Random Impulse

Second Random Impulse of Week #3

This is just a random free write...
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“Have you ever seen a murder victim before?” The question was so simple. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer but the confliction in his eyes was apparent, even in the dark. He was a rookie, just graduated college and landed a job he thought would be the start to a great career. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

            Studying a corpse in a classroom-like setting gives the student no insight whatsoever into the real world. In a classroom the body has no name. It has no background; no loved ones left behind, no pets, no car… nothing. It’s just a body donated to science, lying on a mortuary table. The body will have already been washed and prepared for the students. And it was most likely scented soap so the students wouldn’t have to even experienced the smell of a preserved body.  In the real world, they have names. They have people that care about them, they have families and every day I have to look those people in the face and explain to them that the person they care about will never come home. And most of the time I have to do it more than once a day. Maybe Wal-Mart is hiring?

            “I’ve never seen one in the field before.” Ugh. The rookie had no idea what he was about to experience but I did and I hated my boss for it.  I didn’t have time to babysit and catch bad guys.

            I pulled two cotton balls out of a pocket on my handy-dandy utility belt and handed them to him as we started getting a little closerto the body. “You’ll want these.”

            “Will it be that bad?” He questioned, already sticking them in his nostrils.

            “Yes.” No reason to sugarcoat the dead, they’ll still be dead and you will just have a horrible taste in your mouth.

            The rookie just nodded, his eyes avoiding the very thing we were walking towards. Everyone handles their first murder differently. He wasn’t doing too badly so far but we were still a few hundred feet away and I’d been thoroughly disappointed before. I wouldn’t get my hopes up until I got back to my front door with clean shoes.