Free Entropy by Robert Raker

admitted.
    â€œNo, why did you do it?” I was scared that she was no longer in love with me; that I had somehow become separated from her, and that the intimacy we once enjoyed had vanished, and that I had been too naïve to see it.
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about that since you saved me.” Her head rose up and the marks underneath of her eyes resembled smeared mascara. It was hard to not to desire her then, seeing her compassion, her vulnerability, the roundness of her breasts through her saturated blouse, and the tenderness in her eyes.
    â€œI didn’t save you,” I admitted.
    â€œYes you did,” she gasped in reply.
    â€œBringing your body out of the river didn’t save anything,” I said. “I should have never come out of the water.” I stood up, my limbs atrophic. She reached out her hand and touched the plane of my stomach, but after a short pause, allowed me to continue to pull away.
    â€œWhat are you going to do? Are you going to leave me?” she asked.
    â€œCan we talk about this later?” I asked. “There’s a town meeting scheduled to discuss these murders and I’d like to be there after everything that’s happened,” I said.
    â€œAre you going to leave me?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I wrapped a towel around my waist while turning my on her, becoming more unassailable around the woman that I loved.
    Water could teach you history if you let it.
    The history of a man was constructed upon the pain of others. I understood all there was to know about history; the archives of the muted dead, the annals of failed intimacy and privacy, the history of immorality and despair.
    With my experiences over the last few months, I unfortunately now understood the sad affliction of circumstance placed upon vibrant young children by the violent unpredictability of a man’s rash and savage brutality, and the complicated nature of water. It was highlighted in the chronology of the investigation, those offensive crimes, bodies and statistics, imprisoned in the bronze landscapes, the turned soil, and the cold waters of barren ponds, like archaeological relics.
    I sat in the back of the school auditorium, watching people enter through the rear door, listening quietly to their concerns and fears as each one poured warm coffee into non-recyclable cups and flicked nervously at their cigarettes, clinging to support provided by their individual vices. A candlelight vigil for the victims had also begun outside for those unable to attend because of the small size of the auditorium. The local pastor leading that ceremony read each victim’s name with somber remembrance as church bells chimed in the unseen distance.
    There were about 110 people inside. Some who came were searching desperately for hope in the words and promises of the authorities, while others had come to express their outrage. However all were waiting for reassurances and positivity that couldn’t be provided by anyone. The dead were not giving up their secrets. I once thought that they needed me, the dead when I first entered that swimming pool on that cold, late December afternoon. However, I should have turned my back on them back then and let them remain where they were and never have allowed my body to have broken the surface of the water.
    Mull entered through the door of the auditorium with his wife and his daughter, Isabella.
    Water could teach you control if you let it.
    There were so many reasons to leave, to resign from the investigation and go home. Nothing was going to change when the murderer was apprehended. All the damage had already been afflicted by the perpetrator’s selfishness and the pure tenacity of water. And I had been betrayed by both. It had stained the one thing I valued. Some wounds would remain for a long time; the dead would always be gone, archaic, but like sunsets turned into long, restless nights,