Return to sender

The one thing he didn’t consider was that I cannot die.

He did so well planning every other little detail though, the alibi, where to dump my body. He even stripped naked to move me from the scene, something about ensuring no fibres are left on the victim’s skin. Yes, I was a victim.

I remember asking him once why blood shows up in ultraviolet light, he just smiled at me. I researched it later, the blood doesn’t glow but absorbs the light. I didn’t really care to be honest, I was just curious. He wrapped me in a big tarpaulin sheet, I don’t know why he got one so big, there isn’t a lot of me and it was a real pain to get out of.

I was scared, I can’t deny that I wasn’t. I didn’t know that I was going to wake up an hour later, whole and new and alive. I woke and I took in one big dusty breath. My hands immediately tried to push out from my sides and met with the tarpaulin, weighed down by a heap of earth. I was wrapped so tight in the sheet I could barely move. How cliché, I thought to myself afterwards, burying me in the woods under the cover of night. I bet he enjoyed every moment, with each shovelling of dirt he thought he was one step closer to getting away with it. His face when he saw me in the library the next morning was something I look back on now and still smile about.

I get claustrophobic easily and I wanted to scream at the thought of being stuck here, wrapped in this uncomfortable sheet in the dark. The earth is still loose, I thought to myself, I could try and push my way out. I wriggled in the oppressing darkness, my breathing becoming irregular panicking gasps but I couldn’t do it, there was too much on top of me and the tarpaulin was too tight. Then I heard it, distant and muffled and the earth around me was shifting, someone was digging me out.

© Jade Tolley 2012