Shadows Out of Time

NK: I’m sorry. Sometimes there are memories that are like splinters that have to work themselves out. If you would, please. Take your time. Why were you on the stairs of Benton Avenue?

JB: Like I said, I don’t know. That night was a blur. I was on medication.

NK: The Anaprocil, for your depression?

JB: Yes. I was downtown with friends who went home, and somehow — I guess — I don’t know.

NK: You don’t know how you got to Beechview?

JB: No.

NK: Do you know what time it was? JB: No.

NK: Were you driving?

JB: No.

NK: Was anyone with you after downtown?

JB: No.

NK: Someone dropped you off?

JB: [Pause.] Maybe. I…I remember walking a long way.

NK: Were you going up or down the stairs?

JB: Up. I think. I saw him…I saw him above me. Coming down.

NK: Jeremy Tuttle?

JB: Yes.

NK: And—

JB: [Suddenly distressed.] And he shot me! He pulled out a gun and he shot me. I…I ran down the stairs.

NK: Okay, okay. Just — okay, just lie back. Did you see him after that? Did he follow you?

JB: I looked back to see if he was coming down. He was ststanding there. [Emotional.] He…was looking at me.

NK: Did he say anything?

JB: He said, “I’ll do this. You don’t have to. Go.”

NK: You heard that clearly?

JB: Yes.

NK: Why would he say that?

JB: I don’t know.

NK: Do you know what he meant?

JB: That I should go.

NK: What was he doing then?

JB: He turned and he…went up. There was light. In the trees.

NK: Like a flashlight?

JB: No. More. Different. He went up into it. To them.

NK: Them?

JB: [Cries out suddenly, clutches temples.]

NK: It’s okay. You’re okay. Do you want to—

[Indistinct voice of Detective Colby.]

NK: Okay. Who was there? Who were “they”?

JB: [Long pause, sobbing, labored breath.]

NK: Jen, who was with him? Who were “they”?

JB: Not…no, no, no, no one. There…there was a bird.

NK: A—

JB: I want to stop, I want to stop now I want to stop now I want to stop now stop now.

Forensic assessment by Janine Paxton, PSM, 3935D12, September 10, 2022:

The close-range gunshot wound to Jen Bigelow was possibly self-inflicted based on muzzle proximity, trajectory, and wound position. All consistent with recovered Ruger LCP. Exit wound, slug not recovered.

Addendum by Detective David Colby: Only Bigelow’s prints on the weapon, no others. Ruger LCP retrieved at the scene, 11:51 p.m., September 9, 2022. Blood belonging to Bigelow at the presumed shooting site, intermittent blood trail continuing down the Benton Avenue stairs and along Gladys Street northwestward, southwest on Ronacky, south on Gale to the intersection with Sebring Furnace Extension. Ruger LCP registered to Jen Bigelow. No evidence of any other persons, items, or activity on Benton Avenue up to Halfirth or in the surrounding area, which is heavily wooded.

2012 Chevrolet Cruze registered to Jeremy Tuttle found parked along Gladys Street, approx. 140 feet southeast of Benton Avenue entrance. Nothing unusual in or around vehicle.

Tuttle’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Text of “Sweeping,” song by The Dire Janes, April 2023:

Why’d you do it, Molly Mae?

Why’d you go so hurtfully?

Did the music tell you to?

Did the night bird call to you?

Yeah, we won and lost for keeps.

So the rolling ocean sweeps

The footprints from the sand away.

And you couldn’t, couldn’t stay,

Molly Mae, Molly Mae.

That’s the way it had to be.

Every Path Taken NICHOLAS KAUFMANN

“Can a human brain continue to function outside the body?”

In her seat in the lecture hall, Emily Bannerman looked up from her laptop, her curiosity piqued by the strangeness of the question one of her classmates had asked.

Professor Vaughan, a bearded, slightly balding man in his late forties with a taste for the argyle sweaters that seemed to be the unofficial faculty uniform at Vermont’s Middlewood University, had just wrapped up his lecture. “As an organ, the brain is only three pounds of tissue, but it’s responsible for everything that makes you you.” As he spoke he aimed his laser pointer like a magician wielding his wand at the SMART board behind him, where a detailed cross-section of a human brain was projected on the screen. “It houses all your memories, everything you’ve learned, your hopes and dreams, everything you love and hate. In essence, you are your brain, and your brain is you.”