Blow Fly

91

LIFE IN POD A does not change. Condemned inmates come and go, and old names belong to silence. After days, or maybe weeks-Jean-Baptiste often loses track of time-the new ones who come in to await their deaths are the names associated with the cells formerly occupied by the old names of the others who awaited their deaths. Pod A, Cell 25 is Beast, who will be moved to a different holding cell in several hours. Pod A, Cell 30 is Jean-Baptiste. Pod A, cell 31, directly to Jean-Baptiste's right, is Moth-called thus because the necrophiliac murderer who stirs after lights-out has trembling hands that flutter, and his skin is almost gray. He likes to sleep on the floor, and his prison-issue clothing is always covered with gray dust-like dust on the wings of a moth.

Jean-Baptiste shaves the tops of his hands, long swirls of hair drifting into the stainless-steel sink.

"All right, Hair Ball." Eyes peer through the tiny window in his door. "Your fifteen minutes are almost up. Two more minutes and I take the razor back."

"Certainement. " He lathers his other hand with cheap-smelling soap and resumes shaving, careful of his knuckles.

The tufts in his ears are tricky, but he manages, "Times up."

Jean-Baptiste carefully rinses the razor.

"You shaved." Moth speaks very quietly, so quietly that the other inmates rarely hear a word he says.

"Oui, mon ami. I look quite beautiful."

The crank key that looks like a crowbar bangs into a slot at the bottom of the door, and the drawer slides out. The officer backs up, out of reach of pale, hairless fingers depositing the blue plastic razor.