The Hand of Scrutz

A Story by Eron Culver

     Trains are my primary mode of transportation.
     I recall a girl from the days of my youth, a subdued disquiet laid out in a pattern or series of sorts. Essences such as hers are what I believe call out to the brave and haltingly beautiful in the damped corners of the dessert. An ethereal transcendence that out bleeds seasons, wars, and time. Sitting on this bullet barreling at a speed to hush the flashing seconds, it occurs to me that I never did learn this girl's first name. In our adolescence all referred to this embodiment of bewitchment as Scrutz. If I recall correctly, I believe it was her mother's maiden name- her father granted no prestige in her heart having overindulged in the allure of freedom. The memory of a girl constructed solely of pearls and pill bottles floats to the surface as the Austrian countryside blears into a distorted green haze. Scrutz could not be specifically described as my friend per say, matter of fact she was friend to none yet ally to many.
   Days such as this, I consider myself a bearer of great fortune. Seeing the world in such a rapid fashion is an unbroken affiance that spirits comparative to hers persist to run the world in their soft spoken boldness. However, there will always be days I suppose in which I shall wish for her to return to us; return to me. There was a malleable simplicity, a near tangible comprehension of the world and those who'd inhabited it in her pale green eyes. Copper hair twisted with the pallet of Autumn in striking strands that would always catch the wind and sun in ravishing harmony. If asked, I believe myself capable to sketch her to this very day. A face equal to that of the divine is one far too difficult to forget, and forget I shall not. Not in any manner shall I consign to oblivion the uneven stitches to the dresses she'd sew herself despite the diamond studded pendant she claimed garroted her. Thinking of it now, I cannot help the upwards press of my lips in muted sorrow. Scrutz was the god we all wished existed, a passage of the temporal length in human existence appealing to even the buzzards. She was, in one word, uncommon.
   Conforming to the ideals of every Austrian winter, I now sit in uncomfortable chill while waiting to meet my husband at the station. Howbeit, I hold assurance that in the late stages of child-bearing hardly anyone can be comfortable. In spite of my partner's relentless disdain for the choice of name, I believe that our son will look a fine resemblance to the title of Scrutz. The plain ice ridden pastures continue to swim by in illusion to the facts of reality. I believe that details can be torn and molded to the rise and fall of a chest, can be perverted to the color of absolute whim. Still, there seems to be an enduring will to the linger of glow that was Scrutz. Paled in beauty and enthralled with a burn so vivacious that destiny marked it to be short lived from the moment of conception. I remember a girl, a girl from my youth, drenched in such devastation that all any of us could ever do was stare at her with the temperance of fools.