The Day Elisa Went Missing

Back then, before the unfolding, it was just another grey Tuesday. A school day of endless lessons held in classrooms smelling of damp clothes, sour milk and pubescent expectation.

Tuesday: registration, followed by maths: dull; breaktime, followed by Spanish: muy aburrido.

Boredom hung in the air like a shroud. Time was full of heavy seconds. It had given up all hope. I had to do something, or it would never have moved on.

In front of me, Elisa’s chair, empty, like a skeleton. On the back of the chair, a new piece of graffiti: a badly drawn heart pierced by a badly drawn arrow with AI L ED scratched beneath it.

I looked around the classroom. Mr Grey had left to get the register. Everybody else was busy. Nobody paid me any attention. Ever. Nobody saw me rise from my chair and stand behind Elisa’s chair. Nobody paid any attention as I took the drawing compass from my pencil case and scratched and extended the top line of the I until it became a T.

This simple act of vandalism would be of little consequence until the naked body of my beautiful Elisa was found, two days later, lifeless, beneath a pile of coal sacks, in Andrew Thorne’s outhouse.

By the side of the inkwell on Elisa’s desk I noticed a long blonde hair. I allowed myself a single tear.

I replaced the drawing compass back into my pencil case just as Mr Grey returned. He looked at me with tired red eyes and sighed, “Annie Isles, go back to your seat.”

On the way to school I had run my hand along the rose bushes by the park railings, loving the feel of the dew on the petals and the prick of the thorns. The pain brought me back to reality and the bubble of dark red blood on my finger proved that I was still alive.

Everything can be broken so easily. You drop a glass and in an instant all is changed. All the pieces are still there but it no longer holds water. What has it become? You drop a hammer. What has become of dear Elisa?

Oh Elisa, do you know that I have rescued you from a certain life of hell with your boring baby face boyfriend. Saved you from those perfect blonde babies you would have produced. Nobody needs them. It is too mundane to even contemplate. You always deserved better. I gave you both another way. I gave him notoriety and you, my dear Elisa, to you, like poor martyred Valentine, I have bestowed a day.

I looked at my hands and noticed another blonde hair attached to one of my fingernails. I rubbed the nail against my skirt to dislodge it. I licked my finger. It tasted of blood and soot.