Complicit

By J. Randall Ayers

Copyright J. Randall Ayers

Over there in the mist I see a child. She stands still, stoop-shouldered, shivering, skeletal arms hugging her tiny body. She wears no coat. Her dark hair, matted with detritus , obscures her countenance.

She turns to face me. Molten black eyes glare at me. It is then I see the blood. And the bruises.

I step toward her with caution ,much like I would if approaching a frightened puppy. “Helu,” I call. She does not respond. “Are you injured?”

Stone-faced and immobile she regards me with quiet apathy.

I step closer to focus on her ruined face. There is blood on her mouth and the front of her torn jumper. I notice her feet, filthy and ulcerated, are bare. The skin of her face is mottled and pale, like clabbered cream.

“You’re hurt, I say. “I can help, I can get you help.”

She opens her mouth. Her swollen tongue protrudes between broken blood-stained teeth. “No one can help me.”

“I assure you I can,” I say. “What has happened to you?”

She tilts her head, glaring at me through malignant eyes.

“You are Magistrate Quinlin, no?”

“I am,” I say. “Tell me child, who might you be?”

“I am the one you killed,” she says.

“Nonsense,” I protest. “What is it you’re saying.? Utter nonsense, I tell you.” She raises a hand and points a tremulous finger.

“Why didn’t you protect me?” she says. “Why did you kill me?” I sputter with confusion and consternation.

“I don’t know what you are talking about child. Why do you accuse me of such an atrocity?”

The fetid finger Jabs the air. Her voice, now powerful and condemning, assaults my ears. “You failed to lock away my father. You knew he was an abuser. But you didn’t care. Money and power were more important than a little girl’s life.”

She steps closer. The smell of death is on her. “You robbed me of a future,” she says. “Now I must rob you of yours.

There from the mist, the grinding surging of a giant metal beast. Rubber tires barking on wet pavement. Out of the gloom twin beams of light bearing down on me like a hawk targeting a vole.

No time to cry out. No time to pray.

Her luminous eyes hold mine until the vengeful machine ends me.