
be stilted and over as immediately as we could allow.
‘Hey. Sanderson! You the one who left the front door unlocked?’ This was undoubtedly our most common topic of
conversation.
‘Yes.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ At this point, he would squint at me suspiciously, then grunt and turn his back on me for the rest of the day.
But I do not need his attention anymore. I am no longer that petty little girl, and besides, I have the Detective
Inspector. He gives me attention; enough attention to border on obsession. I have seen him up late at night, lights on
and curtains drawn, a dark silhouette hunched over a labyrinthine murder board. He thinks he is in my psyche, and I
his. A connection deeper than any daughter could ever find with her father anyway.
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