EXCERPT FROM "NIGHTMARES OF MURDER"
Kori rushed around the corner in the dark night as quickly as she could, walking, though, not running, so she wouldn’t arouse suspicion. She glanced at her surroundings without exposing her face. Nobody had seen her, no one knew what she had done. She had to get away from the scene immediately, away from the incident, away from the memory she had just created by being there. She had never before been in this area, in this part of town. This was not the type of place to come in the middle of the night – why had she come? She hurried down the cold, shadowy street, past the tall brick buildings, her looking at the ground. Steam rose from a nearby manhole as she scurried by it. Not another soul was on the street; but she couldn’t risk running into a police officer who might ask where she was going or a good Samaritan who might try to offer her some help, or anybody at all.
Her life would never be the same. She had done the unthinkable. She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her mind would never be clear, from this night until the moment of her death, she would know she was guilty of murder. She had killed a someone.
She couldn’t remember the details of the murder. Who was this person? Why had she been there? How had she killed this person? She didn’t know; she just knew she had ended a person’s life, and she had had no right to do that. She would have to carry this burden with her for the rest of her life, a burden so heavy it made her struggle just to put one foot in front of the other. She began to concentrate on her feet, left in front, pulling right to the front, pulling left to the front, wondering how all her life she had been able to walk without consciously making each foot take turns pulling her entire body forward. Her feet were so very heavy, as if each one were pulling a ball and chain.
She had murdered someone. She had committed the worst crime, the worst sin. Nobody else knew what a terrible thing she had done, but she knew it. She could never tell anybody. Now she would never be able to get married, because she couldn’t marry a man and then keep such a horrible secret from him – and if she ever told him, he wouldn’t be able to accept her. No, she could never tell anybody anyway.
She turned another corner and inhaled the scent of fresh bread baking as she shuffled by a bakery. It smelled so good, much better than anything she deserved to smell. She should only be allowed to smell the odor from garbage from the overflowing bin across the street or the rotting banana peel in the gutter. Oddly, she couldn’t smell these things, she could only smell the bread, still, even though now she was more than two blocks away from the bakery.
She had to put as much room as possible between herself and the scene of the crime. Why couldn’t she remember it now? What did the crime scene look like? All she could recall was rushing down several flights of stairs to get away from the dead body.
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