WE DESERVE SUNSHINE EPISODE 04: Autopsy report of a queer shot in the back of the church

When they cut my body open after they shoot me to death, they will find that death had kissed me not once, but multiple times. For every kiss was every year taken off of my chances at a life of graying hairs and wrinkled fingers, of a white picket fence with two pearly kids, a future of cleaning the house and cooking in the kitchen, and kissing my husband before he’s off to work. A threat that loomed in the form of soft lips and even a softer disposition. A threat that turned into a promise that they said would kill me one day, and it did.

When they cut my body open after they shoot me to death, they will discover all of the prayers stuck between my teeth. Every time I begged for this to be over, for mercy, for forgiveness. I knew I was a dead girl walking now, and no amount of confessions or communions could save me from who I am. They will notice the bruises on my knees, the dents in my hands from the rosary beads, the rot between my molars when I tried to swallow down the feeling that aches in my throat. And even then, they will say I did not try hard enough, they will say I deserved this execution anyway.

When they cut my body open after they shoot me to death, they will find that as soon as they take the scalpel to my body, my skin will bloom into violet instead of flesh. They will say I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a monster playing house, a demon who had to be exorcised for its deception. Not a butterfly hiding in a gray cocoon, they will not call it a metamorphosis. Just a grotesque transformation, not referring to the gaping hole in my chest nor the bruises that made my face almost beyond recognition. Not the creation of the Modern Prometheus, but the work of someone far more sinister. They will claim that the Double Venus on my wrist to be the signature of Asmodeus himself.

When they cut my body open after they shoot me to death, they will see every bullet gleaming in the crevices of my skeleton. Every hit that prevented my organs from saving the life I was barely clinging to, the life I had only started to accept as mine, even if it meant that I could not live in the sun for the rest of my life. They will claim, even if the proof is in the pancreas, that it was no witch hunt. No vindication, no foul play, only self-defense against a violent being, even though the one who shot me was three times my size. For a gun has nothing on the dangerous bloodsucking queer, who is out to poison our women and children. What could be more dangerous than that?

When they stitch my body back together after the autopsy, they will dress me in my Sunday best, and write the report. Gunshot wound. Shattered bones. Fatal organ damage. They will say I was beyond saving, and not because of all the blood I had lost. Some will say I had it coming, that I paid the price of living so recklessly and so foolishly myself, that someone had to cleanse the moral failure that was going to render this town into ruins. My mother will write the eulogy, the priest will commence the mass, and they will bury my body next to all the other skeletons they have hid in their closets. I will become an urban legend, a myth, a cautionary tale to the girl in theology class who had looked at her best friend far longer than she should. Then they will forget who I am, and I will cease to exist, no different from the life I had led in the shadows before I was found in the back of the church after morning mass.

They will say it was God’s plan. They will say that all is fair in love and war. They will throw away the rose, close the tomb, and go back to church on Sunday. 

They will fire the gun again on Tuesday afternoon. Stretcher. Dead on arrival. Morgue. Autopsy. Closed Casket. Burial. Then they will pray for our damned souls. 

Shoot. Scalpel. Service. 

God loves you. Good riddance.

Never forget.

Article: Alexis Cantuba

Illustration: Divine Balote