Epiphany

It was the flicker of the murderer’s eyelids that stopped me dead. Both eyelids remained slightly over retracted so that his iris was almost completely visible. I had seen eyes remain so wide in patients suffering form thyroid disease. It gave them the look of either constant surprise or mania. The murderer seemed neither surprised or in the grip of a maniac episode. His eyes calmly tracked our progress past him. I wasn’t startled when he said ‘hello’ and gave us a big smile. The top half of his face never changed; his eyebrows didn’t move up, the crow’s feet sprouting from the corner of his eyes only lasted seconds and his eyes… His eyes still screamed at me terrible images they had seen. There was no guilt in his eyes but he was guilty of something horrendous, perhaps an action not completed or even started, but a terrible thought. A plan. A sinful lust that he would no longer resist. His darkest desire would bring death. Then he was gone.
It was winter. I had just completed my first four-month placement as a junior doctor in the county hospital. I would soon be moving to a surgical ward......