"She never was entirely stable", they used to say. Ya, like I need them to tell me! Oh, maybe before the fact, she may have been... but now? It's amazing at how much you don't know doesn't hurt you. Not entirely stable... well she seemed stable to me. Maybe it was all part of the game. Nice... slow... honest... a girl tamed by reverence. You could see it in her eyes. Sense it in her touch. Idle curiosity, a flair for spontaneity, she had it all. A mind you could love. She lead me down a path and I was eager to follow.

You think I would have been scared off last summer... not me. I came home to find her cutting up the wild rabbit from the back yard she had been taming. She cared for it and she fed it. She always had carrot greens ready for it and a bowl of water to wet its appetite. That's why it probably chose to stay around as long as it did, even in the dry heat of the summers.

She "Lost her appetite". That's what she said to me as I came in the door. That was after she had cubed the furry thing. She was visibly shaken and I, the ever thoughtful partner, helped convince her to let it go. I helped to curb her remorse. I was there for her. She played me all the way.

It was finally Fall when her moods began to shift. Not drastically, just enough for me to sense it. It didn't really change her demeanor, she just responded differently than I normally would have of expected of her. I didn't really take much notice though, work, and daydreams, kept my mind content.

"It's probably just stress anyway"; I remember thinking to myself. She had taken up night classes three nights a week at the University and spent a fourth studying in their library. "That, as well as a full time job, what else could it be?"

I never really asked about the courses she was taking. Biology-type courses, if I remembered correctly. She never volunteered nor did I look through her notes. I wasn't really into that. A jumbled study of diagrams and quotes didn't peek my interest. I probably would have had to read her texts to understand them anyhow and that was too much like work.

I did however; graze an interest over some of the illustrations. Patterned designs, drawn black on white, some decorated with red. I never really studied them too closely or read to captions beneath them. I just managed to catch glances here and there. They reminded me of art. Realist portraitures, images of medicine, sectioned and labeled, a mish-mash of visual impacts, all drawn into one.

On weekends we would go out, stroll in the park and watch the leaves turn. We'd eat home made ice cream from the old Italian café on Denman street and from the market, buy foods which delighted our minds as well as our taste buds. We would then go home and wash down the day with a French wine.

I began to sense, somewhere along the way, a nervousness in her soul, but the love I felt blinded me. It told me of how everyone has flaws and how no one is perfect.

She began to come home from classes later and later in the winter months, working hard on her studies. Putting in that little bit extra to impress the professors.

It was these evenings that I took to buying and reading the evening paper, the local news mainly. I was taking late night strolls afterwards, watching others as they hurried home after dark. The nights were cold then, sometimes drizzling with rain but mostly dry with bitter winds gusting bits of dried leaves up the otherwise quiet streets.

I began to enjoy my walks around my neighborhood, never really more than ten to fifteen blocks in any one direction. I began to take up following people to their homes, just to see where they lived. I realized the problem with big cities, having come from a small town myself, you never really know who your neighbors are or what they do with their lives. Most people don't even know where their immediate neighbors, right next door, headed off to work each day. What do they do within the confines of their own homes? Do they put sugar in their coffee or do they drink tea?

News Bulletin: A man was found dead in the bedroom of his home Tuesday night. He, apparently, had been suffocated to death by a piece of cloth, (left behind at the scene of the crime). One of his fingers and two of his tows were found to be missing. Police are investigating.

My evenings, Monday to Thursday became routine. Come home from work. Make myself something to feed on, eat over a good read with the evening news, and wait for her to come home.

I read the stories of gangs battling out their disagreements, the comics, articles about a cleaner earth and, oh, ya, my favorite, the missing persons segment. They had begun to dedicate a full two pages to profile missing persons. The lucky ones, usually three to five of the mentioned, actually got write ups about them. The rest had the regular statistics; name, location lat seen, colour of clothing last worn, the usual data. I found the articles the most interesting, they told about the persons family and how they were dealing with their new found crisis. It told about the victims occupation and sometimes included small quotes from their co-workers.

News Bulletin: A man and a woman have been found dead in the kitchen of their condominium. The woman had her wrists sliced and someone had inserted pins into the vein endings of each wrist. Apparent cause of death was a hit to the head. She was found slumped in a corner while her male partner was found stomach down on the kitchen table with his hands hanging down over the edge on each side. His eyelids had been removed and the skin on his back had been peeled up and pulled over his head like a shroud.

I read the pages while chewing back some perogies with sour cream, or spaghetti, or sometimes when I felt like putting in the extra effort into my meal, I'd make chicken, fried and then baked. I'd make a pot of rice to fill me and then off I would go.

I never really kept to any sort of routine for my walks. I liked to keep up a spontaneity, choosing this corner one night, that corner the next. Often I would end up near the main streets in the area and wait for passengers that disengage from public transit as they begin their walk home. I'd follow them at a distance, watching as they would hurry themselves into basement doors and condos. Most of them seemed to rush as if they sensed someone watching them, not that it mattered to me, I was simply keeping myself entertained with an evening of viewing pleasure.

I was usually home by midnight; she would be home by twelve-thirty. It was standard procedure. She would ask how I was and what I did all evening. I keep it simple, fine as always, another night in front of the television. There was no real reason to talk of my exposes. A quick kiss and slumber was upon us.

Becoming obsessed with my new hobby, I guess I never noticed all the books piling up on the shelves or at least not the variety of books. Glancing at the shelf, I could see stacks of overdue books, books that never got returned. There were so many areas of study. The books ranged from medical manuals, art, history, true crime novels, drugs… definitely the collection of a great scholar; from children's picture books to the art of knife making.

Ah... the things you choose not to see. The things you overlook, you don't realize to their full extent. Ah… when you are in love.

News Bulletin: A male, described as a senior citizen, was found Friday morning by his daughter on her weekly visit to the city. The man, in his eighties, was found with his arms pulled in through the sides of his abdomen, his hands each sticking out the other side where the opposite entered.

My newspaper vigils became more intense. Truly interesting facts indeed. The death rate in my area of town apparently has been climbing (who'd of guessed?). Crime Stoppers had posted a reward for 'information leading to the arrest' and so forth.

The interest consumed me. These people dying were the same people I'd follow every day, or night, as it was. How fortunate could I be? Right here in black and white, I almost touched fame. These people were each getting their fifteen minutes worth; and I was there… I watch them disappear through gates, I watch them brush their teeth through bathroom windows and I watch them undress for bed. They eat their food, just like you and me. It's true, you know, I've seen it all. And to think, I was there.

Now they are forever immortalized in black ink and white paper. Visual art for the mind, couriered to everyone's doorstep and consumed.

Like clockwork, twelve o'clock then twelve thirty, she was right in the door behind me. I decided to never be later that twelve. She was always in the door about half an hour after my arrival home and I didn't want her getting home before me. No reason why, I guess I just didn't feel like facing the questions of what I had been up to, which I was sure was to become a drawn out conversation of lies. Besides, we both had jobs to go to in the mornings and had to get up early.

The weekends went as always, renting videos. We had tired of the new releases and were renting more and more of the old horror flicks. The more we watched, the more articulate we were in out viewing. Horror films are, in fact, a true art form. Truly the only way a modern citizen can learn to kill and dissect in a near one thousand different ways. How to cut the skin, and where, so as not to get immediate bleeding. How to cause copious waterfalls of red and to sustain life until the last possible moment of dissection. All of these, beyond doubt, useful talents of the special effects movie artist.

Sure, you watch the effects and see it as such, but you have to wonder how many viewers are taking it all in as if by correspondence. A sort of alternative school for surgical butchers. There are books on meat cutting, you know, at the library; all you have to do is sign them out.

The newspapers were having a hay day. Police patrols were picking up in the area. Some of the strangest crimes to date, the writers said, all of them right in my neighborhood. One article read of a woman tied up with all four limbs tied to the bedposts. She was slit from neck to groin and then sewn back up again. She was found alive but in such a state of shock she was apparently far from talking about anything.

I began to see an inconsistency in reporting, some articles mentioned things being stolen during these offences, others saying nothing was touched. Just a bunch of crazy reporters living on the pain of a person's one article read.

Police comments were that no one person could have committed these crimes. Perhaps the work of a dozen different individuals related or unrelated unknown, no continuity they said.

I followed her home. A girl, twenty-one perhaps, it's hard to tell in that area between 17th and 24th. She was blonde, a lot of self-esteem, you could see it in her walk. She never once hurried her walk and I'm pretty sure she knew she was being followed. She walked up and into her building; her unit was on the main floor. I could see her as her light went on. Her curtains were open. She walked room to room, disposing of her shoes and grabbing a handful of what looked like crackers from a box in the kitchen. I suppose she had the music on, I could see her bouncing to it as she walked up to the window to look out. She set her food down to open the window a crack. Yes, music, I could hear it now. She backed off a little and took her hair out of the neat pony tail she had worn for the day, swinging it around and shaking it loose. Then she looked strait out the window and strait at me. Could she see me? I don't think she could have seen me. It was dark out and lights were on, surely she was just looking at her own reflection on the glass. But… no, the look in her eye and the slight tilt to her grin hinted at something more, something erotic. I'm sure she was playing with me. She began to undo her blouse, one button, two buttons, three then four... The Lights went out suddenly snapping me back to reality. No sounds, only the music. I waited for something to happen, five minutes, ten minutes... nothing! Well, guessed her game was up so I dealt with as any one else would have and left.

I took a longer rout home that night grabbing a cup of coffee at the 7-11. Approaching my house, I realized I was almost forty minutes late getting home. A cold flush of sweat flooded over me as my pulse quickened and I picked up my pace to a quick jog. This was definitely later than midnight and she was probably waiting for me.

In though the door quickly and quietly, I moved to the bedroom for the great inquisition. I turned on the light… nothing she wasn't home yet. She hated to wait. I quickly stripped out of my cloths and turned out the lights.

I closed my eyes and laid there, now far too awake with adrenalin to sleep. It was about thirty minutes late that she came sneaking in. I laid still, asleep, so as to avoid any possible conversations on the subject of staying out late. It worked, she slipped quietly into bed and it was never discussed.

It was in the paper that next evening. A young woman, aged twenty-two, was found dead in her apartment last night after being found by her roommate around 3:45 AM after she came off shift from a local nightclub. Although her name was withheld, her basic address was there as were the details of her demise.

She was found crucified to the hardwood floor in her living room. A steak knife through each hand and ankle pinned her down while a fifth was pushed down her throat and pushed out through the front of her neck only to be weaved back into her neck and out again. Her thighs were slit right down the center and the skin was peeled to the sides in a neat and orderly fashion and pinned to the floor with strait pins. The meat of her thighs were held wide open for inspection.

"Wow! And I was there!", I thought to myself. I was right along side of the action. I quickly read off the other offences. Infant mortality rates were up, hospitals were reporting a twenty per cent rise in child deaths after birth but before leaving the hospitals. The deaths involved seemed to be of questionable circumstances. Far more murders, it seemed, were occurring than natural deaths these days. Though maybe at this rate the human race would be finishing itself off before natural selection did. With the articles finished, I headed out for my walk. That first article had really gotten my adrenalin pumping.

Halfway to 'her' building, I decided to avoid the area. I mean returning to the scene of a crime. What might the police think if they were watching the place and saw me giving the place curious glance? Figure me for a curious neighbor? Fat chance of that one, not at this time of the evening and in the dark no less. I turned and instead headed over to the hospitals in the area. There were always hopes of catching patients, with their forlorn faces looking out of the windows of the mental ward. 'Out of their minds' like you see on the television or read in books. Staring at the outside world with a lust for freedom and revolt. I would love to see that. Or even to stroll down the interior of its corridors. I'm sure some areas would be easier to enter than others.

I arrived home early that night and like a homing she was at the door a half hour after me, toting her books and papers. She went strait to the bathroom, to wash She told me she had spilt red ink over her blouse, the new one she had acquired with the buttons up the front.

The next day's paper articled a statement made by a doctor from the hospital. Someone had been tampering with the life support systems of the premature newborns from the infants' ward and a full investigation was pending. A full-time security was being posted.

The weekend brought a movie fest of Hitchcock, Barker and Craven films, seven in all. We sat back and dissected each film, practically taking notes while munching chips and popcorn.

She brought over a few of the books from the shelf while one of the movies was rewinding. She had come across them while cruising the stacks at the university library. There was one on Biology, well, dissection specifically and one on figure drawing.

She was pointing to how the artist had depicted the muscles and tendons with all the proper details and noted how using the dissecting book, if you cut just this one tendon or one piece of muscle in a specific spot, you could easily render even the strongest persons helpless.

I, of course, was intrigued by it all. The magnificent ranges in colour in the book of dissection, deep reds, light purples, blues and oranges. Beauty; likewise were the painstaking details of the artist's pencil illustrations. The dynamic figures were depicted in almost every pose, which prominently displayed the full stretch and stress points of the human physique.

It was art. To view the perfection of an artists depiction of perfection while simultaneously looking at the inner workings of the human machine was something beyond description

This morning I awoke to chains. A set of links on each wrist, lashing me to the bedposts. Leather belts bound my legs to the corner posts by my feet.

She was sitting astride my abdomen watching me sleep. Now with me suddenly wide awake, she slid down my naked body to sit on my upper thighs.

I looked deep into her eyes. Uncompromising intensity lay behind an otherwise blank stare.

She placed the scalpel to my navel and thrusting hard, she cut upward. The sheer pain caused me to nearly buck her off, but no, she stayed her place. Carefully then, she turned the knife on herself duplicating the same incision. One quick jerk and the crimson blade clattered on the floor. It was done; her eyes were wide in shock. She slid up and laid flat on my chest matching our bodies. Blood to blood, fluid to fluid, she kissed me deep and told me she loved me.

We are lying here, close to sharing our last breath, breathing it back and forth in our kisses as we remorse our sins.

It's better this way!

Thinking back, the team we made. We made poetry of flesh and blood. We took all the others and praised them with our worship. They were the martyrs of the art form. Death; it realy is a matter of artistic creativity. To merely die, or to give your life over to a visual symphony of articulated manipulations of the flesh. I am the artist and she, the surgeon. Together we created reality and lifted those we glorified to immortality.

By Len Nickel

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