Written for Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge Today’s prompt was Carve.
Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash
She used them like a builder might a mallet, smashing her way through one person to get to the next. There were never words. She never needed them. Her every action, thought, and deed stemmed from her eyes.
What were they like? Could you describe them: narrowed, nasty, blood-stained, or worse?
My answer was always the same, of course I could. They were carved. The Devil himself had chiselled them out of her porcelain facade. But it was only now as she used them with more venom than ever that the cracks showed.
A cool, languid wind eased itself down the mountainside, unhurried in its quest to reach the shaded valley floor. I felt it like a child its mother’s breath.
Rocks peppered the cliff face in sheer defiance of the laws of physics. They clung on for dear life. Silly rocks, I thought. We’re not meant to resist.
Up above the clouds lay a cerulean blanket so unruffled as to rival the placid sea we crawled from that eventful bygone day. A sparkling, citrine sun warmed my cheeks. The wind had gone. I missed it. Perhaps that’s why I jumped? Perhaps, not.
The purposeless are, by their very definition, without purpose. And, they say a man without purpose is a man without life. But what of dreams?
There is no purpose to a dream other than to release the mind of the burden of memory. A dream collates the recent past and merges it with the distant to form an almost reality. This reality is lived through on fast-forward to cram as much new experience into as few minutes as possible, or else what was the point?
My father said dreams existed to fill in a blank, one he preferred, which also accounted for his claims of not having them. Perhaps this meant he was a man of purpose, for whom dreams therefore served no purpose.
I, however, am proud to have no purpose. I am purposeless. This is a state I revel in. In truth, I sometimes wish I’d never wake up. Often, I’m uncertain whether I have.
There is an inherent need in all humans, men and women, to yearn for that tactile embrace of a loved one. There is no comfort like the comfort of another, nowhere safer than when in a lover’s arms. Whilst in those arms, the nightmares seem less real. Life shall be easier than before. This is what they tell us. A gift from our elders, if you will. We will strive for it most of our lives. Yet, it is false. There is another way. I know, though, I wish I didn’t.
When we die, we leave. Simple as. No arguments. No complaints. We are no more, lost to time and eternity’s tides. Some people say our souls, that inner self we ignore too often during life, pass to a better place, one the living shall never know. But what is that better place?
Some say fields of gold. Others claim marble towers and walls too high for birds to crest. Some say a lapping shore where one may dip their proverbial toes and know peace. A rock on an endless mountain. A cloud. The theories expand exponentially as each new generation adds to their layers.
There are even places where these souls don’t want to go. Where they are sent, not requested. Places which mire in darkness, shadows hunting in packs and alone. No one wishes their spirit, their very essence, to inhabit such hells. No one!
There is also the in-between, where those who’ve abused the eternal embrace, though, not too much, reside. They pay their penances in waiting. Simply, waiting. Grey fog whirls and swirls here. The mists form in endless walls of dew. They are quiet places, timeless. But who is to mark the passage of time if love isn’t present or remembered?
This brings me back to better places, or simply, places.
I lost her. I never thought to find her again. Yet, she has found me. Through passion and determination, my once all has returned. She has entered me. I am her limbo. I am her hell. How I hope I’m her heaven, too. Vaporous, she’s been for the longest of times. Now, I breathe her in every breath.
Vaporous embraces are the greatest of all. There is no need for flesh on flesh, for eye to eye, or more. We are one until I pass, too. And then there’ll be no I at all.
I’m very pleased to have had my second piece of writing published with Gobblers and Masticadores. My story is titled Sleeping with the Lies. I hope you get the chance to pop over to this wonderful magazine, which is full of varied content, and have a read of my contribution.
Incandescent whirls of bliss, colour, and light swept past. All that was bright in the world pulsed one last hurrah. All that was golden vanished.
Silence. Not a heartbeat. The languid cool of Forever stole across my soul. I stood small before infinity. Forwards or back?
Choice remained. My choice. The choice. But which?
When lost in purgatory, one remembers not what was decided, nor when, only that it was.
I stepped into another world, another place, another time, and grinned. Perhaps one more ruination? I’ll make this the last.
Like Hell! But how else does one qualify eternity’s destruction.
I had a little piece of writing published today by the good folks at Paragraph Planet. My very short story ‘The Visitor’ is now live on their site and on Twitter.
For anyone who enjoys short writings, I would recommend giving it a try. The idea is to write a story or passage at exactly 75 words in length including the title. All good fun.
It was a miscalculation, nothing more. She expected something I was unwilling to give. Such is life.
We avoided the question for the first year, the good year. By the second, we were married, mostly through boredom, and the question arose more often.
I had, of course, known her feelings from the start. Her every motion suggested it. Her every thought touched upon it. She had no need to voice it, even in those moments after, when I was most suggestible.
Our third winter was the hardest. Snow piled around our small home like parcels around a rich child’s Christmas tree. There was no way out and nothing to do within. Lilith pressed me every hour until I conceded to her point of view.
We huddled together, illuminated by the light of a single black candle. Lilith smiled more in those few minutes than she had in the previous three years. And I remembered… And I recalled…
I was a doctor once. The thrill of saving lives outweighed the sorrow of losing them. Lilith was my most satisfying work. She’d stabbed herself with an onyx dagger, but she didn’t die, and I refused to let her not live. When she left the hospital, our dating began. Like I said, I was proud of what I did for her, even if she herself wasn’t.
Lilith withdrew the dagger I thought her to have lost. The thing glittered a terrible darkness and moaned like a lost puppy begging for food. “You first,” she said.
It was odd! We’d talked about it, pictured it so many times, but when push came to shove, I faltered. Lilith angered. We fought.
I buried my wife beneath a holly tree, when the snow melted enough to dig out the ground. A citrine spring light filtered down through the still empty branches overhead, casting angular, awkward shadows across her grave. That’s when I saw it, the inscription, one I had not made. Here lies one who refused to give in to life.
I thought about that peculiar statement for many years until I, too, lay on my deathbed, teetering on the borders of forever. The female doctor bent over me as the breath faltered in my iron lungs, leaned in closer. She held a syringe in her hands, one of black glass, almost onyx, with a blade of stiletto thinness.
When you pass through the final curtain, your loved ones will gather around you like moths around a lantern. Their sadness shall wipe away your own. Unfortunately, I had but one lover, one to wait for me across the melancholy divide. She sneered and turned her back. I bowed my head in shame.
When I looked up, Lilith was gone. The gloom beyond the indigo curtain had also vanished, replaced by day. My hands bore no wrinkles. My knees no longer ached. I was alive to die again.
What had I saved in my youthful exuberance? Why did I care? Well, my friends and loyal readers, I didn’t. But she did. Her questions continued, though, in truth, it was only ever one. “Will you live, so I might die?”
Almost The End.
Thank you for reading Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Author of the brand new steampunk extravaganza Britannia Unleashed.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
You must be logged in to post a comment.