COLD

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Of course she didn’t do it; she knew she didn’t do anything illegal. The point was convincing them she didn’t do it. How was that possible? They wrongly assumed her guilt. Guilty until proven innocent. It was unjust; how could they be so convinced of something they knew nothing about?

She felt no regret, but there was nothing to lament. She committed no crime, enacted no brutality against anyone. It wasn’t in her. Surely, she could feel it if she had the capacity to be all they claimed. She could feel that cold venom flowing through her veins, if it were. Which it’s not.

They kept looking through that damned window; it was infuriating. What did they expect to see? There was no way out of the room except for that door, no other window aside from that. She wasn’t going anywhere. She had no intention of fleeing and being labeled a “fugitive of justice,” as if she were a criminal.

She was stuck in the disgusting holding cell. No doubt hundreds or even thousands of the lowliest human beings alive had sat in the same spot as she. Individuals with countless diseases, their revolting flesh touching what she had to. The chair appeared equally as battered and filthy as the bed. At least the sheets on the cot were white.

In her life, she had never felt guilt. She wasn’t guilty of anything. She had never regretted any decision; everything was decided with calculation and deliberation. She didn’t have an ounce of spontaneity in her entire person. It wasn’t practical or reasonable to make harsh decisions or take immediate and unplanned action. Everything had to be planned.

It was nonsense, utter nonsense, that they would hold her for such an extended length of time. What proof did they have? Her fingerprints? That was purely circumstantial evidence. They didn’t have a shred of concrete proof that she was at any scene at that time.

She gave the nosy guard an indifferent look. She was a master of cold looks; she always felt cold. There wasn’t a single day in her life where she felt warm and bright. She was cold, black darkness. What were they trying to see?

She shivered and held her arms. Shivering was a way of life; she always shivered. She was not afraid; fear was not a familiar emotion. She had never experienced that high, “the anticipation of getting caught,” as therapists labeled it. She wasn’t afraid. Sometimes she wished she could fear, that she could tremble in the wake of something that frightened her so much she collapsed. That would certainly be something.

Anything would be better than the nothing she faced. Every day was the same, no fear, no love, no hope, and no emotion. She didn’t cry at sad movies, although sometimes she almost felt sad. She couldn’t recall a day in her life where she cried. Somehow, nothing ever came out of her. It was all bleak and dull and boring. She was a barren desert, incapable of producing tears.

She had tried to tempt emotion, bungee jumping, skydiving, scaling cliffs, but it didn’t work. Nothing provoked fear or excitement. She couldn’t be breathless with anticipation because she couldn’t be breathless at all. Her body wouldn’t respond in the manner needed to invoke such a reaction. Adrenaline was a foreign substance everyone discussed, but she never felt.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just cry for once? To sit and bawl your eyes out? She mused at the high ceilings. She was so bored and restless. She could feel boredom and restlessness, her companion emotions.

In years past, she had done terrible things. She remedied them all in the end; other people did get emotional and they did feel. She hated them for that. But how else could she know if she could feel? She had to commit those desperate acts; there was no way around it. She’d dodged those impulses and urges for two decades before finally submitting to their lure. However, in utmost disappointment, they provided nothing. No high, no low, just the same bland continuum as the previous days.

She hated that she had to do so much, but she couldn’t be held accountable for that. It had been a few years since she was that young and eager to feel. She had accepted her life and her lack of emotional capacity.

Her mind returned to the present. There was something buried deep within her mind. Something so annoyingly implanted into her brain she couldn’t pull it out. She forced herself into deep reflection and saw a spark of the unknown. Was there more to life? More to her?

She couldn’t recall the night before. Why was it so hard to remember? She wasn’t afraid of remembering; why on Earth would her mind hide it? There was nothing to fear at all. The current situation was just a mix-up, nothing serious.

What was that sliver of recognition? It arose only to provoke her interest and retreated into the vast recesses of black memory. She pushed deeper; it had to be there. What had happened the night before? She sat up, enthralled by the possibility. A new emotion?

She could lie with no difficulty, could get out of any situation imaginable. She could control her reactions because she felt nothing. Now she felt curiosity; that was something. Something aside from boredom and restlessness. She smiled; it was wonderful. She felt young again when there was so much to learn and explore.

She went deeper; what had happened? What was that damned spark of knowing keeping from her view? She lay back on the thin mattress; she had to remember it. She just had to. She had no desire to know anything aside from what it was trying to tell her.

Her eyes widened; she remembered coming home from work. That was something. She left the retirement home as usual and went home. She didn’t have blackouts; it wasn’t like her to lose track of a day. She went home in the same manner, but a man stood by the road. He stood there with his thumb in the air, waiting for a ride. She picked him up, against her practical side’s protest. She picked him up and what happened?

Her mind rolled through swirls of dark shadows and mist; it was there. The full recognition was there. He started saying how she shouldn’t be picking hitchhikers up without a weapon. She shouldn’t . . .

She did it. She grabbed the stun gun beneath the console and jolted him. Only, she switched the setting to the highest level and stunned him. This was before she pushed him out of the car, off a bridge, and into the flooded river below. That was it, but there was more. He shook and jerked from the electricity until he hit the water. She didn’t know what happened to him after; she didn’t remain to watch.

What then? She hit a deer with her car. That was how the window fractured. She floored it, on purpose, and struck the animal. What was that about? She pushed her mind further; she wanted to feel. Didn’t anything at all provoke her heart? Did she even have a heart? She had hit the deer to see if she could feel pity or remorse, regret or anything. There was still nothing.

Was that all? No . . . No, it had been far from over. The evening was young and she took advantage of it. Determined that she would feel something, she was enraged. She killed. She could remember it. Four men and two women in one evening. She tried to remember more about it. It was so difficult.

That was why she was in the room. That was why they kept talking about her future. They hadn’t merely caught her fingerprints; they found her blood from where the persistent woman had clawed her. She looked down at her arm, those scratches. That dead woman made those scratches.

Her eye itched; it felt moist and strange. She reached a hand to wipe her eye and looked at her fingers. She had no allergies; her eyes never watered. Yet, here was her tear. The first tear she’d cried in her life.

Why was she crying? She watched the tiny drop move over her skin; it was astounding. It looked like a liquid prism and didn’t turn to ice as she suspected it would. She was so cold. Astounding.