The box says forty-two pieces. I’ve counted three times.
Shredded document 2025-08-14-C, suicide note, archived evidence. “Beginning reconstruction at fourteen-twenty hours. Document appears complete per inventory log.”
Basement smells like wet cardboard and old HVAC filters. Fluorescent overhead flickers. Always has. Table cleared except for the document bag, my tablet, coffee gone cold.
Edges first. Standard process. Find corners, build frame, fill interior.
My hands know the work. Fingers sort by tear pattern, by fiber direction. Paper is cheap. Printer stock, home office. Single perforation down the center fold, then cross-shred. Manual destruction, not mechanical. Someone sat with scissors and careful patience.
“Corner piece located. Upper right. Begins with date header, August ninth, twenty twenty-five.”
Handwriting is clear. Neat block print, blue ballpoint. Dear– Tear takes the name. Second piece fits below. I can’t keep–
The audio log plays back. My voice, but I don’t remember starting playback. “Beginning reconstruction at fourteen-twenty hours.”
I look at the tablet. My teeth hurt. I unclench.
Timestamp says today. Three hours ago. Right when I came down.
Coffee was hot three hours ago. Now it’s cold.
I keep sorting.
This is my forty-seventh suicide note.
I can’t keep doing this anymore. The sentence completes across four pieces. Blue ballpoint, same pressure throughout. Consistent hand. The C in “can’t” has a hook. Little flourish.
I write my Cs like that. The hook comes from grade school, Mrs. Morrison’s handwriting drills. Never broke the habit.
The box says forty-two pieces.
I’m at fifty-six and there are more in the evidence bag. White fragments through plastic. More than should fit. I’d swear I checked inventory when I logged the box. Forty-two pieces. Complete document per 2025 processing notes.
“Discrepancy noted in piece count. Bag contains additional fragments not listed in inventory log.”
My voice plays back again. Same sentence, but I didn’t say that just now. I said “Discrepancy noted in piece count. Bag appears to contain–”
Appears. I said appears.
The playback doesn’t have “appears.”
Tablet screen is dark. Dimmed itself, auto-timeout. I tap it awake. Recording shows thirty-eight minutes active. Not three hours. Thirty-eight minutes. Started at 14:47, not 14:20.
I came down at two-twenty. It’s three-twenty-five now. That’s an hour five, not thirty-eight minutes.
Or I came down later than I remember.
Or the timestamp is wrong.
Or–
Next piece. You’ll understand when– Tear takes it. The handwriting hook is there again. The d in “understand.” Blue ballpoint, same pressure. The ink is slightly feathered where it hit the paper fiber. This paper. Cheap stock from Staples. The kind I use.
This could be my paper.
Evidence log says: standard printer stock, white, no watermark. That describes ten thousand possible sources.
Next piece: –this was always–
Sixty-three pieces now.
Box says forty-two.
The bag is still full. White edges through the plastic. More pieces than should exist. More paper than a single document should produce, even with careful cross-shredding.
Unless it’s multiple documents in one bag. Processing error. Someone combined evidence from two cases.
But the inventory log says forty-two. Complete document. Single source.
“Piece count continues to exceed inventory documentation. Possible processing error or–”
The playback cuts me off with my own voice: “Piece count discrepancy confirmed. Document reconstruction reveals consistent handwriting throughout. Blue ballpoint, standard block print, right-handed author based on stroke direction.”
I didn’t say that. I started to say “possible processing error” and the sentence died because I don’t know what comes after “or.”
The audio knows. The audio has the rest of my thought.
Seventy pieces.
–going to end this way–
The sentence is forming. I can see it across the pieces I’ve placed. Not the full thing yet, gaps still, but enough. I can’t keep doing this anymore. You’ll understand when you read this. It was always going to end this way.
Second person. Addressed to someone. “You’ll understand.” Intimate, familiar. Not formal.
I lean back. Chair creaks. Metal frame, institutional surplus, older than I am.
My leg is numb.
Chair edge cutting into my thigh. Can’t feel it but I know it’s there.
How long have I been sitting? Tablet says forty-one minutes now. Feels like longer.
Coffee is cold. Don’t remember it being warm.
The overhead fluorescent is buzzing at a different frequency. Or I’m noticing it now, where I wasn’t before. The sound drills into the space behind my eyes. Basement acoustics. Concrete walls, low ceiling. Sound doesn’t escape, just gets absorbed and leaks back.
Eighty-one pieces.
The bag still has more.
Stop. That’s protocol. But my hands are still sorting. Edges by texture, tears by angle. Muscle memory, habit, can’t tell which.
Next line: Nobody saw– Gap. Four pieces missing from the middle of the sentence. I know they’re missing because the sentence structure implies more words, and because there are still pieces in the bag. I keep reaching in, pulling out fragments, adding them to the workspace.
Nobody saw what?
Recording plays: “Evidence suggests document authored by subject demonstrates personal knowledge of events not included in initial case file. Handwriting analysis recommended.”
That’s my voice. My professional tone. The one I use for documentation, for court testimony prep, for the recordings that get entered into official record. But I didn’t say it. Not just now. Not in this session.
Unless I did and I’ve already forgotten.
Box says forty-two pieces.
I’m at ninety-six.
Nobody saw me–
There. The gap fills. Five pieces later, the sentence completes across the table. Nobody saw me do it.
Do what?
Case file is minimal. 2025-08-14-C, suicide note, no contextual documentation in the archive box. That’s normal. Contextual files get stored separately, cross-referenced by case number. The note itself is evidence, but it’s not the whole evidence. There’s a body somewhere, presumably. A scene. Witnesses, maybe. Or not. Hence “nobody saw.”
But nobody saw what? The suicide? Something else?
Stop reconstructing. Cross-reference the case number. Read the actual documentation instead of puzzling over fragments like some kind of–
The thought stops.
Evidence preservation. The document already existed. I’m not discovering anything.
Forty-seven notes. This is number forty-seven.
One hundred fourteen pieces.
Nobody saw me do it. I tried to stop but–
The next piece doesn’t fit where it should. The tear pattern is wrong. But when I rotate it, bring it in from a different angle, it connects. The handwriting continues. The hook on the b in “but.” There it is again.
I write my lowercase b the same way. Learned it from Mrs. Morrison, practiced it ten thousand times on lined paper with the little dashed midline to mark x-height. The habit stuck. Even in block print, even when I’m trying to write clearly for forms or labels, the b gets that hook.
So does this one.
Box says forty-two pieces.
I’ve stopped counting.
My hands keep working. The sentence builds. I tried to stop but I couldn’t. Every time I thought it was over, it started again. This is the only way to make it stop.
Make what stop?
My right index finger pauses over piece seventy-three. Looking at it. Really looking. Tracing the familiar curve with my eyes. Not moving. Just looking. The pause stretches.
The tablet activates without me touching it.
“Subject’s right index finger traces handwriting characteristic on piece seventy-three. Subject’s left hand reaches toward the desk drawer.”
I watch my left hand move.
It’s moving. Arm extending. Reaching past the table edge toward the metal frame beneath. Toward the three drawers on the right side. I can see it, motion in my shoulder, the extension of my arm, but I didn’t decide this. Didn’t authorize it. My conscious attention is still on piece seventy-three, still on the curve, and my body is performing an action that exists in a different timeline.
“Second drawer from bottom opening. Subject retrieving spiral-bound notebook. Blue ballpoint pen beneath.”
The notebook is open in my lap.
My handwriting. Same sentences. Fresh ink.
My hands are shaking. Or not shaking. Can’t feel them clearly enough to know.
The concrete walls absorb the sound and leak it back.
My leg is numb, my coffee is cold, and the timestamp says one hour thirty-two minutes, which means it’s three-fifty-two, which means I’ve been here since two-twenty.
The final piece is in my hand.
It fits in the gap. The last one. The place where everything closes.
I can place it or I can leave it. Both choices feel wrong.
Hand hovers. Paper edge between thumb and forefinger. The blue ink visible even from the back of the fragment. The shape of the letters bleeding through cheap stock. Not archival quality. Acid will break it down eventually. Lignin will yellow the fibers. In twenty years, this paper will be brittle and brown and illegible.
If it lasts that long.
If I last that long.
The edge bites into my thumb. Or doesn’t. Can’t tell.
The piece moves toward the gap. Or my hand moves it. Or something else moves both. Muscle memory, habit, compulsion, doesn’t matter which. The edge of the fragment meets the edge of the adjacent piece. The tear patterns align. The fibers connect.
The sentence completes: –why I did what I did. I’m sorry. This is the only way to make it stop.
The door behind me–
I don’t turn around.
