The Collector of Names

by Miha Mazzini

  "Fucking hell, what a night! I was up till one o’clock and now this!"

  "Yeah."

  "Right, you’ve been here for half an hour. I’ve seen the first report, but still tell me what’s it all about."

  "Well, it just looks as if they all went crazy and killed each other."

  "Who?"

  "The villagers and the tourists."

  "You mean the villagers fought the tourists?"

  "No, I’d say they just killed each other pretty indiscriminately. It’s not a pretty sight."

  "Fuck it, don’t ever forget the first rule: their nightmares are our jobs, our daily bread. But let’s stop romanticising and get going before the boss comes. We’ve got to write a report. Have they all been identified?"

  "Not yet. There’s no problem with the villagers. But as for the others, let me summarise it for you. We found one of them behind that shed there and he was cut up into pieces and it won’t be an easy job to put him all together again. Another similar body was stacked in the tank, we don’t know who he is either. The woman driving the tank had a wallet with all her documents around her neck, so there shouldn’t be a problem there. We’ve already notified her parents. They’re in the middle of a divorce and they’d sent her here for a holiday so that they could arrange everything in peace. And we don’t know who that one, lying in the grass over there, is."

  "That burger over there?"

  "Yeah, did you notice how she managed to run over his trunk while his limbs are untouched?"

  "He’s holding a spear, what was he, a red Indian? Weird, weird. And what’s that, that little white pile under the tank tracks?"

  "I don’t know, though I did have a look at it earlier. Let’s wait for the rest of the team."

  "I can still try to identify it. Hm, no smell..., no taste. Sand or something. Maybe there’s something inside, let’s have a look."

  "I’m not sure that’s very wise..."

  "Come on, it’s nothing. Hey, look at this... a drop of blood. Did you see it?"

  "Yes, quite fresh blood, in the middle of the dust."

  "It sank into the soil, did you see?"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh let’s leave that now. So the woman driving the tank is the only survivor?"

  "Yeah. She hasn’t got a licence, I’ve already checked."

  "I’d say so, looking at that pile of minced meat, the tracks zigzagging all over the place, those legs over there and the villa she drove into. The floor gave in and she ended up in the cellar! That’s women drivers for you!"

  "Ha ha ha!"

  "Funny, isn’t it? That’s my favourite joke. Anyway, she’s alive, has she given a statement yet?"

  "No, and the doctor who examined her said it might be difficult - she’s in a coma, but there don’t seem to be any physical injuries apart from a few scratches and bruises. He hasn’t got all the test results yet though. He can’t see why she’s in a coma."

  "What do these guys ever know? And the rest of the island is OK?"

  "The village, yes. The receptionist at the campsite had a body in the cupboard. Looks like the man bit the veins on his own wrists. It’s writers and their antics, said the receptionist, winking and grinning as if he wasn’t quite right either. They took him to psychiatric hospital on the mainland for observation."

  "OK."

  "We found another body on the road, he’d been shot and hasn’t been identified yet."

  "Is that all?"

  "We’re still looking, there may be more."

  "There’s a chopper. The boss must be coming. Let’s go."

  *

  The drops hanging from the beams on the cellar ceiling started to bubble, move and tremble. Steam, smelling of old, long disappeared woods, was coming from them, combining into long, thick ribbons, which were wrapping themselves around the front of the tank, sinking into the ground. The vanishing drops were bursting and names were falling out of them. Rays of sunshine forced themselves in through the rubble, making bright patterns in the air. On their way through the light, the names became red for a moment then tumbled over, some of them floated for a while but sooner or later they all became dust before they even reached the floor. The dust fell on the ground with a faint rustle, turning around like a vortex and then disappeared through the cracks and into the soil.

  THE END

  I don't wanna hear a love song...

  Emmylou Harris