by Peter Spokes
It was on one such seat that I now sat and watched the seagulls soaring high and gliding low disappearing below the precipice about fifteen feet in front of me; sometimes seemingly static as they rode on the thermal currents. I watched as they wheeled, banked and then dived to glide within inches of the water – their wing-tips occasionally stroking the surface.
I opened my small bag of sandwiches that I had purchased earlier – why do they always put cucumber in with salmon? I thought.
As I detested cucumber, I broke off some bits and threw them to the birds.
In less than a minute a single seagull – a herring gull – was perched on the back of my seat and proceeded to flap aggressively at any other seagulls that came near. (I was a little surprised how large and not a little scary they were up close.)
“Hello, I’m Peter,” I said, a little irrationally, addressing the seagull and giving it the last of my salmon and cucumber. I sensed a kindred spirit as it too ignored the cucumber. It blinked before leaning its head to its left and stared with its yellow eyes at me, and then at my – now empty – sandwich bag. Then it flew off – with a cry – disappearing over the cliff edge.
Tilting my head up towards the sun, I closed my eyes and listened to the ebbing of the tide a long way below and the pebbles being dragged up and down the shoreline.
In my warm and relaxed state my mind started to drift and it was at this point that a shadow moved across me and I felt the smallest movement in the slats of the seat. However, it was a sudden light sensation on my left forearm – still stretched along the seat back – which caused me to open my eyes – and blink for several moments – until my eyes finally focussed on the almost incandescent shape to my left which – after further blinking – became an extremely attractive woman. I felt a sudden flush of embarrassment for not only was she quite stunning but her snow-white tresses were cascading – with some abundance – over the back of the seat, and my arm. I had never seen hair so white nor skin so pale.
She wore a thin diaphanous robe or shawl of a light slate-grey colour that hung from what appeared – from initial observation – a lean figure.
Her face was raised to the sky and her eyes were closed, not unlike my own bearing a moment earlier.
“I’m sorry; excuse me,” I said, quickly removing my arm from behind her.
She opened her eyes, turned and smiled at me and I felt the erstwhile surrounding beauty, in a sudden moment, put to shame – as if in her shadow. Her eyes were of a colour I had never seen before; a bright yellow ochre, in stark contrast to her otherwise pallid countenance.
“So beautiful,” she whispered in a gentle, light intonation that could have been mistaken for a light breeze drifting through the heather that surrounded us. Despite its apparent fragility, I heard every syllable over the grating tides.
She returned her gaze to the horizon where blue met blue but only the sea showed a million dancing lights.
“Indeed, it is,” I said attempting to sound older than the nineteen years I currently possessed; for I put this lady at probably six or seven years my senior.
Now that I had retracted both my arms and legs I felt very uncomfortable and so placed my feet under the seat and my hands rather redundantly in my lap, though I still felt awkward.
I so much wanted her to notice me and there was a silence of several minutes which gave me some time to think of something grown up – maybe even profound and impressive – to say to her.
“There are a lot of… seagulls,” I said… and died inside. However, I felt some good fortune in that she actually deigned to acknowledge the pointless statement.
“There are…” she said, “… but do you really see them?”
Now that was profound; why hadn’t I thought of that? I wondered.
My confused look finally received the extra narration I had hoped for.
“Close your eyes,” she said.
I did so.
“What colour are they?” she quietly asked.
“Err… a greeny-brown?”
“Not your eyes… the seagulls.”
“Ah, white and grey,” I said wincing.
“And which parts are they?”
“The body and head are white and the wings, grey,” I said smiling a little smugly in my blindness.
“And what about the black bits?”
“Erm… is this a trick question?”
“The tips of the tail feathers and those of the wings – though the young ones have more brown than white and black.”
I opened my eyes to her. “Are you some kind of ornithologist?”
“No, but I… know seagulls.”
She stopped for a second before looking at me and offering, “We notice things.”
Another deep comment, I thought.
After a minute, “Rainbows!” she said suddenly.
I looked over. “Ah, light breaking into its composite colours through the prism effect of the water droplets…” I said reacting swiftly – I thought – to her change of subject.
She turned her magnificent yellow eyes on me and I shrank slightly.
But then she smiled, blinked and tilted her head to her left. “Too much time with whys and hows instead of simply enjoying what is. Next time you see a rainbow, look at its beauty rather than the science; don’t look at the aerodynamics of a seagull that enables her to fly but look to her beauty, so majestic despite her loneliness.”
I looked over suddenly. “Loneliness? I never thought of seagulls as… lonely,” I said. “They have always seemed to me rather… sociable.”
She looked directly at me – strangely unblinking – a look that clearly disagreed with my assessment. “That’s why… some of them… cry… the way they do,” she said and continued: “Some are lonely and search for one… to be close to.”
It was about this time that despite her unquestionably ethereal magnificence, I started to wonder that there was only so much profundity that an entirely sane person can possess.
Though more than a little clichéd I finally offered, “I’ve never seen you here before… do you come here often?”
She looked down. “Only when the seagulls fly,” she whispered.
After a pause and the briefest scrutiny of her statement, I took this to mean that she liked to watch the birds.
I looked over; her eyes were once again closed and her face raised to the sun.
Whether it was because of the undeniable beauty sitting beside me, or the general ‘feel good’ thing I felt, I couldn’t deny that I was more than a little caught up in the magic of the seagulls as they swept down low from great heights and then soared again into the blue.
“It must be so great to soar,” I started; “to glide on the air with no limits or boundaries; no restrictions or limitations.”
“It is…” she whispered.
I looked over at her and on an oddly surreal impulse I asked, “It’s beautiful now but… do you like winter?”
“Oh no, I fly south… normally North Africa… until it’s warm again here.”
“O… kay,” I said realising – finally – the focus of her mental state and the unlikely progression of my own romantic notions.
She thought she was a bird…!
I studied her some more and I couldn’t help it but despite the obvious nonsense, I was smitten; the words ‘pretty’ and ‘attractive’ when referring to this woman were only superficial words of anaemic meaning; she was sublimely the most beautiful creature I had ever had the honour to gaze upon.
Then she rose and walked slowly towards the cliff edge.
I jumped up and despite my own fear of heights, ran to the edge and reached out my arm. “You… you really don’t want to be doing that… come back… take my hand.”
She turned her head and tilted it to the left; “Why?”
“You’re
beautiful,” I shouted before I had time to think.
“I know!”
“So… come away from the edge and we can… talk this out.”
“But what is there to talk about; I need to go – I’ve stayed overlong already… I always do,” she said looking down and then out to sea. “Others beckon me; they tell me this is not right.”
“Don’t listen to the voices,” I said realising her illness was far more acute than I had first thought.
“Please take my hand; you might think you can fly… but… you can’t… you are too lovely a thing to die this way; there is no one waiting for you out there – believe me.”
I suddenly realised I was shouting at her. “I want you here with me; please stay with me – please!”
She smiled and I thought all would be well but then, with her arms outstretched, she jumped – or rather dove – and I heard a scream or cry.
Immediately I ran to the edge and looked down but I couldn’t see her. I continued to stare down the rocky cliff face but she was gone.
I scanned the rocks below hoping beyond hope not to see her, but only saw a common herring gull rising from the cliffs. It cried out mournfully as it soared up into the sky and within a minute was gone.
I looked again for several minutes at the base of the cliff but saw nothing.
It must have been only a week or so later that I was looking at the old slatted seat. Something the lady had inferred had stuck in my mind. Her incidental comment had referred to ignoring the whys and hows and simply enjoying the presence. Though she had been referring to the rainbows and seagulls, I now felt she had been alluding to something more… immediate and present.
Smiling, I looked across from the path at the small promontory and the seat near its edge. After a moment, I started down the rather irregular and rocky coastal track towards an old wooden seat.
Once there I sat stretching my arms out across the seat’s back and my legs out before me – ankle on ankle; and drank in the incredibly stunning vista displayed before me.
The sun was now overhead and shone down from a deep azure sky to sparkle in the blue-turquoise water below.
Then, a shadow moved across me and I felt the smallest movement in the slats of the seat. There was a light sensation on my left forearm and I smiled.
“Hello, beautiful; would you like a sandwich?” I said turning my head to the white and grey figure now sitting beside me… again.
“That would be lovely – as long as there is no cucumber in it,” she said. “I so hate cucumber.”
She smiled as much with her bright yellow eyes as her mouth; and the surrounding beauty was once again put to shame – as if in her shadow.
The Corpse
Detective Helen Jensen and I followed the corpse as it was pushed, on a gurney, into the forensics office.
Once there I stood to one side and watched as the examiner first X-rayed the body bag and then broke its seals to reveal – at least to the examiner and Jensen – the decomposing body.
Despite my five years’ involvement with murder investigations, I still maintained a physical revulsion to seeing a fresh – or relatively fresh – corpse, and always left these ghoulish moments to my colleague.
The examiner’s head was down as she and Detective Jensen looked intently at the body’s external surfaces and finally I braved the short distance to the gurney despite the bile already rising in me.
Sure enough, once I saw the corpse in all its gruesome glory, I felt my stomach lurch, though I commended myself with the fact that nothing actually left it.
I coughed awkwardly.
The examiner and detective looked around and I smiled back. They both looked at each other and returned to inspecting the corpse.
Hair samples were taken and once the plastic bags had been removed from the corpse’s hands, her fingernails were examined and a small blade gently moved under them for possible evidence.
I noticed, as I had expected to, the bruising around the throat – the other two young women had suffered very similar wounds; wounds that could only have been caused by strong hands and fingers.
The examiner was quick to notice it too photographing the discoloured tissue below the once pretty face.
I had been dreading this moment but I took a deep breath and leaned closer.
It was hard not to interfere with the investigation but my time in this job had made me inquisitive, involved and proactive.
But I remained silent and let my boss do what she was paid for.
The forensics examiner looked up. “Female Caucasian – thirty to thirty-five – blonde and about five-foot-two; we’ve found her.”
“Not conclusive,” Jensen said, but then paused and looked down at a bracelet that once hung from a slim and delicate wrist. “But this is,” she whispered. I looked too and recognised the plain platinum band that now encircled the dead flesh of the dried bones.
Jensen sighed; “Okay, it’s her,” she said quietly.
Jensen looked closely and I looked too. I nodded; yep, it had belonged to the deceased. I took a deep breath; finally, the corpse had been found; I had spent the last five months looking for her remains, I thought to myself smiling.
I looked down feeling suddenly a little emotional.
Despite the macabre scene before me, I felt profoundly happy.
The body was now found and I so hoped forensics would discover, from the skin samples under the fingernails, the murderer.
As I suspected, it was the DNA from the skin found under the nails of the deceased that led to Jed Miguel. The deceased had fought strongly for her life ripping his right cheek with her nails.
Generally, I was not one to ignore protocol but once Jensen had Miguel’s last known whereabouts, I contacted two others that, I felt, might have some interest in the forthcoming arrest.
When Detective Jensen arrived at the perpetrator’s address, we were there too.
Miguel opened the door and looked with some arrogant disregard at Jensen, but then – over her shoulder – he saw me and froze. But if that wasn’t enough, he looked behind me at the other two young women. He raised his hand to a cheek still scarred from my nails and though his mouth opened – nothing came out.
“But… you… you’re all dead!” he said finally, his eyes wide as he stumbled backwards.
I smiled and moved past Jensen, briefly noticing her look of sudden unease as if she were aware of something… not right.
My platinum bracelet caught the sun as I raised my hands towards Miguel’s throat. My new acquaintances joined me and our fingers sought and found Miguel’s neck and began to dig further and deeper into his windpipe.
Miguel gasped his last breath disappointingly fast.
I suddenly felt quite tired and noticed that both the other girls were now gone.
Jensen stood looking around with something akin to terror on her face. I smiled at my old colleague and though I had no desire to distress her further, I couldn’t resist giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze before I left.
In Lepșa
Chapter 1: A Request
Scene 1: Prologue
“That’s a good one, Mr Lowell…” responded the psychiatrist – without any indication of humour – to my best psychiatrist joke.
I stared at her, “… You see?… It takes only one psychiatrist to change a lightbulb, but the bulb has to want to change…” I repeated laughing afresh.
With a sigh, I stopped laughing and analysed the lady’s face closely; strong lines met between her brows and her smile reminded me of ‘Nurse Ratched’ from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Rather than move her chair closer, she chose to perch her body on its edge and lean towards me not unlike an underfed vulture.
I smiled inwardly.
I had quite some experience with psychiatrists and didn’t lik
e them.
There was a mildly chiding beration on her smiling face and I realised that the smile had not changed in the twenty-seven minutes – was that all? – that she had sat there.
“Yes, that is quite funny,” she said.
Was she wearing a mask? I thought.
The room held little distraction despite my looking for one, and so I looked again at the doctor, currently looking through a folder of my history.
I recognised the military stamp on one of the pages she was leafing through.
There seemed to me something very wrong in ‘leafing’ through someone’s life. A life should never be ‘outlined’. All things within it are pertinent to the one that has lived it, making them the person they become and dictating the decisions they make. It wasn’t that she was summarising, but simply ignoring those parts of my life apparently not pertinent to my current state.
I watched as years were ‘skipped over’.
I felt her rather austere attitude a tad incongruous for someone involved in getting to know people and putting them at ease with gentleness and trust.
My eyes kept coming back to her hands. They were small and her fingers long and thin.
“Mr Lowell,” she said. “I am here to help you. I will not ‘tell’ you anything and you do not have to answer anything I ask of you. You tell me just what you want to tell me and nothing else.”
I nodded and smiled as I watched her animated hands emphasising or supporting her words.
Despite her presence, I considered myself pretty rational but though I realised I had my ‘ways’ I felt certain that once I had told my story… in full, little would be accepted or even believed.
But I no longer cared.
I was content and possibly a little happy.
I now understood what was real and what wasn’t.
I looked up again as the ‘vulture’ asked, “I notice that you keep looking at my hands. Would you like to tell me why that is? Would you like to touch them?” she said.
I stared at her and shook my head, “Why on earth would I want to touch them?” I asked.