Bullet #1

The first bullet (there are to be six: evenly distributed - three for her, three for me - though not equally destructive) enters Lily's body approximately two inches beneath beneath her left breast. Slowly, or if not slowly then gradually, or if not gradually then at least moment by moment, leaving no gap in actual proceeding time, jumping no millimetre completely, the bullet begins its inevitable passage into Lily's thorax. A small brown mole taking the shape of a capsized figure-of-eight which she bares approximately two inches beneath her left breast, stark against her blue-white and otherwise unblemished skin, will be nowhere accounted for at the autopsy - and so instantly must be vaporised: pouff! Already, before it accomplishes even this minor initial slaughter, that first bullet has traversed ten feet of air-conditioned air, has clipped through the floating grey viscose of Lily's ghost frock, has slit the silk of her camisole. Now, however, that almost-perfect skin of hers begins slowly to stretch - resisting the onwardness of the bullet's metal apex, denting inwards above her delicate ribcage, tightening momentarily from shoulder to hip: but then - after this false, hopeless opposition - punctures easily enough. An anticlockwise spin has been imparted to the bullet by spiral grooves - called rifles - back inside the barrel of the guilty gun. This spinning motion maximises the flight-stability and therefore increases terminal accuracy. But it is the skin-stretch of kinetic energy not the drill of missile-spin that takes the bullet through into first flesh.

Entrance wounds are notoriously sexy. And although I will not get to see Lily's wounds while they are fresh, I will study photographs of other penetrations: the abrasion ring that encircles an entrance wound, caused by the bullet rubbing the skin, turning it raw, looks like bright pink lipstick under slick lipgloss.

The bullet during the long moment of entry, is not only spinning but also yawing slightly - like a fish, swimming, seen from above.

Despite refinements in weapon design over the past twenty-five years (particularly in higher quality barrelling and improved systems of rifling) some instability is always likely to occur in the flight paths of physical objects. However, this yawing only begins to play a major role in trajectorisation once this first bullet has passed out of the air and into the denser material of the human body.

Lily's body.

After the skin and a thin layer of fat (forgive me, Lily), some thoracic vessels, nerves and membranes, the bullet next enters the red cross- hatching of Lily's ribcage muscles: external oblique, external intercostal, internal intercostal, innermost intercostal.

As the bullet passes through the cohesive but elastic tissue of the muscles, a cavity of greater diameter than the bullet's own is temporarily created - around and behind it. For all of five to ten milliseconds after the bullet passes, the ripping-rippling emptiness pulsates - in and out, in and out - spreading damage laterally, through to tissues the bullet itself hasn't even touched. The phenomenon is technically known as cavitation.

Next, the bullet breaks both Lily's fifth and sixth ribs. The thudding force of this impact sends off a number of bone-splinters to do further peripheral damage.

These secondary missiles are a well-known feature of gunshot wounds, and often - as in Lily's case - do as much damage as the primary missile.

One particularly sharp rib-fragment slides up in a smooth parabola of harm towards the apex of lily's heart. Another, broader and less bladelike, plunges down in the direction of her liver. A third - almost circular in shape - stops millimetres short of puncturing her spleen.

It is bone-spray and not bullet-bluntness that slits the gauzy sheet of Lily's pleura.

By now the bullet has lost some but not much of its forward impetus, its kinetic energy. The fifth and sixth ribs - as it smashes through them - have rocked a little, exaggerating its fishlike yawing, its ongoing wobble.

One of the ballistic laws governing the motion of a projectile through a body states: the greatest damage will occur neither at the point of initial entry, nor at some arbitrary mid-point, but at exactly the point where there is the greatest loss of kinetic energy. In other words, the more the moving bullet starts to yaw, to wobble, to tumble, the more harm its passage will cause.

Next, the bullet carves into the inferior lobe of her left lung, a greater and more passable space - less dense, less damageable.

The bullet passes out of Lily's left lung between the sixth and the seventh ribs, severing the intercostal nerve, vein and artery. The sixth rib itself is only cracked, but the seventh shatters - spewing dusty bone-fragments off in the direction of the bullet.

When the bullet has passed a sufficient distance onwards, these bone-fragments will start to be sucked back inwards by the contraction and resettlement of the muscle tissues.

At the moment the bullet meets the muscles of Lily's back, it is travelling sideways. Harsh contact with her posterior ribcage has finally converted its wobble into a fully developed tumble. The bone-resistance has also slightly deformed the front end of the bullet. Tissue damage to the internal oblique, erector spinae and latissimus dorsi muscles is therefore exaggerated.

Next, through fat, dermis, epidermis, dead skin, hairs.

Because Lily - at the moment the shooting takes place- is leaning against a metal chair-back, the exit wound of the first bullet is not quite as simple as it might otherwise have been.

Exit wounds commonly look like stars, slits, circles or crescents.

In Lily's case, the wound - because of the presence of the chair-back - becomes what is known as shored.

As the sideways bullet pops from her back, the skin is stretching outwards - and pressing, hard, against the firm stopping surface of the chair.

This pressure, which is exerted also through the fabric of Lily's camisole and Lily's frock, turns her exit wound from a clean, simple shape into a smeared, succulent, minutely latticed, clitoris-like thing.

Toby Litt - Corpsing

8:19 p.m. - 2013-01-15