Dead.

Take my hand! She screamed.

I have to show you something!

We ran, thunderstruck and hellbent down the hallway and around the corner.

I'm not supposed to come back here! I tried to tell her as she pulled me into the backroom, behind the curtain, beyond the realm of the customer, into the magical behind-the-scenes.

I don't care.  She squeezed my hand and pointed to the floor.

Look what just came in today!

I followed her excited gaze to a shiny mass of white and jagged edges resting on the bamboo carpet.

What is it? I breathed.

An alligator skull.  She squealed.  A real alligator skull!

I got so excited when I unpacked it today.  I almost cried out- don't you love the shine of the bone? The threat of the bite, the menacing empty holes where eyes used to be? I want to take it home.  I want to take it home and I want to hold it and feel it and let it sit, heavy in my lap, while I close my eyes and imagine a different world.

A world of deep river, and muddy water, and prehistoric trees, riddled with roots and dangerous leaves.

It used to be alive, she said heavily, after a moment's dreamy pause.

It used to be alive, and now it's here, on my floor- detached, decomposed, derailed.

Dead.  She opened her eyes and looked me square in the face.

I like dead things.

The buoyancy in her voice was gone.  Deadpan, weighted, dangerous.

It makes me want to write.  She started to grin.  I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise.

It was a world only she understood, a world I could never cross into, no matter how tightly I shut my eyes and how hard I tried to imagine a dark bayou crowded with reptile and amphibian and voodoo priestess.

The answer was present in the statement.  The words rang out like a shot.  The room was a different realm.

I like dead things.