07.03.18

I don’t know what to say anymore. I am just so tired. I stared at my screen for ten whole minutes trying to think of where to start. Jose’s gone. So much has been happening and I think I’m reaching breaking point soon. I have now been to two funerals in the span of thirteen days. I don’t know what to think. I didn’t react horribly when I found out about Jose. I heard say those words over the telephone and suddenly there was silence everywhere. I had had this intense dread in me this entire week that something terrible was about to happen and then it did. I rushed to the crime scene immediately. The silence slowly faded away and was replaced by chaos of angry voices. I was so angry, I still am. At the killer for targeting Jose and at myself too. I should have been better, I should have accompanied Jose home as I had been doing throughout these past days, I should have called him when I reached home or at least had Yusuf walk him home. I did none of that and now Jose is dead. On paper, Jose and I never knew each other that deeply but the truth is, besides my grandfather and of course, Yusuf, Jose was my best friend. He literally watched me grow up. I had always given me anything I needed, laughter when I craved it and silence when I needed it. The library was my home and now that Jose isn't there anymore, I have this gnawing sense of homelessness eating at my insides. Where do I go now? I could see how much Jose had been suffering in his last days here. I wish I could have understood it or better, taken it away.

I decided immediately that Jose’s autopsy had to be the fastest yet the most thorough one that I had ever done. Something inside me broke and crumbled away working on the body so closely and seeing his lifeless face so closely. Dead bodies and injuries never bothered me before, I had always been able to separate myself from it and be in a clinical mindset. Yet I couldn’t do it with Jose. Every close inspection of the violence that had occurred on his body had me walk away and burst into tears. I didn’t want to look at Jose like that, or anyone I love for that matter. I couldn’t objectify and dehumanise the body as I needed to. As I went over the cuts on Jose’s torso I could feel how the killer must have made them, slow and controlled with a knife that bore the same kind of paper-thin sharpness and precision that my own scalpel bears. It was haunting, to say the least. After hours and hours of mentally, physically and emotionally draining work, I had an autopsy ready to submit to Erin. The time of death could be approximated between 11:30 pm to 02:00 am. The stab wounds on Jose’s body were identical to the wounds on all the previous murders, the stab wound at the heart, the slash across the abdominal head, the cut on the back of the knee—it was all there. The only difference here was that Jose’s tongue had been cut off. All of these things I put in the autopsy but there is something else too. I have a feeling that there are two people behind this. It’s something about the ghost of the movement that can be picked up from the stab wounds and the ghost of the movement that can be picked up from the slicing of Jose's tongue. It’s almost as if…both of those things were done by different hands. There is no real technical or tangible tell for this, it’s mostly based on the feel I’ve got so I couldn’t add this to the autopsy but it's something I can’t ignore.

I spent the next day, that is yesterday, planning Jose’s funeral. I went about town booking things and ordering things and I kept getting sympathetic looks from the townsfolk. I could also see that the town is electric with panic. There is distrust in the air and the streets are empty all day.

Jose’s funeral happened today. Apparently, Antonio and he had already booked spots for themselves beside each other long back. Out of the hundred or so people living in this town, other than me only Klaudia, Erin, June, Yusuf, Mocair, Harry and Sariah turned up to the funeral. I was shocked and I felt so bitter but I tried to reason it away. Everyone was too scared to come. Everyone stood away from Mocair during the funeral. It was clear what was going on in everyone’s mind, what was going on in my mind too. Something was very wrong with Mocair, and given yesterday’s events, it puts him in a terrible spot. The funeral was a quick one and everyone left as soon as it was over. Yusuf stayed. He looked at me with those big brown eyes of his and asked me if I was fine but I had nothing to say. I leaned in for a hug but he only gave me a pat on my back. I could see something guarded in his eyes and I pulled away too. He left soon enough too, after standing with me silently for a while. I watched as Jose and Antonio, the two best friends, men who knew what it was to really love, lay beside each other in their fresh graves and I prayed, for the first time in my life, that they both had found peace and happiness wherever they were.

I am home now, writing this. I feel so lonely. Grandpa’s house is empty and it almost feels too big around me. I surprise myself as I think of the island and maybe going back after many months. There is no one I can talk to. Jose’s gone and Yusuf is all…weird these days. Maybe I’ll talk to Klaudia. I don’t know. All I do know is that Jose had found out something about the murders in the mania that had engulfed him in the last few days of his life which troubled him immensely. All he wanted to do was to solve this, to make all of this right. And that is exactly what I am going to do.