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Chapter Nine.

WHAT A FUCKING MESS!

He doesn't know how. He doesn't know why. He has nothing to explain why his hand decided to collapse on the paper cup holding the scalding hot coffee it held. A coffee that he's not even sure how he got, but knows that he needed. It came from the tiny Keurig on the counter in the waiting room. Whatever pods the hospital uses provided little flavor and led him to add several packs of sugar. It didn't make the coffee any cooler though.

Everything was happening so fast. Just the other day he was ditching (breaking up with?) his girlfriend, ready to go about his day off with a head-clearing trip to the beach, and now he's in a sterile room, no view to the outside world, no sound save for the barely audible daytime talk show on the HDTV streaming a non-HD stream (one of his biggest pet peeves, even at times like this).

There was an older woman sobbing next to a younger couple earlier, but he now realized all eyes were on him. And his burnt, coffee-soaked hand, the puddle that has formed by his shoe, the stain he now has on his the left knee of his jeans, and the increasing realization that he had yelled. Loudly.

Before he felt the burn of the coffee.

He looks at everyone, but offers a "sorry" to no one in particular. He grabs some tissues off the coffee table, wipes his hand and the rest of the mess.

A police officer walks up and asks if he's ready.

"For what?"

"You're the guy who's supposed to identify the body right?"

Fuck. Roger supposes he was.

He was braced for what he was about to see. Asked if he was ready and to take as much time as he needed. Then, he was motioned forward while the police officer stayed a few steps back, facing the floor. The officer already knew what awaited Rog.

The Coroner very carefully pulled down the sheet covering the body. Rog wasn't sure they were standing at the right one at first. It-- she looked taller than he remembered. But it was her. Her pale face, littered with bruises and scratches. The Coroner mercifully didn't pull the sheet down lower than her neck.

"I've never seen anything like it. So... violent."

This made the cop finally speak up. It took some effort on the officer's part.

"Such a...  a damn travesty."

Rog realized in that moment that April's head was no not connected to her body.

Rog slowly realized that between the four of them -- himself, a coroner, a police officer, and a dead body -- he was the one holding himself together the best. He thinks to himself "no pun intended" and he quickly pushes the thought away.

Seeing April lying there, her lifeless face, the color of her skin fading away, it starts to settle on him that he had true feelings for her. That this fling, that started as one of many other flings do for him, was something deeper. He thought about how he knew her favorite color (dark green) and her favorite movie (something called Streets of Fire that he thought was a goofy mess when she had it on one time he came over, insisting she would turn it off "once it got dull". They saw it through to the credits). 

He thought about all these things and how, whatever he was doing in his moment of looking over April, had led the coroner and the officer to step back and give him space.  

"April...  I'm...  I'm so sorry this happened to you.  No one deserves... this."

The coffee he held before being led down to the body would have been the first thing he had to drink all day. He stayed up too late, unable to sleep no matter how much of The Dark Tower he read, and he overslept, not that it mattered as the officer was nearly twenty minutes late getting to him. Even though that coffee was burnt, even though that coffee was too hot for his liking, he looked forward to that first refreshing sip.  Something to help with the dry mouth he was feeling, the lingering flavor of his minty toothpaste sticking to the back sides of his mouth...  and now, he was grateful he spilled that coffee.  He could live with a slightly burnt hand over pissing his pants.

Because April's eyes opened.

And her head turned.

And her jaw dropped.

And she screamed.

And Rog could feel his sphincter loosen.

But mercifully. Fortuitously. His bladder was empty.

As the disembodied head of a woman he'd been casually seeing screamed at him.