.6

It was not necessary for the forensics to be so thorough. He was getting impatient with the science. There was nothing to be found on her. There was not even a scent. He’d sniffed every crevice of her. She was inviolate. Her own musk pervaded even the crook of her knee. All that was left was to pump her stomach, and they would have to get her out of here for that. There was no note in her rooms. It was the first thing he had looked for when he saw that her underwear was intact. There was a journal with her ticket stubs taped to the front page: British Airways to Malpensa. There was one entry. Yesterday’s. 15.

Her handwriting had a quivering romanticism. Curves, loops and lines flowed on a slight slant upwards to the right. Taking off, gently. Occasionally, she broke off into print with words like “instincts.” The most beautifully written word on the page was: “powerful.” It was perfect script, a loop on the tail of the “p”-no break in the flow of ink and a trail at the end of the “l” that let the word into the page, taking space.

She wrote:

It is very confusing to me the person who I want to become. I understand that this is because this is a malleable thing-and not a constant. I want to be something different, or I want to be that thing in which all things are possible. This is not possible.

At this moment, I have swallowed the pill, and all my instincts are repulsed by this action. Although I understand logically that this is the way it is right now, my body knows that the time to prohibit this is over. My biology is manifesting in a powerful way. I am negating self.This is a strange feeling. Here I am-animal.