Album: Forensic Fugues And Medicolegal (2002)

Riggormortis Posthumous Muscular Rigidity


The tepid carcass examinately reclines on my table
Its peculiar muscular activity, rigor mortis, works in
my favor
Determining PMI through rigid, bone-cracking means
Postmortem rigidity occurs through the depletion of
ATP...
Adenosine triphosphate is required for muscle
relaxation
But metabolic activity continues after death and
creates a reaction
Lactid acid is spent and exhausts the store of
glycogen
Muscles go hard from the abnormal links between actin
and myosin...
This maturating stiff...
Becomes quite stiff...
Positioning the corpse can be quite a Herculean task
As I bend the crepitating unmalleable limbs with
revolting cracks
Obstinate appendages stubbornly give way under my
dragoon efforts
My aching muscles are overtaxed and pushed well passed
discomfort...
...Paralytic legs, unflexing arms...
...Carrion with all its frozen charm...
...Unmoving torso, intractable neck...
...Deplorable corpse a total wreck...
Between 2 and 12 hours is the solidifying time
required
For abductors and adductors to become unyieldingly
mired
It will take a day for outstretched extremities to
acquiesce
Finally amenable to my adroit limb-wrenching finesse...
The lampooning hu-mannequin's muscle proteins are
devoured
As the taciturn body achieves maximal rigor in 12
hours
12 hours more and the muscular fiber grudgingly give
way
When the proteolytic enzymes in the lysosomes of
muscle cells escape...
...Corpse piquantly olid...
...Now maceratedly flaccid...
Barring rare cadaveric spasms, a PMI timeline can be
mapped
Factor in environmental variables and the effects they
can have
Ripening malodorous remains can speak from the grave
And tell us their time of death by how their muscles
behave...
...Paralytic legs, unflexing arms...
...Carrion with all its frozen charm...
...Unmoving torso, intractable neck...
...Deplorable corpse a total wreck...