evidentiary:alchemy

I finished mapping the domain for evidentiary : alchemy, and the site move is officially complete.  Only one task remains: moving all my links to this page.  If I had you linked before, do not worry:  I have not de-linked you.  I am just a little slow finishing up the site.  Since I broke my foot last week, my whole life has slowed down.

Be sure and check out my new site:  http://www.missingwriter.com!  The domain should be 100% active over there, but if not, you can also find it here:  http://www.missingperson.typepad.com.   See ya soon!

#1 in a series on Bitemark Evidence

If you have lived through a tornado in the Iowa countryside, you know what pitch-darkness means.  You know the deep black of the storm cellar.  No matter how long you stay down there, inside a cold hole in the lawn, your eyes do not adjust.  You start to doubt what you hear and feel: your grandmother's breath on your neck, as she rocks you in her lap; your sister's whimpering cries; the funnel as it passes overhead.

But the thing is, there is no such thing as pitch darkness.  In all darkness, there is light we cannot see.  Light outside the visible spectrum. 

If there is darkness, it resides somewhere else: inside our own eyes, our own bodies.

All of this occurs to me as I learn about bitemark evidence. 

Imagine the darkness inside a bitemark or bruise: the darkness of the blood and ripped tissue, but also, the darkness of the person who clamped his jaw around a hand, a foot, a shoulder.  And yet, the tooth marks and bruises appear dark not for lack of light, but because light penetrating the epidermis is being absorbed. 

There is a light that actually emphasizes the dark, making an injury more visible and distinct: infrared.

Infrared light has a long wavelength.  Long wavelengths travel deeper into the dermal layer, illuminating injuries in the lower skin layers - injuries our eyes cannot detect in normal light.  Forensic scientists use infrared photography to reveal the bruises we otherwise would not see. 

Which illuminates again the importance of process, how we need not just light, but the right kind of light, in order to see. 

From Forensic Dentistry by Paul G. Stimson and Curtis A. Mertz:

The examiner begins by evaluating tooth #1 and associated radiographs.  The second dentist on the examination team evaluates tooth #1 and confirms the findings of the first dentist.  The recorder charts the findings of tooth #1 and all three team members confirm the charting.  Tooth #2 is examined and the process repeated until all 32 teeth have been charted.  The approach is redundant, but errors are corrected as they are made.  Charting should be done in pen, not pencil.  Errors should be corrected in a legally acceptable fashion.  Sometimes it is effective to begin a new form in order to present an error-free form in court. (200)

Let me repeat that last sentence:  Sometimes it is effective to begin a new form in order to present an error-free form in court. 

Seems obvious, but I still keep thinking about the implications - how the presentation of evidence is so different from the process of finding, examining, and interpreting it. 

The process is all about acknowleding error, fallibility, and limitations.  The same holds true in creative writing, which is one reason I find forensic metaphors so exciting.  We should never be afraid to acknowledge our limitations, flaws, and mistakes while we are in process.  Makes us look a whole lot better when our work goes out into the world.  And we can face readers with something approaching certainty - in our process, in our rigor, and in our humility.

Like the forensic dentist, we should always be willing to examine the same tooth twice - and then once again, just to be sure. 

Imagine: a body concealed in a trash bag and rolled down a steep hill.  Finally, the rolling stops, and the body lies still.  Mouth slightly open.  Face up.  Gums and lips and tongues begin to decay, and teeth loosen.  But instead of falling out into the bag, they fall inward, dropping onto the inside of the cheek.  Sticking there, planted.   And as that cheek decays, so do the skin and ligaments as well.  The scalp loosens and peels away from the skull, creating more space - more shadows - for the teeth to fall into.  And they fall.  Drift actually - pulled along by the glacial progression of the skin, as it twists and knots and peels.  Like shards and rocks and ancient spears, shifting through the soil.  Except here, there is no soil, only skull and dessicated tissue.   

The skull as archaeological site in its own right.

Later, someone discovers the grisly contents.  Scientists note the missing teeth.  They search the bag and the soil, but still, they cannot find the teeth.  So instead, they try a radiograph.  And there, in the X-Ray, they find them: planted at the temple, like seeds.  The teeth had drifted to the side of the head, a few inches right of the eye socket.

And isn't that the perfect image?  The teeth moved close to an eye, as if to say: see me, see me, see me.  See who I am.  Because I can no longer see. 

Literally, the missing face looks out at us with its teeth.

As if sculpted.  As if nudged and smoothed and cemented.  As if an art.  Intended.  A desperate clinging, holding identity close.