Dr. S. Rashid
DECEDENT: Violet Abigail Parker
SEX: Female
AGE: 41
ETHNICITY: White British
OCCUPATION: Teacher
HOME ADDRESS: 74 Willowtree Close, Ickenham, Greater London
TYPE OF DEATH: Found at scene
NOTIFICATION BY: London Metropolitan Police
INVESTIGATING AGENCY: As above
SITUATION OF BODY: Clothed, in the middle of Milton Court Open Space
ESTIMATED TIME OF DEATH: oh-three hundred, 20.03.2024
RIGOR: Yes
EYES: Grey
HAIR: Brown
HEIGHT: one-seven-two centimetres
WEIGHT: three-one kilograms
MARKS AND WOUNDS: Extreme malnutrition. Tissue damage on both feet and stress fracture on left ankle.
PROBABLE CAUSE OF DEATH: Starvation, dehydration, exposure.
MANNER OF DEATH: Unknown.
EXAMINER'S COMMENTS:
Hopefully, no-one will ever read this. God, I hope she stays silent, and if she does, then I will burn these notes so they can’t be used as evidence to strip me of my position. But if she starts again and others can confirm it, then I think it’s important to have kept these notes.
Shortly before finishing my autopsy, the deceased, Violet Abigail Parker, began to talk. I can confirm absolutely that she was dead when this happened, and I was at that moment examining her heart and lungs, and neither of them was active. How she could speak with an open thorax is beyond me.
She seemed to be reciting some sort of story, almost as an involuntary reflex. I believe it may have some relevance to her death. I managed to transcribe some, and have included it in my notes.
After a few minutes the cadaver ceased to speak and has not resumed since. Unless the morgue technicians or funeral directors report something similar prior to cremation, I will probably keep this record private. I want to ask the next of kin about it, but unfortunately, no-one has come forward to claim the body. Besides, I doubt they would appreciate finding out she gave her last words after her death.
Transcript as follows:
”– and of course mother always said not to. It was an old house, and an empty house, and mother said that that made it a dangerous house. There will be spiders, she said, rotten wood to fall through, and oh so many rusty nails. And most importantly, too many rooms. So many turning passageways to confuse you, so many locked doors, that even if you didn’t hurt yourself, you might never find your way out again! And then you’d walk till your feet broke and you starved to death!
She wouldn’t come for us, if we went in there. She’d leave us to wander all alone. That’s what mother said. And we never did go in that house on Church Street.
But it’s strange. Even though we never went inside, I’ve been in the house on Church Street my entire life. I try to escape it. If my mother says she needs money, I give it. If Tom needs me to put together more lesson plans, I will. If Hannah needs her clothes washed, I’ll do it. Because if I don’t, if I don’t listen and I don’t do what I’m told, then they won’t come for me – I’ll be alone in the house. I’ll be alone.
And it’s always there, waiting for me. I’ve dreamt of it my whole life, and I still am dreaming.
When I was fifteen, we were told that we had to study Wordsworth in school: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Everyone laughed: soppy, stupid poetry. But in my imagination the clouds rolled silent and thick through the old house on Church Street, choking and hiding, so that even if anyone had thought to look they would never have seen me. The daffodils pushed and strained and tore through the old wood of the house, a rotted mass of yellow that would be my only company. From that day forward the empty grey of the house was laced with fog and moldering yellow.
The house itself is long gone, of course. They tore it down when I was ten. Reduced to splinters and stones.
But it was already too late. With my mother’s help I had built the house anew! Not on Church Street, but inside me. Where no-one would find me or ever think to look.
And here I am. The corridors stretch onwards with the doors all blank and strange. Even the daffodils are here, stinking of mildew. Someone has brought me here. But who? Some figure, reaching, asking questions in an alley? It doesn’t matter. They’re not here now. No-one’s here now. No-one ever will be.
Because I broke my promise. I went in the house on Church Street, and I’m still here. Now all I can do is walk. Walk, and hope, and ignore the burning in my throat and the aching in my belly. Keep screaming, hoping someone might hear me through all that cloying fog.
But no-one is coming to help me. So I must be careful on the stairs, or they will break and I will fall. I must be careful on the floor, or I will step upon an upturned nail. I must be careful with the doors, or the handles will give me splinters – and the fall will break my legs – and the nails will give me tetanus – and the splinters will turn to gangrene – and all the while the daffodils will watch and wilt and laugh.
I wander lonely.
I wander, lonely.
I will die in this place. And no-one will miss me.”