He was almost at the stairs when she said, “—the moment you leave the building.” Turning back was the wrong thing to do, but he did it anyway.
“What?” he said. Shapes began to solidify at the edge of his eye. “Your life will end with you walking out of here.”
He began to laugh so hard that he started to cry.
It was then that he noticed a pile of pizza boxes on one of the desks. A mattress on the floor—a guy bent cross-legged over a book. There were others, too. All of them around his age, propped against the wall, rolling cigs or murmuring together like they had always been there.
A girl sat on a worn couch, trimming her brown hair with office scissors. “Welcome,” she said. She was maybe thirty, thirty-one. She stood up. Gilded hunks of hair floated to the floor. “I’ll show you your room.”
Jane Death Theory #13
RION AMILCAR SCOTT
It’s possible, Officer Samuel Duncan1 mused while standing by his squad car with two of his colleagues late one night on the side of an empty road—it’s possible for someone to shoot herself while locked in a squad car with metal restraints binding her hands behind her back. His partner, Ron Marsh,2 became quiet, gazed sadly at the bloody mass in the backseat, and after a moment of thinking, replied, Yes. Let’s say she secrets the weapon in the small of her back so it’s invisible during a search, and since her hands are back there, she reaches for it. If she jerks her head to the left or to the right she could conceivably angle the gun toward her temple. Sure, Officer Duncan said. Sure. I can see how that, while not probable, could make a kind of sense in the absence of another explanation. Trooper 1st Class Stephen Hammons3 stood with his arms folded, frowning sternly, a shadow cast from the large brim of his trooper hat darkening his face, almost to the shade of their once-belligerent prisoner, Ron Marsh joked earlier. Trooper Hammons had refused to crack even the hint of a smile. Now he chimed in: And with her dead, she’s not able to provide any sort of counternarrative. Officer Duncan nodded: Yeah, that sounds possible, doesn’t it? Officer Marsh snorted, smoothed his mustache. Who would believe the alternative? he said. It’s almost too horrible to conceive, isn’t it?
1. On November 19, 2013, the Durham, NC, police officer Samuel Duncan took seventeen-year-old Jesus Huerta into custody on a trespassing warrant after his parents called police to report that he had run away. Duncan searched the teen, handcuffed him (with his hands behind his back), and placed him in the back of a cruiser. Before he could make it to the police station, Huerta died from a gunshot wound to his face. Cameras in the cruiser were switched off at the time and did not record the gunshot. Authorities ruled the death of the handcuffed Huerta a suicide. (Source: abc11.com)
2. In Little Rock, AR, on July 28, 2012, Officer Ron Marsh took twenty-one-year-old Chavis Carter into custody. He frisked Carter—turning up marijuana, but no gun—and placed him in the back of a patrol car. Carter suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head while handcuffed in the backseat of the cruiser. Authorities ruled Carter’s death a suicide. (Source: The Huffington Post)
3. In August 2012, state police in New Iberia, LA, searched twenty-two-year-old Victor White III after taking him into custody, discovering only illegal drugs, and placed him in the back of a squad car. While in the squad car, White was shot. He died later from the gunshot wound. According to a Louisiana State Police spokesman, Trooper 1st Class Stephen Hammons, the handcuffed White shot himself in the back with a gun he hid from police during the search. An autopsy done by the Iberia Parish Coroner’s Office later determined that White was shot in the chest. Authorities ruled his death a suicide. (Sources: CBSnews.com; The Advocate; NewsOne)
The Blue Room
LENA VALENCIA
The Blue Room is lit with cerulean light. With the exception of a narrow, elevated walkway and a pillow for visitors to sit on, its walls, floor, and ceiling are covered in blue soundproofing foam. In the middle of the floor, halfway sunken into the foam, like something washed up on a beach, is a 1994 Gateway 2000. It pulses the same cerulean, as if breathing. This is where the demon lives.
Fern has been waiting to see The Blue Room for two hours. Normally, she’s able to cut these lines. Fern is a successful art world influencer. Tens of thousands of followers watch her account. But not even she can convince the gallery assistant to let her get any closer to the latest Josephine Fibonacci installation—the artist’s final work. Fibonacci has been declared officially missing as of last Tuesday, causing a stir in the art world. No doubt one reason for the line, which now snakes behind Fern through the streets of Chelsea. Finally, she gets to the front, where a large sign conveys the rules of the exhibition to visitors. No shoes. No jackets. No bags. And then: The Blue Room is a device-free space for contemplation. In order to fully experience the anechoic chamber and the demon that inhabits it, the artist requests that you surrender your electronic devices at the entrance.
She ungracefully removes her platform combat boots, shoving them into the provided locker along with her purse and phone. She’s prepared for this. She’s hidden a second phone—her real phone—in the pocket of her billowing silk pants.
There is some debate among critics as to whether the demon is real. Some say it’s just a metaphor for our obsession with screens, an illusion. But others have reported feeling an unexplained static electricity clinging to their skin after leaving the installation. Everyone wants to see for themselves, which is why Fern feels compelled to do what no
