The Murderer’s Canvas

A scene is defined by space and color. A story is defined by what is told and what is not.

The girl ceased to be a girl when she became a corpse.

The room ceased to be a room when it became a display. A work of art.

The scene was depicted in hastily strewn grays and pastel yellows, the kind that wipes anxiety over the walls. Shadowy curtains whisked down in dripping green.

Floors of marble white were stained in alternating spots of light and dark, almost like a mosaic. In the morning din, the nearly empty room was washed in depression.

Like a sculpture, the corpse lay splayed in the middle the stage, haloed by a single slat of light strewn haphazardly over her face. She made the room seem larger, as if the space were being expanded by her mauled body. Her lips were painted with her lies, and the words of murder were etched deeply into her ashen skin. Her bruised eyelids revealed eyes blinded by pride. Her clutching fingers foretold her endless greed. 

She was dressed in vanity; her dress was the deepest mahogany, almost black in the lighting, and the fabric was crinkled and grandly laid out, a fan of last regrets. The echo of a late-night dance in which she trod on her partner. Her feet were gone at the ankles, bare and empty calves spilling into artful streaks on the floor as if, like Hermes, she could spout wings from her legs and take flight.

If viewed from an angle, her hair seemed a waterfall of gold. It was braided with lilies, an ode to her long-lost innocence. The distance between the falls and the floor seemed to stretch out, just like the wedge between her bent elbow was drawn in by sharp lines.

A thousand tales shuffled on her face, gently caressing her peaked nose, her hairline, the tip of her chin. They whispered and sang her woes. 

Her lips were unbelievably quirked, laughing at a long-lost joke. A human punch-line. 

And that was how the scene was laid, undisturbed. It was magnificent that way. It was glorious. If artists had it so, all art, no matter how morbid, would be left in its natural state. 

Time and government had other ideas.

By mid-afternoon, the harsh light of day burned the serenity. The loudness of life blared across the floor. They came in groups, destroying the masterpiece, until they removed all of the artist's signature. They stripped the canvas of paint, and drew it raw.