empty atoms

This is the picture that Amy cannot shake from her mind. The atoms of her sister Anna have sunk so far into the atoms of the ground that the orbits are indistinguishable. She sees only horror filling the empty spaces between the atoms. She cannot recognize features in the close-up of the face. There is nothing there but the far off orbits of hair intersecting ground, air intersecting flesh. Water seeps through, merging the edges.

She could see her twin's nose just barely above the matted grass, part of her high cheekbones forming a tiny rise in the contours of the ground. The body was clothed, a shiny rubbery glistening that could not hide the emptiness underneath. The maggots left the skin intact, the entomologist goes on. Screwworms and blowflies first formed thick colonies around the flesh, concentrating on her sister's portals: ears, eyes opened to the terror, mouth gaping in unheard screams, knife wounds slashing through her breasts, inviting the blood to pour out and congeal on the ground.

The rove beetle larvae and hairy maggot blowflies were visible, and the cheese skippers were in the fifth instar stage. Thus the death day must have been 29 to 31 days previous, a different entomologist concludes. As she put down her blueberry latte without tasting it, Amy wondered about the timing, wonders what her sister's body is doing in the pages of November 1998's Discovery Magazine.

She could not bring herself to reread the article. At the same time, she could not simply leave the article in the PennyLane cafe where just anyone could sip a quadruple shot latte and see her sister's breast turned upwards on the ground.

So Amy looked about and casually rolled the magazine into her backpack. The coffee shop's woven basket was already overflowing with last week's Time magazine and some thick Cosmo mags, a WestWord from last month, and yesterday's Wall Street Journal. No one will miss this, Amy thought to herself.

And no one did.

empty atoms / thicken / into crowds / too trifling / to be constrained / sufficient / for shadows / under the sun

the word is / the sound / of water / dripping from/ ancient symbols / tiny particles / of merging / realities


Follow us all: Amy/Anna, Sophie/Yuki, Kit/Richard, minor characters or sift through water leavings and river journeys.