Chapter Text
For this shortsighted woman, life had recently settled into a very comfortable state.
After years of myopia, she seemed to have lost almost all her sight; even the faint light she could still sense was being stripped away by the encroaching night. The nearsighted woman had no money—all her cash had gone toward the heavy glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Yet even then, she was not satisfied. The frames pressed down on the base of her nose, and over time, her nostrils would tilt up like a seesaw. The patches of cheeks that bore the weight of the lenses had developed tiny, hardened muscles from supporting them, making her face appear rugged and uneven. And those dull, lifeless eyes—they were the worst of all. It was only at such moments that the nearsighted woman felt a faint glimmer of gratitude for her condition—at least she didn’t have to constantly face her own ugliness. She couldn’t even see it clearly.
Because she had no money, the nearsighted woman relied on candles to light her nights. Even so, it only allowed her to vaguely make out the layout of her room—the exact locations of the bed, the table, where she had left the last used candle—all remained invisible to her. And so, on this particular night, as she fumbled to bring the outer flame of the lighter to the wick—luck did not favor her. With a sidelong glance, the flame licked against the back of her hand. Because of her nearsightedness, the woman’s hearing had grown acutely sharp—she could even hear the faint sizzle of her skin being seared. She cried out and flung the lighter away. But the lighter was old and worn—it didn’t stop burning just because she released the switch. Squinting, she dropped to her knees and frantically groped around the floor for it, to no avail. In the darkness, she couldn’t make out that tiny blue flame. The lighter kept burning, and in the woman’s desperate search, it set the whole room ablaze.
This was my first encounter with Lydia Noël’s corpse. In the first seventeen years of my life, I had never felt so keenly that humans are nothing but raw meat. Burned, smoked—we too can be cooked through, can even give off the scent of pork. But despite my usually strong appetite, the sight of Noël filled me with genuine revulsion. Part of it may have been that instinctive fear of a fellow human’s remains, but another part was simply this—the woman was ugly. Too ugly she could hardly be called a woman. At first glance at her charred, clothing-scorched body, I couldn’t even tell if she was male or female. Aside from the lack of obvious male anatomy, obesity had swollen her belly, giving her a pot-bellied appearance. The doctor examining her cause of death pried open her eyelids, exposing cloudy eyes—hard to say whether from myopia or smoke. Either way, the moment I saw Noël, I almost had to bend over and retch. This was my first year out in society, doing an internship, and because the media company was short-staffed, I had been sent here to witness this scene. I could almost had programmed in my head, what I should put for Noël on the headline tomorrow: ***loneliness and insanity*** caused an obese woman to suicide: society’s call for care on elderlies.
Yes, I am so sure that Noël suicided. First, no other person's fingerprints were found at the scene—it's shocking, as if Noel had been isolated from the world for so many years, never contacting anyone, not even a deliveryman knocking on her door. Haha, maybe someone tried to hide outside Noel's house, to peek at what kind of strange woman lived there, only to be scared away by her ugly appearance. And Noel—because of her nearsightedness, couldn't even see the children playing at her door. *What a pity.* I added another entry to my notebook: The deceased hadn't had contact with anyone for a long time before her death.
Secondly, she must’ve suffered from severe myopic. Like, it’s quite obvious—evident from the eyeglass frame that had fallen beside her feet. The thick lenses clung desperately to the frame, like a child clutching its mother during an earthquake; it knew that letting go would mean death. Ironically, though the lenses managed not to detach from the frame, the intense heat had nearly melted them. I almost feel sad for those lenses, as if there were humans, held onto Noël‘s nose bridge, having intimate contact straight to her eyes.
That being said, if the lenses were truly alive, they would have kissed Noël’s brown irises everyday. It must been like kissing a old, cracking wooden door, which has not been functioning for many years; it is simply there. Even now it’s still there, only difference is it has lost the fundamental reason to be there. For a door it’s to be opened or closed, to be used to shelter from outer danger; Noël is dead, that left nothing left then. To the irises, similarly, likewise Earth has lost its gravity, a pig eye left in the Kitchen during Thanksgiving, nor to be eaten or made specimen, just waiting for itself to rot and swollen.
Right before I’ve done my third observation with Noël, the sheriff patted my shoulder, called an end to today’s session. He then, with he colleagues, pulled away the body of Noël onto the coming ambulance, as a transportation to mortuary, instead to be rescued.