The Tattooed Man

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The dead sat at the table like those who are about to eat but never will. Dinner plates set before them contained a meal left untouched. Their rested mouths, their closed eyes, the unshifting weight of their bodies, had a finality beyond waking. A middle-aged woman sat between an older man and a teenage boy. She wore a diamond pendant that caught the glittering rays of the sun. Her sideways-tilted head, its artificial honey curls, leaned towards the teenage boy across a short but unreachable distance. The boy looked the most peaceful of them all. His head hung downwards and his black hair shone in the sun. His stained T-shirt was emblazoned with the word Nature in letters formed out of intertwined trees. In contrast, the older man had been caught out in the most unexpected surprise. He leaned backwards, mouth open, arms loose at his sides, his glasses opaque in the white light.

The fourth guest, seated at the head of the table, was naked. This corpse was mummified, its skin wrinkled, its face and body withered almost past recognition. One of its dry hands rested on a thick bound document placed beside its table setting, the blue cover stained with blood like the white cloth beneath.

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