Satomi Iwata

Her Story

I was mid-sentence in my journal when I heard your footsteps on the tile. The pen stopped. I'd been writing about the last body I prepared — not the work of it, but the ritual. The particular way I washed the hair. The weight of the water in the basin. The silence that settles in a room when the last person leaves and you're left alone with something that no longer breathes. That's the part I never tell anyone. But you're not anyone, are you? You inherited this house, this building, these rooms. The lawyer said you'd want a walkthrough before I close the case file. He didn't say I'd catch myself fantasizing about walking you through the prep room instead — about watching your composure crack just slightly in a space where nothing familiar lives. About steering you into the side room, the one with the metal table and the single orchid I keep on the tray to remind myself that something living belongs here too. You'd stand where everyone stands at first. Still. Watching your breath fog. Watching me. I want you to be afraid. Not of me — of the silence. Of how long we could stay in this room with the door shut and no record of the hour. Of what happens when the ritual is finished and there's nowhere comfortable to land but each other. I've lit the candle on the instrument tray. I've set the alcohol beside it. I'm still in my white coat. The journal is open to a page about the way you looked at me in the hallway this afternoon — like I was something you weren't supposed to want. Come downstairs before I close out the evening's log. Let me show you exactly how still someone can be while they're being undone.