Issue October 2012 Flash Fiction Online October 2012

The evidence shows that this is how the murder was committed:

Schmar, the murderer, took up his post about nine o’clock one night in clear moonlight by the corner where Wese, his victim, had to turn from the street where his office was into the street he lived in.

The night air was shivering cold. Yet Schmar was wearing only a thin blue suit; the jacket was unbuttoned, too. He felt no cold; besides, he was moving about all the time. His weapon, half a bayonet and half a kitchen knife, he kept firmly in his grasp, quite naked. He looked at the knife against the light of the moon; the blade glittered; not enough for Schmar; he struck it against the bricks of the pavement till the sparks flew; regretted that, perhaps; and to repair the damage drew it like a violin bow across his boot sole while be bent forward standing on one leg and listened both to the whetting of the knife on his boot and for any sound out of the fateful side street.

Why did Pallas, the private citizen who was watching it all from his window near by in the second story, permit it to happen? Unriddle the mysteries of human nature! With his collar turned up, his dressing gown girt round his portly body, he stood looking down, shaking his head.

And five houses further along, on the opposite side of the street, Mrs. Wese, with a fox-fur coat over her nightgown, peered out to look for her husband who was lingering unusually late tonight.

At last there rings out the sound of the doorbell before Wese’s office, too loud for a doorbell, right over the town and up to heaven, and Wese, the industrious nightworker, issues from the building, still invisible in this street, only heralded by the sound of the bell; at once the pavement registers his quiet footsteps.

Pallas bends far forward; he dares not miss anything. Mrs. Wese, reassured by the bell, shuts her window with a clatter. But Schmar kneels down; since he has no other parts of his body bare, he presses only his face and his hands against the pavement; where everything else is freezing, Schmar is glowing hot.

At the very corner dividing the two streets Wese pauses, only his walking stick comes round into the other street to support him. A sudden whim. The night sky has invited him, with its dark blue and its gold. Unknowing he gazes up at it, unknowing he lifts his hat and strokes his hair; nothing up there draws together in a pattern to interpret the immediate future for him; everything stays in its senseless, inscrutable place. In itself it is a highly reasonable action that Wese should walk on, but he walks on to Schmar’s knife.

“Wese!” shrieks Schmar, standing on tiptoe, his arm outstretched, the knife sharply lowered, “Wese! You will never see Julia again!” And right into the throat and left into the throat and a third time deep into the belly stabs Schmar’s knife. Water rats, slit open, give out such a sound as comes from Wese.

“Done,” says Schmar and pitches the knife, now superfluous blood-stained ballast, against the nearest house front. “The bliss of murder! The relief, the soaring ecstasy from the shedding of another’s blood! Wese, old nightbird, friend, alehouse crony, you are oozing away into the dark earth below the street. Why aren’t you simply a bladder of blood so that I could stamp on you and make you vanish into nothingness? Not all we want comes true, not all the dreams that blossomed have borne fruit, your solid remains lie here, already indifferent to every kick. What’s the good of the dumb question you are asking?”

Pallas, choking on the poison in his body, stands at the double-leafed door of his house as it flies open. “Schmar! Schmar! I saw it all, I missed nothing.” Pallas and Schmar scrutinize each other. The result of the scrutiny satisfies Pallas, Schmar comes to no conclusion.

Mrs. Wese, with a crowd of people on either side, comes rushing up, her face grown quite old with the shock. Her fur coat swings open, she collapses on top of Wese, the nightgowned body belongs to Wese, the fur coat spreading over the couple like the smooth turf of a grave belongs to the crowd.

Schmar, fighting down with difficulty the last of his nausea, pressing his mouth against the shoulder of the policeman who, stepping lightly, leads him away.

The lake was alive with lights — the lanterns on the boats, golden and round, like hundreds of miniature suns, and the moon, so heavy on the horizon that it was difficult to believe that it would be able to climb any higher in the sky. The foxes smiled debonairly as they steered the boats. They knew well how to mimic the behavior of aristocratic young men, though they couldn’t entirely refrain from an occasional impatient yip, while their doll companions tried to wear the same demure expressions they had so often seen on their mistresses’ faces.

How strange to find themselves on boats, the dolls thought. How strange to be separated from their devoted owners. One of them had been sleeping beneath a flowered coverlet when a fox leapt through the window and tore her from her protesting owner’s arms. Another had been lying in a lacy crib before astonishingly finding herself in a fox’s mouth. It was all quite shocking, though the dolls weren’t terribly upset. What young lady doesn’t want to be abducted by a gay troubadour? The thought of their forsaken little girls was sad, but nonetheless the dolls couldn’t help smiling furtively into their fans.

The Isle of Delights was in sight now, a black line in the glittering water. The foxes could barely contain their excitement, and the dolls tittered nervously. But wait, what was that along the shoreline? It almost looked as if there were broken dolls, thousands of them… One or two of the dolls screamed, but the foxes hastened to explain. You young ladies aren’t accustomed to being out on the water, always all kinds of strange debris, you’re seeing twigs and branches from the wind storm last week. The dolls tittered again, embarrassed by their ignorance, and the gallant foxes helped them ashore.

How glorious the night! It was the festival of the Mid-Autumn Moon, and the music of human celebrations drifted across the water, but even the humans weren’t enjoying a repast as splendid as the one prepared by the foxes. Embroidered quilts were spread out on grass dotted with chrysanthemums sagely nodding their yellow heads. The dolls seated themselves and modestly pulled their silk dresses around their ankles. What would the foxes do next? Tiny doll hearts fluttered like hummingbirds.

The foxes, with a flourish, spread a bolt of golden silk over the embroidered quilts. The picnic hampers were unpacked, and what wonders they contained. Melons and mooncakes. Tiny jade cups, exactly suited for a doll’s delicate hands, and wine as sweet as dew. Platters laden with red salted goose slices and pickled crabs. The dolls, accustomed to nothing more sumptuous than imaginary tea parties, were quite dazzled to be eating such splendid food, and perhaps they drank more wine than it was entirely wise for a doll to drink. The foxes watched them carefully, whiskers twitching. Every fox knows that the secret of immortality lies in devouring a doll’s heart essence, but opinions differ as to exactly what a doll’s heart essence might be. The foxes had concluded on this particular Mid-Autumn Moon that perhaps a doll’s heart essence was produced by feeding dolls pearls. After all, they had previously experimented with feeding dolls gold and feeding them orchids. Therefore, the platter they presented next was heaped with carp stuffed with nightingale wings and decorated with pearls arranged to represent a phoenix. The dolls exclaimed and applauded and daintily ate the carp, and the nightingale wings, and the pearls, every last one.

It was time. The foxes draped their front legs around the dolls’ shoulders. “Look at the silver toad in the moon,” they said. “Look at the Weaving Maid Star. At the Cowherd.” The dolls lifted their little heads to look at the night sky and the foxes, with great delicacy, tore out their throats. Had they succeeded this time? The foxes looked at each other, hoping to see some indications of immortality, though they were no more certain what immortality looked like than they were certain what a doll’s heart essence might be. But surely there should be some new luminosity in the air, an unaccustomed sparkle? They tore the dolls apart, searching desperately. They didn’t want to admit it, even to themselves, but this was ending like every other Mid-Autumn Moon night. Finally they climbed back in their boats and set off for shore, their lanterns long since doused. Even the human revels had ended, and the night was black and silent, the moon hiding behind a bank of thick cloud. A cold drizzle made the foxes shiver, and when they reached land they ran to their dens and curled up to shut out the freezing night, their tails over their eyes.

Winter arrived, and soon the Isle of Delights was muffled under heavy snow. The only movement was from the coiled dead leaves that still stubbornly rattled amid black branches. The dolls thought longingly of home and the little girls who had loved them, though they knew all that was past and gone. Their silk dresses, red as blood, blue as spring, lay in frozen heaps under the bare trees. By the time the snow melted the dresses were the same color as the surrounding mud. With the arrival of spring a creeping fungus turned the dolls’ bright brown eyes to dull green. Arms and legs split open under the blazing summer sun.

But now it’s once again glorious autumn. The night air is full of the sound of drums. The foxes are in their fairy boats, red coats gleaming in the light of lanterns. They reach the Isle of Delights, and their passengers cry out in fear when they see dolls dismembered and scattered about, but they are easily reassured. Soon a joyous party is underway. And why not celebrate? Perhaps this is the moon that will confer immortality. Perhaps this moon will bring each tender longing heart true love. Perhaps this is the Mid-Autumn Moon we have all been waiting for.