His Deadly Quiver

When I saw Joseph K. hung he was dead still. Everything on every wall and surface in his studio appeared to quiver from a centrifugal force that radiated from his still point, even the daylight flickered like a florescent bulb. He hung perfectly still in the centre of the quivering chaos. Unbreathing. Unmoving. Deathly still. I could not comprehend what I was seeing. He was levitating a good two feet off the ground. His feet flexed. His head flopped forward as if he had a rag doll neck. A thread of saliva dangled from his chin to his chest like a tiny icicle. His black tongue hung out of his silent scream.

 When I gave my testimony at the coroner’s court six months later I realized that even though his suicide had colonized my thoughts I had not spoken about it. I stammered and wept on the stand. This is the thing about trauma, it leaves you speechless. Afterwards the police officer who had been at the scene offered me a drive home. In the car he told me a story. One day he had left his home on his way to work and as he turned a corner he saw a car hit a child on a bicycle. He lept out of his car and raced over to her. She was dead. At that moment it appeared that all the leaves and debris on the road were rolling towards her as if being drawn into her. Here it was again, the centrifugal effect.

This is what death looks like, it looks like life disguised. It is a radiant energy that travels faster than the speed of light. It is the centre piece of an event horizon. Time past and time future arrange themselves around death in a circular pattern so that what happens before and what happens after do not necessarily follow a straight line. It ripens premonition and knowing. Death is cloaked. It appears alive but hidden. Shimmering, quivering.