Human Remains

breathing that wasn’t my own.
    I lifted my head. It took a lot of effort, as if it was made of iron and my neck was a rubber band.
    There was a man sitting on a chair by the door. He was watching me. The light from the window was like an orange glow in the room and it lit up his face. He smiled at me, and I felt safe and comforted because I knew he was my angel and he was here, watching over me.
    ‘Sleep,’ he said, his voice just a whisper.
    The angels would speak to me in a voice that was just a whisper, a breath. They would hold me in their arms and support me in times of trouble. When I was lonely, or afraid, the angels would be there.
    I rested my head back down on the pillow and closed my eyes.

Colin
     
     
    I went to the house in Newmarket Street first, as soon as it got dark. There was nowhere to park the car, which was annoying. I ended up parking in a residents’ only bay in the next street and walking back to the house. I didn’t see a single person on the way, and, although I checked behind me before going down the path to the front door, the whole road was silent and empty. I used the spare key she had given me and as I opened the door a shape darted past into the house – her infernal cat, no doubt. I closed the door and listened for a moment. The only sound was the cat, meowing from a room at the back. I went through and found some cat food in a cupboard, and shook the nuggets into the bowl that was on the floor. I would have to let it out again, and maybe put some food outside to keep it quiet.
    Upstairs, she was fast asleep on the bed. I found a chair outside on the landing and moved it into the bedroom so I could sit and watch her for a while. She was so silent and still that I could almost imagine, almost pretend that she had already passed into death, that I’d caught her right at the perfect moment, the start of the process – the last breaths, exhaled into the stale atmosphere of the room; the stilling of the heartbeat, the blood cells no longer racing around the body, tension gone from every muscle. Everything peaceful and quiet.
    I’m not usually aroused by them until the process of decay has started, but to imagine myself here at the very moment, the precise second she passed from life to death, was thrilling. I shifted in my seat to ease the discomfort, and I was just undoing my trousers when I heard her sigh. The movement must have disturbed her because she lifted her head and opened her eyes and looked at me.
    I tried a benevolent, reassuring smile. ‘Sleep,’ I whispered.
    She went back to sleep. That perfect undisturbed moment was gone, and with it my arousal.
    Something brushed against my leg and startled me – that bloody cat again. I stood, hooked my hand under its belly and took it down the stairs to the kitchen. By that time it was squirming and fighting in my arms. I unlocked the back door and half-threw, half-dropped it out into the night.
    When I got home it took me half an hour to get the cat hair off my trousers using sticky tape. I shan’t feed it again.
     
     
    It’s late at night, and I’m at the computer with a tumbler of single malt, exploring the world from the darkness of the study. Shostakovich playing. I’m too peevish for porn tonight: I shall have to turn to my books for inspiration.
    Biology first, and this evening’s topic of interest – detritivores, a subject approached because of the images I looked at after work. Edward, I think his name was, or rather Eloise, the one who dressed like a woman and indeed fooled me completely until he let me in on the subject of his miserable family. She or he had left the window open upstairs, and of course, because I never interfere in the natural processes, the window had remained open and as a result the detritivores had arrived early, and feasted well.
    Often my digital photographs are quite static, but Edward’s is a veritable teatime drama.
    Detritivores – the vertebrate and invertebrate organisms that feed on decomposing organic matter – are attracted to their sustenance by smell. Different smells are given off as a by-product of the object in question at varying stages of the decomposition process, meaning that the consumption, recycling, destruction (whatever you prefer) of the dead is carried out by a variety of detritivores. In other words, it’s not a feeding frenzy. Blowflies like their dinner fresh. Tineid and Pyralid moth larvae will only consume putrid dry remains, and won’t appear