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<br><br>My mentor won’t help—says my angst can’t be exorcized.

And I can’t help either, or stop the film spinning inside me, spitting out images.

I wanted to tell Breton—wanted to confess.

*Forgive me, Father, but I don’t recognize this contorted paralytic—this dangling man jerked about by emotions…*

*who grieves for his dead wife while picturing his face buried in his partner’s red tresses*.



<br><br>But self pity is useless, so I try to force myself to concentrate on the forensic files before me, despite the fact they sicken me.

My job is distasteful as working in a slaughterhouse, except the animals I deal with are the bipedal type who lurk in the fringes and prey on the unsuspecting.

Still, it’s given me an unique perspective on the human zoo—the fact we’re all susceptible to a certain unavoidable pathology.

<br><br>The monsters I’m tracking carve up people—and it’s my job to catch them. But is my pathology any better when I’m cutting myself?

 Isn’t that what I’m doing now—torturing myself for being absent when Faith needed me, unable to be there when she ended her life at twenty-nine?

The room darkens as if in a brownout, and I feel myself sliding down the same slippery slope again.

<br><br> “You’re punishing yourself, Martin—what happened was not your fault.”

She’s in the half-light of the doorway, leaning up against the doorframe, as if wearied by these interminable conversations.

“I need you, Faith—I can’t go on.”

“You must—you’re tormenting yourself—and people need you. You can make a difference in their lives.”

“Whose lives,” I sneer, “these torsos in the files, splayed out in death—or my life, or rather, my half-life, without you here?”

<br><br> “Do you know why you try to black out drunk every night? Well, I’ll tell you—it’s the same reason lights dim when I come near.”

I chuckle bitterly, “Yeah, and what reason is that?”

She gives me such a sad, forlorn look that it draws the soul right out of me. “I can’t do your thinking for you.”

“Funny, Breton said almost the same thing this afternoon.”

“Did he?” she smiles, “That’s because he knows it’s got to do with need.”

<br><br>A jagged arm of lightning draws my eyes to the window. I catch a glimpse of a lightning flare illumining some obscure geography of cloud.

I turn back, and she’s gone.

I sit alone in my front room, tear trails on my cheeks, rain shadows patterning the walls, and within, the desolate land of real need.



<br><br> “Did you make any progress on the Dorm Murders?”

Robyn’s sipping a takeout coffee while scanning the files. The light from the copy machine bathes her in pale light, not unlike the Moon. I look away, not wanting to be reminded of how lovely she is.

“Naw, I’m stymied—what about you?”

“There was a lot of rain last night—brownouts in my building—the lights kept dimming, so I gave up and went to bed.”

“Sounds like my night.”

<br><br>She looks at me, and I know she sees fatigue shadows and lines. “Doesn’t look like you got much sleep—you look wasted.”

I nod. “Comes with the territory.”

She pauses, gazes sadly, and then, gently looks away.

There’s a poetry of gesture between us—an unspoken ballet of nuances, inflections and things left unsaid.

Sometimes, silence can be beautiful, but too much, and your life’s sterile—like mine, and maybe even like hers.

I force myself to flip the mental page, pick up the file and try to unravel the motives of a killer who slices off women’s breasts.



<br><br><center>© 2017, John J Geddes. All rights reserved</center>



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