Snippets of "Our Energy Within"

Yzyah: The Body

Plunging darkness follows me wherever I go. It’s shaded by illuminating light, which follows me as well. Wondering how to rid myself of this sinful blessing crosses my mind and is thrown back and forth between my shadows and I too often. Mother does not know about the disturbing iniquities my mind conjures on the regular. Explaining the crimson dripping knife consumed by these murderous hands does not seem fit. The body on the other end of the knife twitches and leaks out, gallons cover the floor. The furniture swims in the red sea but does not float. 

“Get the body.” A voice trembles, shaky and fragile. 

“You would have to be mad to believe I would touch it.” I drop the knife, it plunges into the sea of blood. 

“Dropping the knife doesn’t change who killed her.” Pytha steps into the light, hair loose and wild all about her face. “Being a prince doesn’t exclude you from dirty work. I don’t know how it works in the palace, but everyone has to clean up their mess.” She stoops down and starts a search for valuables. The poor woman lays stiff, eyes wide open and blood flooding in her mouth. Her red dress, previously white, absorbs the blood as time passes, and her hair, originally in a high bun, is soaked. 

“Damn, she had three IDs on her. No wonder she was so hard to catch.” Pytha snarks, wiping her muddied hands on a patch of clean fabric. I can’t move, my sense of reaction is frozen in time. Pytha glares through the opening her hair provides and tucks a loose strand under her ear. “Are you going to stand there like an imbecile or help with the body? Don’t make the knife hold two different types of blood.”

My senses return and I scramble to get myself in order. I keep forgetting Pytha would kill me if she could, she has valid reasons to. I crouch on the other side and shiver at the sight of her up close. 

“Check her hair, there’s likely to be something hiding in that bun of hers.” I follow Pythas orders and start to caress the woman's thick tresses. My hands go to dig deeper for something, anything worth collecting in her hair. I never could have imagined I’d have my hands in a woman's hair like this—a dead woman’s hair, one that I killed. 

Gray and unmoving eyes stare into mine, although they aren’t staring, but have no choice but to stare. They’re empty and gone of all life previously dwelling there. Forcing myself to look away, I take two fingers and shut her eyes, it’s polite to say the least. 

“Leaving more fingerprints to be tracked I see?” Pytha asks while inspecting the IDs and shining them in the central light. 

“She deserves that little bit of respect. It’s rude to leave the dead's eyes open.”

“They’re already dead, there is no point. Nothing would get done if we spent all of our time babysitting bodies.” She returns to reading an ID, but her eyes linger on the fresh wound in the woman’s stomach. 

We finish in silence, our words are few, even though I tried to start up a conversation to avoid inevitable awkward silence. The last part is to get rid of her clothes for a lesser chance of suspicion. No one can know what she was killed in. We wrap her in the silk bed sheets and Pytha continues casually while it takes me forever to do so much as to touch the woman's garment and see her naked. I know she’s deceased but a sense of indecency reminds me to shield my eyes. Pytha can think I’m pathetic all she wants, I’ll still hold this in my memory until my dying days. 

“Pytha, are personal questions allowed?” I fix the body's hands to lay elegantly in her lap. 

“Depends, how personal is personal for you?” She folds down the sheet. 

“Nothing—” I catch the head as it falls to the side, securing it in place upright, “—too deep I’m sure.” 

“Ask away.” She says.