The Illustrator

The truck came during the early morning, around 6 am. The sound of the engine outside our bedroom window stirred me awake. I felt my wife roll over, irritated at the disturbance. ‘Isaac, go pick it up. It gets smelly if you leave it out too long.’

The truck had moved on to the neighbour’s house by the time I made it outside, dumping the bag of fertiliser on the lawns before driving on to the next house.

The air was crisp and stung my cheeks. Walking across the lawn, I tucked my hands into the dressing gown pockets and blew out a vapoured breath, watching it dissipate almost instantly.

They dropped off blood and bone fertiliser to every house every few weeks. It was part of the global climate initiative to improve the environment after the start of what officials call ‘Noah’s Reign’. Seas began rising and cities were overrun with the increasing tides. The planet's land mass was declining so quickly and many saw it as the end of the world, causing huge uprisings and increased power in religions over the regime. Unsurprisingly, politicians didn’t like this anarchical talk, so they tried finding ways to stop the rising waters. They pointed at overpopulation being the cause, so they came up with a solution.

Police and the military went after the homeless and “extras” in cities across the world. Orphanages were shut down, any place or person found holding children or other unplaced people were held accountable by law. Foster homes were not affected, but any minor that couldn’t or refused to settle was removed. At first, no one knew what was happening to all the people taken. It was assumed they were all shipped off to an island that was safe from the floods somewhere. It wasn’t until a whistleblower leaked information about mass killings happening every few weeks that people realised what was happening. The government never admitted anything for a while, but then they saw what fear did to people. Suddenly, they were not shy in admitting that anyone taken was executed if a place was not found for them. What they did with all the bodies, no one knows.

I took the fertiliser inside and, grabbing a shovel, I started spreading it around the garden, carefully avoiding the two mounds in the corner. The crosses sticking out of the mounds were starting to droop, so once I finished with the fertiliser, I grabbed some twine and tightened the strings around the middle. I put them back in the mounds, for a moment forgetting which one was which.

The bed was probably cold by now, so I just went upstairs to my office. I took a seat at my desk and pulled out the archive with copies of my previous sketches, flicking to my most recent one. It was a case involving the conviction of a man who raped his neighbour. The drawing of him was not as good as I would have liked, but I was too distracted by the man’s face at the time. A century ago, he would have been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, but things were not done like that anymore. There was no room for prisons. It was a common sentencing for rapists and molesters to have their limbs removed, while murderers had their legs amputated. Depending on the severity of their crime, their eyes would be taken as well. Or they would just be executed.

The man’s expression was unforgettable, and I remember swearing under my breath. Poor bastard. I supposed it did not matter too much. He knew what the punishment was. Either way, he would move on with his disablement, but there was no hiding his crime from the rest of the world.

A few hours later I heard Laura move around downstairs. I had fallen asleep at my desk, the charcoal pencil shading now imprinted onto my face. The baby’s face on the page was slightly smudged but still recognisable, still familiar. I stared at the image for what felt like an hour, hoping I would catch a wink or a tiny toothless grin. A frozen picture stared back. I didn’t even notice my wife come up behind me, her shuffled walk indicating she was barely awake. I watched as she looked over my shoulder at the drawing. “He looks good’ she said, a slight tremble in her voice. I didn’t reply, instead just continuing to sketch the shadow under the baby’s feet. ‘I have work in an hour’ I said. I turned to face Laura, but she had already left the room.

~

The courtroom was very big, the largest I had ever been to. It looked new, with crisp white paint covering the four walls. The jurors’ section and the judge’s chair were made primarily of unusually dark wood, sitting starkly in front of the blinding white walls. The smell of paint lingered in the air, and I noticed the public gallery had been varnished recently, the wooden pews glistening like honey. The columns towered over the courtroom, splinters visibly sticking from its bases. As I walked to my seat a few rows from the front I glimpsed the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” engraved on the wall behind the judge’s bench, about a foot higher than his head, almost like a halo.

The room was silent apart from a few murmurs scattered around the audience sitting in the gallery. Laura had gone back to bed just before I left the house, so I had to water the plants as I knew she wouldn’t do it, which meant I was late. I couldn’t tell right away who the defendant was, so I just pulled my pad and pencils out of my duffel bag and waited for the proceedings to begin. As a sketch artist, I needed to catch the defendant at their most intimate, to capture their entire person in that single moment. Often it took hours before that moment came. This job was really a waiting game. Once it came though, you had to be quick. Because once it was gone, it was gone.

With binoculars held up to my eyes, I leaned forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the accused woman. I shifted in my seat, twisting the lens until the binoculars were focused. The accused was a woman, barely past five-foot by the looks of it. She looked well over thirty. Her eyes gaunt and her skin an ugly pale. A similar complexion to a heavy smoker.

I began sketching the layout of the scene, focusing on the stone-faced plaintiff lawyers and the woman. Pausing for a moment, I tuned into the judge.

‘You stand accused of first-degree homicide and fetal abduction which resulted in the death of the said fetus. How do you plea?’

~

The dusk light shone in my eyes on the drive home. Laura was still in bed when I arrived, so I headed upstairs to continue sketching.

About an hour passed, and I heard the record playing Joni Mitchell downstairs. Her voice drifting louder and louder, the words filling my head until it just became noise shaking my thoughts. The sketch was beginning to change shape, the lines drifting off the page. I squeezed my eyes shut with the hope that the image will move back in place. Rising from the desk, my chair scraped the floor angrily as I made my way to the stairs. ‘Laura! Can you turn that down? Laura?’. Looking over the railing, I peered into the living room.

What is she doing? Is she…dancing?

Laura was holding the right sleeve of my jacket with her left hand, her right one holding the other sleeve to her waist. Her head was dipped into the collar of the jacket, as though she was leaning against it. Leaning against the railing, I watched as she swayed from side to side, her hips rocking softly. Even after the song ended, Laura continued dancing. I couldn’t tell whether she noticed the music had stopped, but I saw her cling the coat tighter. She shook slightly, her body wracking with muffled sobs as she kept her face buried in the coat.

~

The prosecutor walked to the television next to the witness stand. Pictures appeared on the screen, the first one showing a pregnant stomach covered in dried blood. A clean cut, the shape of a crescent moon, was below her belly button. Arching right across the mound of her belly, the cut was gaping, the flesh from the womb and placenta visible beneath the surface. It was like the woman had exploded.

The next picture was where it happened, on a mattress in the corner of a tiny bedroom. Blood was splattered across the walls around it and a frightening amount of blood pooled in the middle of the bed. The prosecutor pointed to a knife sitting on the corner, its blade long and slender like a fish fillet knife.

‘Knowing that she could not conceive her own child, she cut the child out of another innocent woman using this knife. Members of the jury, this was a hate crime. Hatred toward the mother who could have a child of her own. As you can see here’ he pointed to the mattress, ‘it was a bloodbath. The woman’s body was severely mutilated on her face, breasts, and hands, all of which were administered after the fetus had been removed.’

The defendant looked numb. Emotionless. I stared at her intensely, hoping for a glint of regret or happiness or anything to show she was moved in some way. As though feeling my heavy gaze, she turned toward me, her murky-coloured eyes meeting mine for a moment before she turned away.

~

Weeds had riddled the graves in the backyard. I had spent most of the morning digging and cutting away at them, feeling the blisters forming under the skin of my palms. The child’s grave was completely overrun. Only about three feet long, he laid next to Sonny, our old Maltese. She was a scruffy thing, always barking at all the people out the front of the house. Despite her size, she used to scare people away often enough and before long I noticed more people were crossing to the other sidewalk instead of walking past and spooking Sonny. One day our next-door neighbour had been rushing to work and had been ignoring Sonny’s pedantic barking. Sonny managed to slip under the wooden fence facing the front lawn and ran towards his car, still barking. He didn’t hear her as he backed the car over her. I’d imagined he probably noticed a bump while he was reversing out, but he either didn’t or pretended not to notice as he never stopped to check it put. Later that afternoon, a lady knocked on our door and asked if we knew whose dead dog it was. I remember she was pregnant and caressing her stomach anxiously while pointing at Sonny’s bloody and disheveled corpse.

I thought back to that woman and the baby in her stomach, and the one laying in the ground at my feet.

~

‘Have you gentlemen reached a verdict?’

‘Yes, Sir, we have.’

It was the final day of the trial. I was able to get a better seat this time, my view directly in line with the defendant.

‘Mr. Clerk, will you read the verdict?’

‘We, the jury, find the defendant: Guilty.’

The drawing was finished. There was nothing left for me to do, so I never stayed for this part. Capital punishment was always inflicted publicly nowadays, and everyone knew what the sentence would be for a crime of this magnitude. I stood up to leave, glancing at the mixed expressions of grief and triumph in the audience. Words echoed around the courtroom. ‘…electricity shall now be passed through your body until you are dead in accordance with state law…’ I heard wailing as everyone was asked to stand. I sped up, only turning once just as the woman was being forced into the metal chair. Almost running, I managed to get out of the courtroom and make it halfway down the corridor before I saw the lights flicker.

~

The truck sounded from outside the window. Rolling out of bed, I made my way reluctantly into the brisk, early morning air. I felt the chill sting my ankles as my slippers slapped against the footpath. Again, I watched the air visibly escape through my pursed lips, disappearing into the fog. I bent over to pick up the fertiliser. Something glittered in the bag, catching my eye. Picking up a stick, I poked around in the fetid substance before nudging what looked like a locket, shaped like a heart. I gazed at it numbly, not wanting to acknowledge how it ended up here. Tears pricked my eyes after staring a while, so I blinked harshly before putting it in the garbage bin on the street. I wrapped my hand around the top of the fertiliser bag and carried it inside.