The blinds hung horizontal paintings of black. Moving portraits placed by headlights of passing
cars peering through the window of the motel room as they followed the interstate into the city. Cast as
shadows on the wall behind the man pacing back and forth across the room. The man repeated his
course from one side to the other in the space between a dresser with a blurring television screen on its
surface, and two single sized mattresses with a night stand between them. The man adjusted his glasses
as he stopped pacing across the motel room to hear the opening story on the eleven o’clock news.
“The body of a missing teen girl has been found this evening. An unimaginable ending to a life cut tragically short. An outcome which has some residents, fearful, that a serial murderer may be on the loose after the third murder in less than eighteen months. The Police Chief was not available for immediate comment, however the gruesome discovery has residents looking for answers. We will have more on this story as..”
The man turned the channel to a cacophony of distortion, as digital waves of endless grey ocean dispersed
across the screen.
He turned the volume off, as the dead channel continued to play. He turned to the woman sitting in the
corner of the room, grey light
spreading across his face, met by the headlights cast from another car passing by.
“You know, you shouldn’t watch the news before you go to bed..” he said trailing off. “They
only ever share the evil of a few men’s action.. Murder, destruction, the world devolving into the chaos
of humanity.. They didn’t even mention how much I loved that girl!” he said in an impassioned
whisper. The spectre of his shadow moved towards her across the wall, reappearing closer to her with
each passing set of headlights.
“We could have been so happy together.” he said, sitting on the corner of the stained mattress
closest to her. He pulled the chain of the lampshade hanging above her head, revealing her face in a
halo of light. “I only wish it could have turned out better.”
Her skin was a blotched palette of smeared rose and lavender, run together on a canvas of
perfect white. Her bottom jaw had been torn from her face, leaving her tongue hanging on her neck
while blood pooled in the centre of her blouse. She was tied to the chair with rubber surgical tubing
which remained from her makeshift tourniquet. An intravenous bag hung with a metal coat hanger from
a plant hook on the ceiling, delivering opiates to her blood stream. She moved her eyes as far as she
could manage to look at the man seated near the end of her life.
“Love stories, however,” he said as he moved the hair from the side of her face behind her ear. “Rarely make the news."◆