The smell of death isn’t decay. It’s silence, a pungent silence. When I came to, blood was rushing to my head. The car had flipped and the seat belt had pinned me upside down. The dust was clearing. The sound of the desert breeze was punctuated by an intermittent scrape I took to to be a still-spinning wheel. To my left, that pungent silence.
I’d heard that sound many times in my life. I’ve come to recognise it. I gently tilted my head to see Carrie. It looked like her face had smashed into the steering column. There wasn’t anything beautiful left on her face. Just a curtian of blood.
And then I heard the weeping, a disdainful sobbing, repressed moan. It grew closer to the car, but I didn’t hear the gravel crunching. It approached from the drivers side so I turned to look back toward Carrie. A woman had knelt to lean into the car, and she was crying mournful tears. Her hands were white like ivory, and opulescent, and her tearful eyes were as black and sorrowed as I have ever seen eyes. She gently pushed back Carrie’s hair, caressed her face. Her lips moved as if she mumbled under her breath. She kissed her fingertips and then placed them to Carries lips. She turned to look at me, and her face saddened, but it was the most beautiful face I have ever seen. In an instant the sound of her weeping receded. I did not hear the gravel crunching beneath her feet as she left.