Murder
By: Camellia Yang
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Spiders, Storytelling, Fiction

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

I am dead.

I died in a studio apartment approximately 37 sq. m.

I died from overdosing of anionic surfactants, benzisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, phenoxyethanol, linalool, butylphenyl methylpropional and hexyl cinnamal. To put it into simple language, I was killed by a cleaning spray bottle.

Please don’t ask me how I know those terminologies. If you lived long enough with those bottles as your only companies, you could remember better than I was. Trust me.

Today was a rare sunny day. I crawled to the washbasin surface where I could enjoy a ray of sunshine penetrated from the skylight in the bathroom. While I was roaming in thoughts, a high pitched screeching noise hit me to my legs.

“Wtf! Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

I saw a girl who was in her pyjamas with messy hair walking backwards from me. She had this facial expression of seeing something too disgusting to bear, and she started to look around in a slow motion.

Shall I go back home and take joy in this beautiful day later? I was pondering, while the warm feeling from the sun lured me to stay a bit longer.

The girl approached me one step by step with her concerned face.

Will she join me for a sunbath? I thought.

Gradually, she stood in front of me and squatted down to open the cabin door under the washbasin. All of a sudden, she screamed again and held a bottle towards me.

“Go to hell!!! Aaaahhhhhhhh!” Said she in her trembling voice.

I soaked in this colourless rain and tried to swim out of this odour water scene. However, the more I struggled, the more spray I got.

I gave it up and lost consciousness.

By the time I felt my existence again, I had sawed an ugly and contorted body lying on the washbasin surface.

Wow, who is that? And how come I can fly? I saw the same ugly but ordinary body floating in the air in the mirror.

Now I realise I’m dead.

The girl is trying to use the toilet paper to grab me and throw me away. But she is too afraid to do so and run away.

What a loss! I haven’t got time to get to know her since she moved in. I thought in my mind.

Does she know what kind of spider I am?

The first principle for me to live is to avoid contact with the linalool. There will be a chemical reaction between us. I’ll die and then release poisonous liquid and odour and make human being die.

Please don’t ask me how do I know that. I’ve lived long enough to witness my family and friends died under human beings. They were burned to death, hit to death, stepped to death, and a few of them died in the same way as I was.

I witnessed all those kinds of death from the dark corner. While I was mourning, I started to notice a pattern that those who died from a spray bottle had vanished in a couple of days. The human murders began to show flu symptoms, such as coughing, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, vomiting, diarrhoea, chest pain, breathing difficulties and recurring high fever.

Seven days after I died.

I have witnessed how the girl suffered from the above symptoms.

Poor thing.

I still remembered when she first moved in. She went in and out several times by herself. In the end, she got her three suitcases and two paper boxes all set in.

The landlord never showed up but left the key under the carpet in front of the door and put the flat instruction in the living room.

I never meet the landlord but heard a couple of anecdotes from my long-time dead grandparents.

I don’t care much about human beings’ world because they are either murders or strangers to use. However, this girl triggered my interest. Maybe I was alone for too long. Or perhaps she reminded me about myself, a lonely and ugly creature no one cares in this world.

The girl only spent one week with me. I puzzled up a story about her. It’s the first time she visited this country because she searched so many first-timer’s questions online in her own language, where to do grocery shopping? Where to join the gym? Where is the tube stations and so on?

However, she doesn’t look like a typical tourist with excitement and joyfulness. This girl has a sadness veil around her. I hardly see her smile but heard her crying from time to time.

What a poor thing.

If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want to kill this girl. However, karma is a bitch. The moment she chose to kill me, there was nothing I could do to save her.

Thirteen days later, my body has already vanished. I’m a ghost sitting on the surface to enjoy sunbath with a company of the girl’s ghost.

The girl had died on her bed. She bled from her nose, mouth and ears and coughed too hard to pass away. She died more dramatic than I was.

“Good morning, murder,” says the girl in a cold voice.

“Good morning, murder,” I reply with a smile. However, I don’t know if she can notice.

“I never thought I could have a conversation with a spider,” says the girl with a bitter sigh.

“I never thought I could have a sunbath with a human being.” I enjoy this experience.

“What’s your plan?” The girl asks me and looks up at the skylight. The sun has never been so bright that the girl’s ghost looks invisible to me.

“I don’t know. Maybe wait for neighbours or policemen to deal with your body?” I answer back.

And I notice that I was talking to myself the whole time. The girl is still on the bed, bleeding. Everything else is the illusion.

Maybe I need a friend. I thought in my head.

But, what’s the meaning of a non-existed spider to have a friend?

What’s the reality? Am I in reality or the dream?

I can’t tell, but nothing matters anymore.

Others who are still living, in reality, won’t care much about me but the girl, will they? Or will they care about the girl?

In twenty-one days, the girl’s body was found by a burglar. He doesn’t do anything but takes all her valuable belongings.

In forty-three days, a cleaning lady comes over as planned and calls the police.

In fifty-seven days, the apartment has been evacuated with a deep cleaned.

In sixty-nine days, new furnished has been set up.

In eighty-two days, new tenants move in.

Everything is a loop, and history is always repeating itself.

Now, the only difference is that I’ll live in this apartment forever with my new body to continue witnessing people come and die.