The Dead

Suddenly the smell of rot intensified, and I realised the borrowed scarf, the silk scarf I wore around my neck, was the source. I had acquired it in a secondhand shop. A simple pattern, white spatter on indigo, a wavering border running a half-inch from the fraying edge. My assumption was that it was overstock, dug out of a mouldering box in a fabrics warehouse to enjoy a second, sadder life. I had seen many similar designs in the secondhand shops I frequently trawled.

This was not the case. The scarf had been worn by a corpse, or someone very close to becoming one. The rain had loosened whatever petrified crystals of oil and colonies of skin-eaters lying trapped within the warp and weft, and with them the smell of death.

Everyone was inside, on account of the rainstorm. Bored busboys stretched under awnings, smoking damp tobacco and dreaming the city into shape. A sofa left in a parking spot thudded with each fat droplet soaking in, the cushions bloating, the faux leather cracked and peeling. One side was badly burned by the repeated application of cigarette butts, lining the armrest like nails. An indentation on one side suggested it was still in use by the denizens of the street.

I felt an itchy sweat creep under my coat, up across the back of my shoulders and into my neck. The sweat of my neck mingling with the soft death-water of the scarf. But I could not remove the scarf. It was unthinkable. Still, my hand rose to my throat as I strolled. Perhaps I could merely loosen it a little, in the hopes of a passing breeze…

The busboys looked up in tandem, their heads snapping like owls to me. A coincidence, I was sure. I’m not a memorable character, not at all. My suits are chosen to be forgettable, pleasantly so. I merely wish to become part of the ambience of the city, a face in the crowd, a flavour to a scene that dissipates like so much rainwater at the base of a tree. The scarf was supposed to be a finishing touch, there to give the impression I was not attempting to be ignored – thus allowing me to be ignored completely.

But the smell of death was growing with every needle of rain that fell, poisons breaking from their prisons, this scarf that had cradled a sagging, spotted windpipe….