Apartment 1 “Blood on the Floor”

“I've tried to stop the bleeding, but it all just seems to want to come out no matter what I do. I have tried everything I can think of, but nothing seems to stem the flow of blood that is pooling on my kitchen floor.

I've given up trying to clean it up.

I've given up.

She was the most important person in the world to me. Now all that she was is pooling on the grimy floor around my toes. My blood is joining hers, or maybe none of it is her blood. Maybe I am the one that is hurt, and she is doing just fine.

I am the one who is hurt.

And she is the one who is hurt.

What the hell am I even saying? Somebodies blood is wrapping its way around me and is seeping into the carpet, but some part of me can't really feel that. Everything about it feels like it isn't happening, like if I were to shake her a little that she will blink and offer a reassuring smile.

Is her body in the room or am I just imagining it?

Is my body in the room or am I just imagining it?

She told me that I wasn't real. That was the last thing she said to me before she went away. Before I gave up on her entirely. It is a cruel thing to say to someone. That is what I told people in the days after our last fight. That there are things you can and cannot say if you intend to not hurt someone you love.

But she doesn't love me anymore.

Everything I try to write has her in it. No matter how much I try to make it better I cannot create without addressing the growing pool of blood in the middle of my kitchen. I want to think about anything else, but really what else is relevant right now?

My mind is foggy and my feet are wet. The blood is getting cold and so I am starting to get cold.

Something rises.

It separates itself from the rest of the blood, this flowing thing forming out of the blood on the floor. It is looking at me with crimson eyes and a narrow face. It leans over, leading me to do as it does, as it laps up the red.

It wants to make sure nothing goes to waste.

That we save it all.

Every last drop contained in the growing pool coming from some body in this room.

Someone.

Some body.

My body.

It is all my blood. It was always my blood.

She was never really going to be able to be hurt in all of this. The only person who could provide her with the sort of pain she feels is her.

She has enough talent for the both of us.

She was always so very good when she wanted to cut.

This thing whispers to me. It talks about a world full of blood, of things that are real and of unity and a sense of completeness. I feel so unreal right now.

All I need to do is put down this pen and paper, and have a nice long drink.

I want to.

I won't lie.

I even started leaning over just now.

But it is too late.

I hesitated just long enough for it to notice. Or maybe it didn't have to see. It simply knew my heart.

It is standing over me now, disappointed in me. It is looking down, and in its eyes to its feet I feel the rage running over.”

They never found the body no matter how much blood they found. Room after room were stained with scarlet, but none of them contained a body. A limb.

Anything but red.

I suppose I was told this for the same reason we have police files among the records at the museum. There are some things that are unexplained. Things that happen around here, and that the Wellington Street Historical Society might be able to shed some light on.

Unofficially of course.

Always unofficially, so I was told.

I was surprised to see her this morning. I was working on the filing system when I was told that a police officer had arrived and was looking for me. As she described the details I realized that I recognized her. She had been the one I had talked to that day at the beach.

Seems I only ever see her when there are missing bodies.

She is nice, and didn't seem fazed at all when I started talking to her about the various accounts that I had heard over the last few months, going back to July of last year. I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised. Rumors have been circulating for a while that the police force and the WSHS tend to work on cases together.

I am sure there are all sorts of legal shit they could get into, but with cases like these, really who would be willing to bring such accounts into a court room.

Doesn't hurt that most of the time the accounts come from people who have gone missing.

I gave her copies of the reports I had, and that was it.

Dad and I still haven't spoken much.

I haven't really been trying.