A woman slumped against the wall inside an abandoned building. She is dead. Her head leans against the gray, peeling paint, blonde hair brushed away from her face revealing high cheekbones and full, pouting lips. She is beautiful. The pallor of death has given her skin a soft translucent glow. She has not been here long, a few hours, a day, perhaps. There is not so much as a hint of the scent of death. It is late night, or early in the morning, depending on one's concept of time. Light from the streetlamp outside sneaks in from the boarded window. She is lit like a siren in a classic noir film, like Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca". If this were not reality, one might think that they were part of an old black and white film and that she was a Hollywood goddess playing a role.
  Presumably, she has been raped and murdered. Perhaps murder is too harsh a word, perhaps this was a romantic accident gone terribly awry. There are no gaping wounds or bloodstains visible, nothing so obvious. The tell tale signs of violence are subtle and may go unnoticed to an untrained eye. She is in a sitting position, slightly leaning to her right. Her right breast, soft and full, peeks out from a tear in her plain, white t-shirt. Her skirt has hiked up, above her navel, the hem of it resting upon her narrow hips. The left leg juts straight out with her panties twisted around her ankle, while the right is bent at the knee and lays awkwardly and painfully sideways to her right. The legs are spread in such a manner and the light placed well enough to make out the blonde pubic hair, which is well manicured into a narrow strip. The shadows graciously cover the flesh of her sex.
  Nothing is known of her. It will be a long time before anyone finds out who she was, if she is ever found. For now, she is simply an object of beauty; an object because she no longer exists, perhaps more beautiful in death than in life.