Shadowplay

CELL 19

A little girl's body lay sprawled in stinking water and rotten weeds; she was naked and she'd been beaten until her face was a pulp, broken ribs glistened white and yellow through the mud and putrifying meat; her torso was ripped open from pelvis to just above the heart which was missing and there were other mutilations, at the moment mercifully hidden by the mud and broken weeds drapped over her corpse.

She lay undiscovered for several days, then a farm laborer came past on a tractor, intending to get a field ready for planting. He saw the body, fell off the machine, and waded into the ditch. He eased her up out of the mud and slime, wrapped her In a bit of canvas, and took her to the village.

The villagers gathered around him, wordless, their anger so deep they could only moan and sway. A woman came pushing through them, uncovered the body. She screamed, tore at her hair, her face, her clothes. Her sisters and the other women led her off.

When she was inside her house, the men of the village took the child's body to the lspisaco and banged on the Great Door, their heavy somber blows the dead child's knell. There was no response this time, there'd been none the time before or the time before that. They didn't expect any. They took her head and her hands and left the rest of her in silent accusation.