Fiction / Ada Pelonia

 

:: The Dead Talks ::

It’s a sui­cide, the whis­pers say. Bystanders mur­mur, ‘What a waste—’ of tal­ent, of intel­lect, of a son. The eldest of five sib­lings, he is the fam­i­ly’s pride. The rope wrapped around the tree’s branch by the back­yard sets a tell­tale sign. The police think it’s a sui­cide, too. But the signs of bruis­ing on his arms and grip marks on his face per­mit a deep­er probe.

The offi­cer says he’d been dead for six hours. The roost­ers have crowed ear­li­er, now squawk­ing relent­less­ly by their feet. His moth­er says noth­ing but sobs at the confirmation.

“My son would nev­er do that, offi­cer,” his father says in a brood­ing voice before tak­ing a puff from his cig­a­rette and spit­ting his phlegm on the ground. “My son’s an archi­tect, you know? Peo­ple can get jeal­ous. Some­one else must have done this.”

The police stay mum, mere­ly nod­ding. They ask per­mis­sion to check the house, and his father leads them in.

“My son’s room is on the left.” His father points at a door. Out­side are his sib­lings, their sullen eyes blood­shot red. His father notices and clench­es his fists.

“Get them out of here,” his father orders. His moth­er scram­bles from behind, stag­ger­ing as she holds their clam­my hands and leads them to the kitchen.

The offi­cer enters, ask­ing the oth­er to take pho­tographs. A draft­ing table sits in the cor­ner of his room with blank trac­ing papers strewn on top. Crum­pled Post-it notes brim­ming on his trash bin with rigid let­ter­ing of the word “ideas” fol­lowed by ellipses. Emp­ty draw­ing stor­age tubes are stacked beside it.

His lug­gage has been left open on his bed with a few fold­ed shirts inside and heaps of clothes around it. Under­neath are two torn air­line tick­ets. The offi­cer takes them, soot cin­ders leav­ing traces on his gloved hands. He jots these in his pock­et note­book and places them in plastic.

They check his cab­i­nets: pen­cils, tri­an­gu­lar scales, Cop­ic mark­ers, lin­er pens, and a pile of sketch­books. The offi­cer asks the oth­er to flip through the pages, seek­ing a let­ter. They find noth­ing but house and infra­struc­ture sketch­es, cutouts of hous­es from mag­a­zines on the right with his ver­sion on the left. His draw­ings had scrib­bles on them, the traces of ball­point pen leav­ing marks from behind.

The police leaf through the pages of his sketch­books until they open the last one from years back. A suite of poems penned in flow­ing cal­lig­ra­phy swirls on the paper. Every page offers stan­za after stan­za of poet­ry, all with “For David” inscribed under each title. Wedged between the last few pages was a filled-out MFA appli­ca­tion form from a uni­ver­si­ty abroad.

They take the sketch­book inside anoth­er plas­tic evi­dence bag. The offi­cer paus­es, note­book and pen in hand, and asks who David is, this person’s rela­tion­ship with him, and if his father thinks this cer­tain David may know some­thing behind his death.

“He’s just a friend, offi­cer. I can assure you that lad can’t hit any­one to save his life.”

His father snorts, shak­ing his head. The police exchange glances, their eyes prob­ing for more. But the offi­cers set­tle with assur­ing his father that they’ll give him the autop­sy report when it’s done. They say they’ll return after a few days before tak­ing their leave.

Upon sit­ting, a cup of black cof­fee has already been served at the table. His father is about to drink it when thun­der­ing knocks clash at their door.

“It’s prob­a­bly David—” his sis­ter tries to stand, but the scald­ing cof­fee drench­es her first. She stum­bles, her lips quiv­er­ing. His moth­er grabs a tow­el, her shak­ing hands wip­ing the spillage. His father heaves, fists clenched on the table’s edges. Like gears click­ing in their respec­tive places, the table turns qui­et, and they let the inces­sant knock­ing rever­ber­ate in their ears.

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

 This sto­ry takes cues from a scene in “Move to Heav­en” where one of the char­ac­ters said: “There comes a moment when you begin to see what the deceased want­ed to say and the thoughts they want­ed to share.” It comes with com­mon sense that the dead don’t talk and they nev­er will. But I firm­ly believe in humans’ capac­i­ty to present their lives, the way they’ve lived (or not), which tran­scends beyond death and speaks to the liv­ing. Be it the pile of jour­nals on their bed­side table, a jar of pen­nies in every cup­board, their wal­lets filled with bus tick­ets and can­dy wrap­pers, or the trin­kets they left behind in the nook and cran­ny of the house—every nuance brings the deceased back to the liv­ing, shar­ing a sto­ry or two that’d elic­it stom­ach-turn­ing laughs or wrench­ing pain of woes, a kind of after­life that begs to be understood.

Ada Pelo­nia (she/her) is a jour­nal­ism grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas. Her work has appeared or is forth­com­ing in HAD, Eunoia Review, Gone Lawn, and The Account, among oth­ers. She has been nom­i­nat­ed for Best Microfic­tion 2021. Find her at adapelonia.weebly.com or on Insta­gram @_adawrites.