'untitled'

It started when the crow accidentally dropped the hand it was carrying into Sara's lawn while she was weeding the edges of the stones that demarcated the different variety of shrubs and flowers. She jumped from the thud and at first glance she thought it was a glove or a plastic toy until she saw maggots sprinkle out of the decomposing appendage. She was disgusted for a moment and moved away from it. She didn't scream nor did she faint since she didn't believe all women were subjected to frailty like how generations of the female body were associated with it.

She stepped away from the spot and took a breath of fresh air looking at the morning sky where the sun was just reaching the peak of nine. It was almost time for her to go back inside to avoid the heat of the sun but she thought she would complete another batch of the stray grass despite the rising temperature. Had she decided to go back inside she would have never seen the hand and it might have disintegrated or taken away again by another scavenger but it was her fate that she did.

When she was calmer she looked back to the cruel sign of death someone might have had to make sure she wasn't going to make a fool of herself when she called the police. The hand, even at a distance, was what it was and there was no doubt about it. She didn't want to fiddle with it in case the police could extract more evidence from the already decaying bits but she couldn't leave it exposed just as well in case it disappeared again.

She retrieved some old newspapers from the stack she meant to give away and laid them down on what looked more like a carcass on its own and made sure the evidence stayed put with stones weighing them down in a circular formation. She thought of Inspector Dores but he had since retired from the last case she worked with him. There was only one other Inspector in town and he was obnoxious in every possible way but she kept telling herself to give him the benefit of the doubt although he has not changed from their first encounter. She sighed and took off the rubber gloves and left everything perfectly in their place as before and strolled away to get to the phone.