MicroHorror

“We think it was a suicide.”

I was absolutely stunned. The scene was bizarre, macabre, almost cultish. How could a person do that to himself?

“S-suicide?” I stuttered, glancing at the detective. His meaty hands flipped through a small, very wrinkled notebook that he obviously kept in his back pocket at all times–its contour was unmistakably that of a very large posterior.

“Yeah,” he grunted, scratching below his eye and leaving a faint ink smudge, “damnedest thing. Those ropes up there all have piano wire on them a few feet above the uh, other bits.”

I glanced at the kid’s head, perfectly impaled on a wrought iron fence post, the spike having broken open the top of his skull like a pop can lid. He was smiling, eyes wide. I shuddered.

“Seven ropes, each of different lengths between 60 feet and 90 feet in increments of 5 feet,” he began monotonously, somehow reading a seemingly random assortment of blobs and scratches. “He tied a length of piano wire 2 feet from a noose on the end of each rope, then tied it all to himself: piano wire at his armpit, noose on his elbow; piano wire at the top of his thigh, noose around the knee, and so on. As he dropped the piano wire sliced through a limb or his neck–the removed part would catch on the noose and dangle–at each 5-foot increment. Christ,” he muttered, scratching his cheek again, “what a nut-job.”

I sat down on the cold, still-damp curb, feeling bile in my throat. I took a few measured breaths while I let my gaze travel down from the top of the building, the whole thing resembling a psychopath’s wind chime. The worst was the torso, swaying slightly in the night’s breeze, thudding gently against the building. You could tell the back had broken when the noose caught.

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, the burning in my lungs reassuring me about the reality of the situation. After a moment I stood, stretched, and flicked the rest of it into the gutter. Turning, I glanced once more at the awful head.

He was winking at me.

The phone rang.

It was one of those old phones you can’t find anymore: solid, black, lacquered, corded, with real bells for the ringer, sitting squared on an end table. I answered mid-ring.

The receiver was heavy in my hand.

“Hello?”

“You thought I wouldn’t find out?”

I dropped the receiver. It hit the cracking linoleum floor with a dull clatter, the dark shape contrasted against the awful speckled pattern, the tiles yellowed with age. I hadn’t heard his voice since he stormed out a few nights ago.

I held my breath as I retrieved the receiver, my hands swimming through the too-bright florescent light pouring from the ceiling.

“I uh…”

“It’s your fault, you know.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face, the burning sensation behind the neck fogging my thoughts, the gentle tremors running through my legs. I needed to sit down, to escape.

I slowly, gently, hung up, placing the receiver on the cradle carefully, deliberately, trying not to make the slightest “click,” knowing that small noise would shatter my entire world.

My eyes burned with effort, holding back the tears. Was this remorse? Was it grief? Was it terror?

I slowed my breathing and smoothed out my blouse, my white fingers trembling against the black fabric. I pulled open the double doors and rejoined the wake, his large, dark coffin standing out against the explosions of flowers and wreaths.