Longlisted for Australian Writers’ Centre July 2020 Furious Fiction competition 

The girl could recall the exact second she died. She was shocked only by how unremarkable it was. There was no last gasp. No life flashing before her eyes. One moment she could feel the freezing snow under her body. The next, she couldn’t. It was anticlimactic to say the least.

She moved unseen between the clusters of people dressed in black, as they talked in hushed tones and tried not to mention the murder.

She didn’t know why the man had chosen her. Why he decided to end her life on that cold, Wednesday morning. She remembered her surprise when his knife first entered her body. The sound it made as it cut through her flesh. A squelching noise that was almost comical. She wasn’t sure how many times he plunged his blade into her before it was over, but she knew it was a lot.

She supposed she should be angry at the man for stealing her life. Angry that she would never live out her dreams, go to college or travel the world. Angry that she was left in a crumpled, discarded heap as if she meant nothing. But she wasn’t angry. She didn’t feel anything at all, and she wondered if being dead was like this for everyone; empty of not just blood, but of everything that once made her human.

The girl stood at the window watching as the mourners left. Hugging each other before they returned to their unsullied lives. When silence finally enveloped the house, the girl sat on a stool in the corner of the kitchen and watched her mother and brother stack casserole dishes in the fridge. Tomorrow she would watch them eat a reheated lasagne. The next day they would manage a sandwich.

Before long, her mother would return to work. Her brother would go back to college. She would see them drift apart under the strain of their grief. Her mother would grow old and tired, and her broken heart would eventually stop. Then one day there would be another funeral, and more mourners dressed in black.

Her brother would finally pack up her room, keeping only one thing. A photo of his long dead sister on her fifteenth birthday, just days before a mad man killed her and left her body in tatters in a pool of blood by the side of the road.

The girl would watch as the house was sold, and a new family moved in. Another young girl would decorate her room with pictures of a Korean pop band. She would watch that girl grow up and move out to start a new life. Her bedroom would become a home office, then a gym, before the parents decided to sell. Then, another family would move in. Then another. And another.

All the time the girl was there, watching everything and feeling nothing.

She should have been angry.

But she wasn’t.

© Amy Hutton 2020