This is a short story I recently penned for the Golden Pen competition, a friendly one on one short story contest in a community of writers. Just under 1500 words, this was done in freewriting style. Hope you enjoy it!
* warning - graphic content
Devine Invention
The living room wall was a bookshelf, recessed, no space left unfilled. The Zodiac Killer, Helter Skelter: The Manson Murders, Ted Bundy: The Stranger Beside Me, Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy, and dozens more serial killer biographies alongside abnormal psychology, human genetics, and anatomy textbooks. The rows of books were flush, perfect, precise in alignment. There was one exception— a book pulled forward several inches to serve as a bookmark: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
A peg board, six feet long and eight feet wide, opposite the bookshelf and to the right of the ocean-facing window of the beach cottage, displayed a collage of newspaper clippings. Headlines from across the nation covered every inch of the board, domestic homicides to mass shootings to robberies gone wrong, genetic oddities, and various research developments in various fields of biology. Some dated as far back as the 80s and were yellowing at the edges. Crime scenes printed from the internet on photo paper were added in what appeared a chaotic fashion, but when viewed from afar in its entirety, it created a rhythmic flow like the breath of a living being. A macabre collection with a pretense of tranquility. Her masterpiece.
Julia pinned an article from the Daily Post to the center of the board:
Missing Child Found Dead
Police Hunting the Southland Slasher
The headline was large, bold, black lettering; the picture, medics carrying a sagging bodybag, full color but a touch blurry. She stepped back to admire her design. A soft smile lit up her face. “Excellent,” she whispered to herself.
