I clawed at the earth, the hole too small and miserable to be a child’s grave, too dry and cracked that it bent the rusted spade and my back. My own hands, gnarled with age, now reduced to raw, bloody mud caked stumps. But I could not stop, grief numbed the pain, love drove me further. Mud accumulated underneath my fingernails as I dug, ripped apart dirt and root; sending dust and larger pieces of gravel into a flurry, scrapping painfully against bruises. Tears fell, breaking free from their lonely prison, softening the cold unrelenting earth with splotches of warmth. Easing the descent of the shovel as I dug, careful not to soil the body of my beloved wife laying close by. The lemon tree looming overhead provided relief, sanctuary from the searing sun that stung the web like scratches as dew and sweat hit the nape of my neck.
Dig
For the two young lovers patting the mound of earth where twin seeds lay
Dig
For the first paint stained peck on the swing
Dig
Dig for the unborn babe passed too early
I lay exhausted, basking in the glorious remnants of the sun’s futile efforts to claw at the land. Warming the stagnant pools of half curdled vomit. Rancid lemons scattered across the ground, heavy with veins of marbled blood and bile. The flimsy thread between the sky and the sea plunged, waves of burgundy lapped the cliff. The colour, hinting at the dried rivulets of clot that plastered itself to the shadow of cracked rouge caressed lips, a stark contrast to the porcelain wan of my beloved, purged of the essence of life. I gave myself the luxury of an indulgent whisper as I laid her in the earth. It took effort to yield the word out of my chest, to slowly heave the syllables.
‘Beautiful’
My wife. my beautiful, beautiful wife.
Painful pockmarks marred the overly ripe fruit as they fell from their poisoned boughs, filling the air with their acrid stench as worms burst forth from their blackened insides. Parasites, draining life away from the now hollow trunk; rotting the tart fruit on their branches. The stink, evoked a sense of primal rage and detest; beyond the very threshold of civility. Disgust, that something once so beautiful could now be so vile and corrupt. Lacerating my mouth like searing molten glass, leaving its brand on every open pore, every blistering inch of my skin.
I retched.
The full brunt of the cacophony of odors burned, cattle brand talons shredding my lungs, setting aflame every last hope of reason from whatever fiery pit of hell that vile smell emanated from. And yet, all I could help but do was excruciatingly tilt my head ever so slightly and trace the tender purple outlines of my wicked hands from the grave, oh so beautifully etched into the whiteness of my lover’s neck. The deed was done, with my own two hands. It was so easy, so terribly simple to wrap my hands around that fragile, fragile neck and snap.
‘No one can hurt you now Love. Not even age will rob you of your grace. You are mine and I am yours.’
It was past midnight when I awoke, a cold breath of wind shook the shutters. Branches a taping at the frosted glass. a womanly figure sailing on the little robin’s egg tinted swing. Her genteel grasp rode the lovingly daubed bluebells that lightly flaked off the aged cord. She seemed to capture several small suns in that intangible intricate frame, so citrus bright underneath the lemon tree. I lunged for the windowsill, brandishing the candle. But as I scrambled towards her in the darkness, the woman was gone. Her bright existence snuffed out.
It was after a fortnight that I heard the noises, sounds that simply could not have been caused by a mischievous gale after the witching hour. Chairs were dragged, vases flung off tables and shelves, vicious clawing and rapping of doors were common. The smell, there it was. It’s phantom limbs, wafting the foul odour of saccharine decay, drove me mad.
After a week’s passing of these strange occurrences, I was violently disturbed nightly with bouts of angry lashes and scratches that seemed to have no source. On the thirteenth night, I stayed up, hoping to catch the criminal to cease his daily torture. I silenced my screams as wizened talons shredded through my back as easily as cloth; tongues of pain lapping across the freshly healed wounds, a promethean irony for the common man. It’s breath, the scent of mould ridden lemons. It was not a moment longer when the pain had stopped when I cried out in a frenzy, hoping to find the source of my agony and the stench.
No one, not a single soul in sight.
The darned scoundrels were gone. I went to the standing mirror. I cursed. My skin was carved by some sick artist to resemble a growing tree, bleeding branches spread out, claiming the entirety of my back. Lightning struck, illuminating the room. To my horror, a clear figure was reflected in the mirror. Thunder lashed upon the earth, my heart sunk.
My legs desist to function, I crumpled to my knees. A small animal whine cracked from an empty cavity somewhere inside.
‘Margaret?’
I thought death had preserved her, endowed her with ageless immortal beauty. But no, she had to rot, her once immaculate skin was plagued with a furious blight. Angry sores and patches of flesh flaked off the bone. The maggots, oh the maggots plunged and burrowed into every socket, stripping and flailing putrid muscle off the age depleted tendons. The most ghastly sight was perhaps that of her neck. Gone was the beautiful and delicate skin. Exchanged for what was a mockery of broken bones and flesh. Her head jutted out in an almost quizzical fashion, white bones snapping and twisting; piercing sinew after sinew, the scuttle and scrape of entire hives of insects, feasting upon the tender, rotten and bruised flesh. One with many legs wrapped around the mutilated bits of cartilage, pincers cleaving the pocket of air devoid of skin. Oh god, the stench that radiated off her in waves of pure hate. One hand, barely strung together by shattered bone cradled the almost perfect skeletal remains of a newborn. Her eyes, cavernous voids; echoing the sickening question.
Why?
The coastal waves turned nebulous and the sunlight, stripped from the skeins of iridescent saltwater. Fragments of dirt creeped out of the compact lime, crystals of salt lingered in the screaming crevices. The fields of stirring water were beckoning, begging for release. Louder and louder. Pounding against the raucous crag, attempting to devour the now voiceless kingfisher dwellings, to consume to hush its inferno. I knelt beneath the tree, screaming her name. Anything to drown out the stench. My summons had called to the infernal creature, an instrument of vengeance to scourge the wretched fool.
“Yes! Yes, I confess to the deed! I couldn’t bear to see you waste away my darling! I laced your every meal so that you could be freed from the wretched parasite that was eating away at you, leaching away your grace, that child as you called it, took you away from me! I thought, that with it gone, your beauty would return. No. You were too weak, even then to fight back. I had to, I had to preserve you before you wasted away further. You knew. Sensed my intentions that enticed the familiar cloaked coal sunken character. He who is blind to the most detestable criminals and the innocent lives that he escorts. And now, I hear his skittering talons again.” The very wind howling through the branches, ripping away the yellowed leaves seemed to whisper.
‘Honey we missed you’
Torrents upon torrents of sea spray and freshwater hurtled down from heaven’s closed eyes; plum, orange and white veins of light curled down. The darkness shook as the starry Leo unfurled his great paws and struck his celestial cage, sending the air and the land trembling. Fox weeds scampered through the yipping tempest. A horrifyingly familiar hand burst through the mud and wrenched. I locked eyes with her and our cursed child, merely a breath’s distance from their sickening grins. A promise, a beckoning of vengeance. A death vigil. The lightning screamed once again, I gasped, suddenly aware I was wrestling for air through bloody gargles. I could feel every inch, every single splinter of rough root driving further through my flesh, screaming and flailing helplessly as I struggled to break my wife’s embrace. A cross, the irony that would soon end the sinner. The flaming lemon tree had fallen, impaling my body deeper into its decomposing roots. The tree burned of hellfire. Smoke caressed their pearl white bones with streaks of soot. Death was unforgiving. I made no attempt to save myself, save for a voiceless last redemption.
‘Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (Luke 15:7).’
The house by the sea lay empty and below the great lemon tree, the robin’s egg swing undulated. This time, the whispers of shadows waltzed amongst the ripening daisies as the undying figures of man and wife danced themselves lost to the rhythm of the rain.
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