Friday, January 08, 2010

Entry #70

Free
by Jelena Vencl Ohlrogge


A svelte, still body and a Rorschach test motive painted on the pavement. Bloodblot. That is all he sees from his balcony on the third floor.


She might be alive. Panic takes over for a moment. No, no movement. But, surprisingly little blood. He turns away and shuts his eyes.

She bled so much, so easily. Quite annoying, but she did clean after. He disliked shambles. And what now; he'll have to clean the crap. He banged her head against the bath tub; a little bit against the sink. That should not have created much mess. She weighed close to nothing but became heavy as a rock when rendered unconscious. He dragged her to the balcony and sent her over the edge.

His eyes are still shut. And then it strikes him. The sound. He does not remember the sound of her body hitting the pavement. He jumps, looks over the edge. No, the body is not there. He still sees the bloodblot but it is lighter, translucent.

He hears a flap of wings and lifts his head. A crow. Glistens blue in the fading light. Their eyes meet and he knows. His breathing stops. The crow circles above him, never loses eye contact.

His heart skips a beat just before his own flight is over and the pristine concrete meets his body with a bone splitting, blood sprinkling embrace of death.

The crow arches her wings gracefully, shakes off the invisible sorrows of yesterdays and flies away.

24 comments:

Sarah Laurenson said...

Haunting images, especially of him hitting the pavement.

The but she did clean after is confusing me. Can't quite fit that into the rest.

Anthony Rapino said...

the beginning has a cool staccato to it. Nice work.

PJD said...

I, too, like the sharp description at the end. But I'm a bit befuddled by the sequence. The body definitely is on the ground at the beginning. But then he doesn't remember the sound of it hitting. And then it's transformed into the crow? If the body hits and bleeds, it would have thudded; if she transformed before hitting, he'd not have seen it in the opening paragraph. If it's something else entirely, I'm sorry but I've missed it.

Rachel Green said...

A brutal boyfriend!

Tabitha Bird said...

Love some of that description. I got a bit lost as to when the body hit the floor. But I could be reading it wrong. Nice work though.

Bernita said...

Your first paragraph is first class...then I became confused.

Jelena said...

Thank you for reading and commenting!

@pjd That he does not remember the sound does not mean there was no sound. He forgot, he's just tossed his girlfriend from the balcony and he is focused on thinking of the cleaning he has to do; the cleaning that she used to do every time (after he had beaten her) (@Sarah Laurenson).

Aniket Thakkar said...

I loved the description and the dark images it projected on my mind. Gory and horrific.

Lena said...

With explanations in comments it is much easier to understand now. Less confusing. Great writing!

Aimee Laine said...

Totally deserved that! :)

Craig said...

Karma strikes again.

JaneyV said...

A cold-hearted killer gets his just desserts.

Kartik said...

Brutal and chilling..

catvibe said...

Great ending. I loved the image of the transformation into the crow. Very cool.

Michael Solender said...

wow, very dark and creepy.

laughingwolf said...

i'm somewhat confused, too, but overall like the tale...

Laurel said...

Wow. That boyfriend is one major SOB.

Patsy said...

Sounds almost as though she's better off now than when she was living with hin.

DILLIGAF said...

I'm all over the place here. I've read and re-read....

Actually, is that a bad thing? If you can draw your reader back for more?....

I admit confusion in the 'she cleaned' bit but I very much like the ultimate revenge in this.

Anonymous said...

"shakes off the invisible sorrows of yesterday", I wish I had come up with that one.

Anonymous said...

This is very dark and I LOVE IT. Right up my alley Jelena- great to see you around.

Chris Eldin said...

I really love your opening.

james r tomlinson said...

Nicely paced story. You've done an excellent job pulling back from the bloodblot and letting the reader see the full picture. I love the ending.

Anonymous said...

Dear Entrants #1-105,

I have read your pieces so that I can fairly participate in the Readers' Choice vote. (I read all of them through last week, before I started commenting.) I will be coming back around to offer my keep/tweak comment, but I didn't want anyone to snark.

Cheers,
Aerin (#236)

BTW, it's perfectly fine if you still want to snark, but this way you can choose a more appropriate subject, like Sarah Palin's hair or the enigmatic career of Justin Timberlake.