Today, I’m pleased to announce my third short story for Spillwords.com goes live.
The Last is a short commentary on what might happen if the entity known as Death departs our shores. I hope you enjoy this short read.
Spillwords hosts an incredible array of top quality work, both poetry and prose. There is never a chance of being disappointed if taking the time to peruse their site.
As always, a big thank you to Spillwords for hosting my words and to you all for reading them. I hope you enjoy The Last.
We plumbed forever’s depths, mined eternity’s fields, tipped our caps to infinity, and came to one startling revelation: Death was the end.
Kara and I closed our eyes together, holding hands as we always did. Sleep soon came. But unlike those times when one awakens to a glimpse of an imagined world that pops out of existence, out of memory, out of reach, this was the beginning and there was no forgetting.
The stars swirled around us, we the centre of our own galaxy. Residual particles sparkled in the vermillion and cobalt light like so many gems in a universal crown, those remnants of the beginning. This place was a tangible, sensual revelation, and we smiled for the first time since the sombre policeman said, “Missing.”
“Do you think?” asked Kara. Her wide eyes implored. Her fingers grasped.
There was no ‘How?’ or ‘We?’ or even a surprised ‘Oh!’, just a complete acceptance of being together here, now, in this place.
I shrugged, for words were never my friends.
We soaked ourselves in splendour, familiarised ourselves with every speckled area of night. Then, once we’d appraised everything, like a compass pointing the way, moved.
We flew. With our hands clasped together and hearts already one, we flung ourselves into heaven. Our search had begun.
To explain what we saw, what we felt, would relive the disappointment of losing it, and we’d already lost our everything, but after all reality’s magnificence, we came to another place. An un-reality, one might’ve termed it, though it felt more real than the blood in our veins.
The cosmos is darkness made magic, but darkness, nevertheless. This place, this domain, however, was only darkness. Light was as foreign here as an ant in the Arctic.
“Where?” she said.
I shook my head.
This absolute darkness folded around us, sucked us into itself as grapes pushed into jelly. There was no pain, nor fear of it, just acceptance. We moved from one plane to the next. We sped through this nothingness with more hope than ever, for it is what you don’t see, not what you do, that offers possibilities. Then we arrived, and she was there.
Little Corrine sat upon her knee like she once did on Kara’s. The child giggled. It broke my heart again.
“No!” screamed Kara at the top of her lungs; the darkness snatched it away.
She saw us then, not Corrine, our sweet girl, but her hostess, her keeper, Death.
I like most had expected the Reaper to tower in dreadful, skeletal manliness. I was wrong. I was so wrong!
Death wore the visage of the afterlife, porcelain and wan. Her tumbling hair glittered a raven waterfall. Her form shamed all other goddesses and queens. The ghost of all ghosts, she appeared in her sable litheness. And then she opened her eyes.
They held everything and nothing at once. All that had passed and all that would come in all its manifested sadness. She bore its brunt. Knew it all. And she did it for us, for everyone, and more so for our darling Corrine.
“It’s not fair,” wept my Kara. “It’s just not fair.”
I pulled her closer.
“At least we know.”
“But we don’t know how?”
“We don’t need to, my love. She’s safe now. That’s all that matters. No one could care for her more.
We awoke together as we had fallen asleep. Our only regret, our one misfortune, that she’d never known us there.
Lost in a lucid dream, she stirs, unaware of the sleep she sleeps. The darkness beyond the mirror swirls in anticipation.
Outside, trees rustle a surprise, raining dying leaves upon the frozen ground as if desperate to please. Never has a season died so beautiful a death. But this is always her season; life never moves on.
The girl imagines sitting by her window and watching the snow. She loves snowflakes, how they taste the ground. Yet, she knows it a mirror and not a window at all, and still, she sleeps.
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash Fingers entwine like November branches, The chill offering pleasurable release; There’s no benefit to being overly warm. We swish amongst the decadent leaves Raining down in shades of gone: Ah, the bliss of the festering mind. A moment in the meadow is a lifetime on the sea; Translucent waves like polished glass Revealing only an inverse night. The hole looms like a collapsed bed, And I can’t wait to draw the obsidian sheets high. A raven rattles a warning, or a joyful dirge, Flapping wings to dispel the buzzing bats; They’ve already consumed the flies. She bends low like an avalanche Destroying all I’ve ever known, been, seen. I welcome it, her, this unmarked legacy, One colder than my heart. The impossible shades of an afterlife found Embrace this shell and pop out a nutlike soul. And though I wish to scream ‘come back’ She spins a maelstrom, shifting time and tide for me, Only for me, always for me, as she ever has and ever will. For though our cold, cold love is abhorrent to most, The universe has just gained two more stars.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
I am undone, dissolved, wiped from this world like a ghost from a photo. I have nothing left to give, except for my soul. Is it enough?
A cool wind chills them all, whilst I feel nothing. There is no pleasure, no fear, no love, no suggestion of self, and yet I want more than ever.
Chasing rainbows has become a pursuit. I glide over these reversed smiles, refusing to look back at such multicoloured miseries. Is God watching?
I was once a man with a life, wife, and daughter. When I lost them, I know not. How I’ll find them, who knows. This may be my penance for sins foul and false, yet to them all, I remain clueless.
The night gathers in swirls of gloom. The stars pop out of existence like stung balloons. A black sun rises. There was never a moon in my night.
I smile, or pretend to. No one sees.
The End.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
I curl inwards Though no sleeping rose am I Waiting for tomorrow’s sun Protecting the bloom Tighter and tighter until it hurts Fingers curling, toes, too A spine made willow Bent by autumn storms This is the life you’ve granted Sights and sounds Growling through the dusk Moaning through the midnight Weeping till the dawn An emotional contraction I’ll never unfurl
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Desperate, we strive to unite both sides of souls made unmanageable by time and technology, pain and war, our conjunction hearts seeking to ease from the shade, break from the blinding glare of false light. Neither black nor white, but red, they run, with copious amounts of blood. Always blood. Forever blood.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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