Honey Due's Blog, page 3

Out of Reach (short story)

White pelicans are gregarious. What one does, they all do. Did you know that? No, why would you? I suppose regular people don’t spare much thought for pelicans, white or otherwise. It’s just, my brother used to say that. My brother knew all sorts of things that other brothers don’t. He knew the difference between the king pigeons and…do you know know the difference yourself?

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But no, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Look at me, I’m blabbering. I am boring you. And I so don’t want to bore you. See, the reason I thought about white pelicans just now is that you moved. You think I don’t see you, trying to reach for that key, but it’s alright. You’ll never reach it.

My brother used to say we’re a lot like white pelicans, you know. Not we, him and me, I mean we, people. Humanity. We like to think we’re so evolved, so different from other animals, but we’re not. Not really, not at the core.

The reason you reached for that key is because I moved towards it just now. You imitated me, you think that’s what you should do. But if I were you, I’d try to keep away from that kind of thinking, just now. You’re young, you haven’t been here long, so best you don’t take after me. If I rub off on you, it won’t matter that I die tomorrow or in ten years, you’ll never leave. It’s contagious, whatever I got. And you don’t want to get caught up in it, do you?

No, I thought not.

They’ve been hanging up that key for some twenty seven years. Or perhaps twenty nine. Time is of little matter to someone in my position, which is why you must keep counting. You have to remember what’s happening on the outside, who you were on the outside. They put it up there to taunt me.

And I reach for that key each day. I know I won’t reach it, I was never going to reach it, though I talked myself into it more than once. But you, you must forget about that key, make it as if you don’t care, make it as if you don’t even see their damned key. Make them think you’re different.

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‘We really think that Jonny doesn’t want to move from Nebraska to Maine.’

‘Ain’t nobody asking him, is there? I said, is there?’

There is banging on the other side of the wall. They’re expecting a reaction from you, they know you’re hungry. They know the thirst is killing you, or near enough. It’s not. It’s only been two days, it gets much worse, assure you.

Don’t answer, be still. Lie easy, make like you’re sleeping, they won’t bother us in here. Them young ones, they’re all talk. It’s the old guards you ought to look out for. Some of them have been in here as long as I have. And this place, it changes you, it makes you mean, kills something in you. So be quiet and they’ll let us be.

Be quiet ‘round the old ones, too.

My brother could never be quiet. Always chattering away, drove me and my folks crazy, he did. See, my brother would never make it in a place like this.’Cept I see him sometimes, on the other side of the wall, like maybe sometimes, it’s him banging, me in here, too scared to breathe.

Our dad, he was always the more patient one, always listened to what my brother had to say, even when it was nothing important, even when he didn’t know what he was talking about. My brother, he did that a lot, talked without listening to himself.

It gets too much, after a while. It gets so bad you… you get bad thoughts in your head. Like maybe you’d do anything just so that the bloody noise would stop.

‘Quiet in there!’

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Tell you what, you have my bread instead, you’ll get a fine pen free when we’re outta here. I’ve got dozens pens back home, never even used them. See, I bought them like crazy when I was about your age, I did. I was going to college then, getting all amped up about it.

Only my brother, he just wouldn’t shut up about it. He hadn’t gone to college, wasn’t the kind o’ kid who’d do well in college, you see. It was alright, my parents didn’t mind, they kept him home, away from everyone. But they couldn’t keep him away from me. And he was always talking, like I told you. My brother could never shut up about things. He was so damn excited, it was almost like it was him going. Except it wasn’t. And I reminded him every night it wasn’t. It was me who made it. Me.

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And one night, I didn’t mean to do it, but there he was, standing in my room, talking. About school and how it was there, like he knew anything about college. And I lost it, isn’t that what they say? Lost it? Only I didn’t. I knew exactly what I was doing. I still see it clearly in front of my eyes. I took one of my fine pens and shoved it in his throat. And then, there was blood everywhere and my brother was trying to breathe, but he couldn’t because of all the blood. It was all like a perfect, secret dance, I held him and he let go. Slowly. And then, he died.

My parents never told anyone. My dad, his protector, his savior, he buried my brother in the forest outside town. Told everyone my brother had gone off to an institution. Nobody bothered much, they all knew my brother was strange, so nobody worried.

And then, I went to college. And I kept waiting for someone to come in that first year, wherever I was, and say they’d found the body, with the pen still sticking out of his throat. I could never bring myself to ask my dad if he pulled out that pen.

But no one did. And the more I waited, the more far away it seemed, until I stopped waiting for it to happen altogether. I forgot my brother’s face and my parents never talked about him. I told the girl I married he died while in care. It was sad, but befitting in a way. It was dignified. Better than dying with a pen stuck in your neck, anyway.

And by that point, I’d grown used to his absence, my brother was something from a far away past. It happened to someone else, it seemed.

Can’t run forever, though, can you? Can’t lie forever, either, not when they know you’re lying in the first place. It’s alright, really. I knew I’d end up here, that they’d catch up with me in the end. Weird, though, I thought I’d see my brother more often.

So you see, that’s why I reach for that key. I know I won’t get out and I know I don’t deserve to. I’m old, I’ve been running from my sins for a long time, but you, you’re a kid. You don’t belong here. What could you’ve done that was so bad, anyway?

No, don’t tell me, there’s plenty of time for that later.

 

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.
@credits for photos: 1, 2.

In My Skin

Your voice filters through the walls and I stop. I no longer know where I was going, I no longer find myself in the steps laid out before me. Faces stare at me. Eyes. Empty. They don’t know me, and yet they know you vaguely. Even worse, they don’t know us. Or the us that might’ve been. Because that’s all there is, isn’t there?

A you. A me. And ‘us’ lost somewhere, in the in between, invisible to all eyes, except for you. Except for me. Or yes, perhaps only just for me. Because now, you no longer see me. I hear your voice, but you can’t see my face. You don’t know I’m here, close to you, hungrily (desperately) breathing in this air that you breathed out. Why does it matter?

 

No, I suppose it doesn’t. I should leave. People are looking at me. They know I shouldn’t be here, close to you. And how can I tell them I never meant to? That I didn’t know I could come in here and hear you. And feel…weird. Like I’m intruding. Am I intruding?

Would you push me away if you could see me down here? Would you be secretly glad? Do you maybe see me through the floor of your glass castle? Feel me beneath you, my hands so cold now, reaching up to touch you, to feel you.

You’re here. I heard you and I stopped moving, like invisible arms holding me close.

Hello.

And I say ‘hello back’, but you don’t hear me, and I wonder maybe if that hello was meant for me after all. Maybe it was just some empty greeting, offered to the air or the guard to your palace. They don’t look like you say ‘hello’ to them, though. They look like they don’t even know who you are and I wonder how can that be? When they serve you, protect you up there, from your cold vantage point.

I look up, briefly. I can’t help it. I keep thinking what if you look down right at that second and catch my eye? And maybe say hello to me?

But you can’t do that, can you? People don’t say ‘hello’ to folk like me. I hear you, but you don’t see me. And I’ll always hear you and you’ll never see me, no matter how many times I reach up to you, or how many times I peek at you through the floor. I am buried here, under your glass castle. stopped my trot forever, just to listen to your voice.

Hello there. Hello.

I’ll never say hello to you, but in the darkness, whisper your words to myself. Cherish them, until you speak again.

 

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

Sea Life (short)

Some things are just programmed into your brain. Like the smell of morning when you were five, the feel of wind against your fresh-out-of-bed face. Warmth. Well, for me, it was the way her hips swayed. Like a fine wind on a sunny day.

One of those days that make you get down on your knees and thank the Lord you’ve seen another sunrise. I used to think there was nothing more beautiful than the sunrise in the middle of the sea, boat swaying gently, the horizon your own.

Photo by WEB AGENCY on Unsplash 

But then, I met her. I met many ‘her’s. Don’t know if it was a girl in every port, but close enough. What can I say, I liked women. And the women, well, they seemed to like me back. I’ve had my fair share – good, bad, pretty or dull, rich, not so rich, but there was none like her and I remember that night, lying in bed with her for the first time, I felt a terrible mixture of happiness and the most sad feeling I’ve ever felt in my life. I knew I was lucky to be there, but I also knew I would never fall for someone like that again.

Gone were the days of chasing women, of flashing a smile across the deck at some poor fisherman’s daughter. That was me, the man all fathers fought tooth and nail to keep away from their daughters. And I loved, in my own, each one of those daughters.

There’s something exquisite about admiring the naked calves of a woman in the sun, after long months with nothing but the sea as your mistress.

I was lucky for seven more years. Might not sound like much to you, but I was the only one Rosie allowed to spend the night. There would be no more men after me, and none while I was around. And it wasn’t a lot, but it was something. I began looking forward to my visits more and more, until all I could think about, waking or dreaming, was Rosie’s thighs. Milk-white, soft things, they were. She was the most beautiful woman in that village and she was all mine. And I made sure everybody knew it.

Didn’t think it’d be a big deal, but it was. Rosie found out I’d been blabbering down the pub, that I’d told a couple guys not to come round Rosie’s door no more, that was mine now and that they better stay away.

She got angry, said it was bad for business. Said maybe I was bad for business. And she was right. That one was always right. What else was the lass going to do, while I was away? For months on end. I mean, it wasn’t like I wasn’t still stopping by other houses. But my heart wasn’t in it. After a while, all the women started blending into one big pink shape that smelled of Rosie.

I told her, said I’d leave all those women, be faithful to her, even though sometimes months went by without seeing her. I even told her maybe I’d move there. Just pack up my bags and come live with her, that I’d take care of her. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I’d been out at sea since I was fourteen years old. Didn’t matter much, I knew I’d find something.

And you know what she said to me? Said okay, you come back here with your things all packed. That she’d give up the job and I was fool enough to believe her. I gave her all my money that night, down to the last, so she could live alright till I got back.

Next time I was in town, I arrived early. We’d caught good wind, made good time out on the water and we docked ship two days before we were supposed to. Damn woman didn’t even hear the noise outside, not even my feet on the stairs. She was busy, had company, as they said. I was lucky I didn’t kill the bastard, ‘cause then, I would’ve done time for sure.

Rosie cried, then yelled, then cried some more. Said the money was stretching thin, she was just gonna make a little bit extra on the side, before I came home for good. I said she’d lied, and she’d said she’d meant it. That she wanted me there. But I wouldn’t hear of it no more. What was to stop her from tumbling into bed with Jack whenever my feet carried me elsewhere?

We were only there two days, but I managed to fuck half the village, to get her back. She came to see us off, not crying, but angry. Said she’d forgive me, that I should stay, but I told her it was too late. I was proud and foolish, then. I thought I’d never want to hear from her again.

By the time I’d got my wits about me, time had passed. It’d been eight years since I set foot on those shores. I knocked on her door, but Rosie didn’t come. No one came, just a boy recognized me.

She’d died, it turned out, the previous summer. Alone, in her little room.

And now, she haunts me. I see her in my room, sometimes, by the bed, or in the church, she’d always looking down on me. And she’s waiting. One day soon, Rosie will come for me for good and take me with her.

To Hell. People like us always end up in Hell.

 

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

Stone Place

There were snakes in the old stone place, but the grass grew so green…And I guess she should’ve known better than to go in, but she didn’t. I warned her, just like I do now with you, kids. I told her, stay away from that place, but she didn’t listen to me. She never used to listen to me.

But she was clever, she waited till one day, I went with my Pa to town. Towards the end, he needed someone to watch the horses, ‘cause some of them were rowdy as hell. Violent, always used to cause trouble when we went past the old stone place, so he asked me to come along and watch them.

But that day, they were so quiet. It was early, but that never used to make a difference. Crack o’dawn and just the two of us, three horses between us and that… place. Those horses didn’t make a sound and lookin’ back, maybe I should’ve known then and there something was off. But I was just glad the horses were quiet. I hadn’t slept all night, I was tired and I didn’t really wanna be minding the horses. I wanted to be home, with her. So when their ears pricked up, I didn’t say nothing. When they went past the stone place fast, I thought nothing of it.

Theo was dangerous because she was so very silent. Had a mind of her own, that girl. Made it up and never told no one what she was gonna do. She knew it would upset me, that I wouldn’t let her go down there, so she tricked me. And by the time I got home, it was far too late.

‘But what happened, Grandpa?’ It was Jonathan, always so curious. The old man knew, deep down, the boy’s curiosity would bring about his downfall. Theo had been curious, too. Just like that.

You know your mother don’t like me telling you this part.

She went in the late morning, with her papers. Always with those papers of her, said the old stone place was beautiful. Like a tower without a princess, she said. Abandoned. Lost. I don’t know where she saw all those things. I just saw a big, ugly rock. A bad place.

But not Theo. She sneaked up there, thinkin’ nothing would happen to her in the middle of day. Nothing could happen, but then, that’s what they all think. Nothing ever happens, until it does. You kids’d do well an’ remember that.

She wanted to make a picture of the place. It hadn’t always been so bad, but those last few months, Theo really got obsessed with that place. Like she couldn’t draw anything else. So, she went.

“Caller, are you there?” Suddenly, another voice came on the line. Another voice always comes on the line, and it’s her. Calling to say goodbye to me, and she always knows was’ gonna happen.

‘But Grandpa, there is no phone call in this story.’ Because by now, Jonathan knows the story well.

No, no there isn’t. But sometimes, I wish there was. I wish she’d called me, I wish I could’ve stopped her. But I didn’t.

What more can I tell you, Jonathan? Clarice? You already know what the doctor said when they found her.

‘Snakes,’ the boy whispers, as the girl hides her face.

Das’ right. Said she got bit by a snake. That’s what they always said, whenever they found someone up at the stone place. Snake bites, and for all I know, that’s what did my Theo in. But I don’t know. That place was strange, it called out to people. I think it called up to Theo, that’s why she was so hell-bent on going up there. It wasn’t to draw some damn picture. Or not just that. It lures people in, an’ I know you two’ve heard it as well.

Don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to your grandfather. I know better. It called to me when I was a wee bit younger than you. Called to your mother as well. I think it needs to, otherwise it would jus’ crumble down. Fall in on itself.

There are no details, Jonathan. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t know any more than I’ve told you. So, leave me be. I got home that night an’ she still hadn’t come home, so I went lookin’. I went straight up there, and I told myself, all the way there, that I was wrong. She was at a neighbor’s and I’d just missed her. I’d come back and find her sitting at home, with her colors. ‘Cept I didn’t. And all the signs that was on her was those little bites on her neck. They said she fell and the snake got her.

But maybe she didn’t fall, an’ maybe someone pushed her. Or something. They didn’t wanna hear it. No one round here wants to hear it. They all know about stone place, but there ain’t nothing they can do about it. Old Reggie Pole, he tried to have the place brought down, but them city folk said he was just crazy. Small townie madness, like we all’s got it. Nobody listens, an’ that’s why you gotta look out for your own.

You kids gotta stay together and never, ever go up to the stone place. She had a cold then. None of you kids are sick, are you? Good. It grows stronger when you’re sick, like it can feel it, calls you closer and you go, because maybe it can take some o’ the pain away. But it can’t.

‘Dad.’

I’m sorry, love, I didn’t hear you come in. Well, I better get home now. You be good and listen to your Ma, yeah?

And they’re good, as good as two eight year olds can be. But in the night, Clarice wakes to hear her brother coughing. Thinks back to what Grandpa said about taking the pain away.

In the night, Clarice worries.

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

@Picture is my own.

You hear what you want to hear.

[image error]Photo by Benjamin Behre on Unsplash

 

As indeed, it’s always been the case. I know your colleague was rude to you and I know your wife hasn’t been very appreciative lately. She’s forgotten who you are, who she married, she’s taking you for granted. No, don’t speak, I understand perfectly. I believe you, for that is why I am here.

You’re rejected. Alone. Scared. Uncertain of what the future holds for you and worst of all, you fear that the future might hold nothing at all. The gods have perhaps forgotten you, haven’t even written a specific fate for you and you wonder, in the quiet of each lonely night, how sad is that?

Your fate won’t be bad, because it won’t be at all.

Scarred and abandoned, that’s you. And that’s why you are here. With me. Because I’m scarred and abandoned, too. And I’ve been waiting on this shore for so long… for somebody like you to come along. I know you understand and so, I will never let you leave.

Oh, you’ll want to. There will be days when you beg, you plead with me to let you re-build your little raft and drift away. Days when you’ll want to leave me here alone again, but I won’t allow that. It’s not about me, you see, although I know you’ll blame me when the time comes.

It’s about the world out there, the one you left. The one you can never go back to. They hurt you, don’t you remember? They’re the ones who pushed you out here and now… now you would go back to them?

I understand. I was once like you. I too wanted to leave this place, to go back to the warm, deceiving embrace of society. So what if they’d hurt me? So what if they cursed me, stabbed me, laughed at me? I cried each day to be allowed back. I wept for them like I haven’t wept for anything in my life.

But luckily, there was someone to hold me back. Each time I’d try, he’d warn me against it. Rather break my bones than allow me to return to them. And I didn’t understand then, I thought what he did to me was selfish. Held me prisoner out here for his own pathetic loneliness.

I was wrong. Much later, when my mentor was gone, I understood who I was and why I’d been brought out here. I remembered how society had hurt me and vowed never to leave again. And like him, I will hold you here. For better or worse.

You are lucky. There is always someone willing to listen, in the darkness.

 

Want more? My collection of stories, Grimmest Things, is available now on Amazon.

A Warrior’s Feast

The king decorates the hall for the return of his son with flowers, but also, with war. He orders his painters to embellish the simple walls with images of great heroes, of victories and death, for his son will wish to celebrate the great win over his rebellious uncle. He orders his royal cooks to prepare the most complicated, most delicious foods they can think of and then the king, ornate himself with his most royal gown, his crown freshly polished, and his cheek clean – almost as handsome as the young prince himself must be – he sits and waits for his son to return.

He sits at the end of the hall, where he will sit over tonight’s merriments, the gracious host, he of victories gone by. Oh, how the revelers will dance in his well-prepared halls. From time to time, the king adjusts his crown on his head. Somebody sneezes.

There is one single cough that escapes one of the many beautiful ladies in attendance. Despite the revels that will soon be held here, the hall is not a happy one. On the contrary, it’s filled with grieving faces, with silent cries of anguish, ornate not only with flowers, but with the voices of the dead. The king himself fights hard to keep his image in check and the tears at bay. He has been crying for two days, but he has not shed a single drop of sadness ever since he received word of his other son’s return. His youngest, his joy, his treasure. It should’ve never been the young prince on the battlefield, but he was so ready for a fight and his brother was taken ill just two days before the intended departure.

His eldest, also his joy and treasure, now lay dead in a hall not unlike this one, in another wing of the castle, where nobody would lay eyes on him until the revels were ended. This victory was a big win, it would mean a lot to his young son and a warrior ought to take pride in his accomplishments on the battlefield. He must learn to rejoice, even though his joy comes from blood and death. It is the death of his enemies, and thus irrelevant to him.

The king is determined to not show sadness this night, he will not shed one single tear until the morrow, when the news of his brother’s death shall be broken to the young prince. Then, there will be time for mourning. Let the boy have his victory, he’s told his queen, his advisers, and they all bowed their heads.

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The queen will not be attending tonight’s revels, she’s told him with her broken English, she wishes to mourn for her son, she says there will be time to rejoice later. But what does she know? Women know nothing of war.

The king waits, in his great hall, and yet the hours pass and nothing. Nobody arrives to greet the king, the young prince does not return like he’d sent word he would. There is no talk of victory.

Eventually, one solitary emissary approaches the king, with a bowed head. He dares not look at the flowers that had been laid out for the great win.

‘My liege, there is a man wishes would speak with you,’ the emissary speaks the word as if they’re not his own.

‘Let him forth then, man, what’s the hold up?’

The emissary leaves, without uttering another word. There is no need for that. A cloaked figure takes his place before the king.

‘Speak then,’ the king cries, ‘did my son send you?’

‘After a fashion,’ the cloaked figure replies. The man, heavy of built and with a deep, strong voice that could shift mountains, takes the hood off his head and the king finds himself face to face with his long-rebellious brother.

‘Your son is dead, brother. He fought a valiant fight, but he was just a boy. You should not have sent him to meet me on the battlefield. You should have known he wasn’t ready.’

And the king finds himself bereft of words, for it seems impossible to have lost both children in one swift blow.

‘I’ve come to tell you the news myself, because he was my nephew and always was a good boy. But you should’ve known to send Edward, your eldest. He might’ve lived.’

‘But he was ill,’ the king murmurs. ‘The message…’

‘Yes, I sent that, I thought it best to deliver the news myself. That boy was like my own for much of his life.’

The king feels the sadness in the great warrior’s voice, he sees his brother tremble with the pain that tears through his own heart and realizes that the feast he’s laid out was never his own. It was his brother’s.

His brother, who’d taught him everything there was to know about war, about weapons and honor on the battlefield. About feasts. This is what his brother would’ve done. And so, unknowingly, mistaking himself for a great man, the king has set up a feast to celebrate his own child’s funeral.

The king struggles out of his chair and runs out of his great hall, he runs as fast as his feet can take him and yet, he’s far too slow. And within a week, he is deposed, and his brother crowned king, just like it always should’ve been.

After his sons’ death, he finds himself incapable of maintaining the charade. The king, it is said, has been taken ill. He constantly accuses a ringing in his ears, for the only thing the king can hear are his brother’s words.

He might’ve lived.

 

‘A Warrior’s Feast’ is just one of the many stories you can read in my book, ‘Grimmest Things’. Like it? Check out the rest on Amazon!

The Night Shift (short)

[image error]Photo by Amir Kh on Unsplash

She knew.

By the smell of his cologne, perhaps. By the look in his eye or perhaps, by the way his fingers twitched while she poured the soup. She knew, but she said nothing, paralyzed between the shock of knowing this day would come and wanting to be somewhere else. In her mind, she’d been picking up things – a bra here, a box of earrings there – for months now, packing up slowly, never quite knowing when the last straw would drop upon her weary shoulders.

And now it had.

He ate fast, slurping the food into his greedy mouth and avoiding her gaze, delaying the inevitable for one glorious second, remembering soups now long gone, when they’d been happy. When she’d laughed at him as he ate and he, delighted, had laughed back. But she hadn’t laughed now for a while and him, well, it’d been a year now. He wanted to laugh again and it felt strange, this breaking from this woman he’d known for most his life. But it didn’t feel wrong, so he finished his soup and, without saying a word, he left.

Didn’t stop to pack his things, not even a toothbrush and she thought all night how maybe he should’ve taken the toothbrush. He’d need it in the morning, he cared so much about being clean, about being presentable. A gentleman.

At 2 A.M., standing barefoot in the room they once shared, she runs her fingers over each of his suits. Big suits, colorful suits, elegant suits, dark suits. And she’d loved them all, and she’d loved him in each one.

What’s he going to wear tomorrow? He’d come home from a run around the park, dressed in sweats and nothing more. She’d loved him in his sweats also, but what about tomorrow? How could he go to his meeting in the morning wearing sneakers and a muddy pair of shorts?

He would have to come home in the morning. Yes, but what if he did not? If they’d had a fan on the ceiling, she might’ve watched that, might’ve felt less lonely, but alas, they did not. So, she lay waiting in silence, for dawn to arrive and her love to come back.

She promised, in her mind, she’d laugh at his jokes now, she wouldn’t be quite so uptight. Because it’s her fault, too, even though she tells herself it isn’t. She’s been mean to him, but not anymore. When he comes, in the morning, she’ll tell him, she’ll beg him, she’ll kiss him, she’ll love him. Her man, in his fancy suit.

[image error]Photo by Yash Patel on Unsplash

A demented laugh pierces the stiff night air and she flinches – he’s not here to hold her now. He’s left her all alone, prey to the voices outside.

5:32. She stands up a tip toes to her secret pile of stuff. She’d get to them later – she’s been saying that for months. But he knew, as well as she, it was a lie and when she did get to them, those clothes would be going for good.But not anymore. She hangs each of them up with care, with love, all the love she’s failed to give him in the past few months. All the love she promised and all the love she somehow forgot.

When she’s done, it’s 6.30, he’ll be home soon now. In less than two hours, he’s got to be somewhere else, so he’ll sneak in, cologne still faintly on his neck, the way she likes it. And he’ll peer in at her and find her awake. And in silence, they will forgive each other, as husband and wife must.

But that morning, he doesn’t come back. She waits and watches as the clock strikes seven and then eight o’clock, standing up ever so often to look out the window for when he might come.

He’s angry with me, she thinks, he’s borrowed some clothes from a pal, he’s gone straight to the meeting. So, she waits, almost out of her mind for the clock to go just past nine thirty, when his meeting will undoubtedly have ended and she reaches for her cell phone.

Up and down and up and down, she scrolls through her little list. But there’s no one under Love and there’s no one under Honey. No one under My Sweet and no one under Husband. No one under Richard. And she looks around at her rented room and at all her dresses hanging tight in the closet.

‘Richard?’ she calls out to the white, pristine walls, who listen as each morning, she cries out the name of this stranger.

There is no Richard here, the walls would tell her, if they could. And there never has been.

But what’s the point in telling her? Tonight, she’ll be making soup for him. And tomorrow, she’ll call again.

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Lake Side View #4

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And with Will’s words, my old ghosts suddenly came rushing back to me. The dark of the murky lake, Russell’s dirty face as he yanked my hair and pushed me down into the water forever. My father, as I saw him once, weeks later, wandering the park. I liked to think it was desolation I saw in his eyes that day, regret for not keeping me a little closer, because maybe then, I wouldn’t have ran quite so far.

But I don’t know if that’s what I saw or if it was just fanciful thinking. The truth is, my father might’ve well been lost inside his own thoughts. It made sense that by then, he would have come to terms with the reality that they would never find me. They looked for me, for a while, I suppose. But by then, there was little anyone could do. And to be honest, I think he’d come to terms with the fact that I was dead also. I was not coming back to the family shop and frankly, that was alright by him.

And they were all there, standing behind Will as he spoke his excuses and his awkward words of goodbye. Beckoning me closer. And I really, really didn’t want to go closer. Please Lord, don’t make me go to them again.

‘When I was small, I would sit with my sister late, late at night, when my mother and father had gone to bed and we would talk and we’d whisper. Gossip, you know, about our father. About the people who lived on our street. And about you.’

‘Me?’

He looked up surprised and more than a little ashamed. It was clear now to see that talking to me was killing him, but not enough.

‘Yes, about you. See, Angie used to say, with all the authority older sisters possess when it comes to matters of the heart, and I believed my sister knew about everything. Like there wasn’t a single soul on the face of the earth that loved that she didn’t know about. And she used to say that it only happens once and when it happens, you know. You feel it inside you, like a locket of truth you’ve always carried with you somehow. Secretly. And that you have to be really careful, because once the locket becomes broken, it can’t ever be fixed again. She didn’t love the boy she married. He wasn’t the one she carried the locket for. And I don’t know if she ever found him. But you are, for me. And you can’t just leave. That’s not what happens in the stories. He doesn’t just leave.’

‘But this is not a story, is it?’

Just then, his eyes were not his own, but they shared the same dull gray in the eyes of the ghosts behind him. And he was right, they don’t leave in the stories, but this was not a story. So, decisions must be made.

I let him leave with the promise he would return to me, for the three weeks he had left in this town, in this old life. Before his heartless mother took him away from me forever. And that night, late, when all the birds had gone to sleep, when there was no one around to hear, I sat on the edge of my lake, conferring with the others on what must be done.

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‘He can’t go, leave us all just like that.’

That was a tall, gaunt man with a black, scraggy beard who’d died suddenly. Gone out for a walk in the park and had not come back. Long ago now.

And he was right, I could tell by the look in the others’ eyes. This wasn’t just my story, anymore, and in truth, it had never been. Hidden inside our little forest, maybe the people could not see us, but the ghosts sure could and they’d watched our love blossom, as a plump lady who’d loved the bottle more than she’d loved her two equally plump children pointed out to me.

‘If he leaves, then what happens to us? What happens to you, love?’

For the first time, I caught myself thinking there are things more painful than death and one such thing was happening to me. And I could not let that happen. I asked for forgiveness, under my breath, though from whom, I’m not sure. If there was anyone watching, or indeed listening to my desperate words, their heart was as cold as stone. And there was no forgiveness to be found there.

So, I turned my prayers to one that I knew would hear them. I asked, in silence, for my beloved to come back to me, I asked that I be allowed to feel the touch of his fingers on my cheek as I’d felt them so many times, sitting with him on our secret wooden bench. And I asked that through some miracle, he would never have to leave me again.

And the park listened, just like it did with all our prayers. It promised it would be done, in that secret language that slithered through the grass and up the bark of the trees.

The following day, I was not to wait by our bench, when Will came to see me. I must not be there, I was told time and again all through the fretful morning, so when the time came, I stayed well away. I held myself tight against a tree on the other side of the park and I waited alone and away, for fear that I might lose heart at the last second and warn him off. That I might change my mind and while that wouldn’t change the outcome itself – prayers to the woods once offered can’t ever be taken back – it might make for some strange happenings. Ill-spilt blood seeping into the earth.

It was there, digging my nails into the tree bark, that I heard my beloved’s step slip, so close to the place that had brought us both such happiness. And it was there that I heard his head hit that ill-fated rock, sharp and piercing against his soft skin. And then, I ran. I ran like I’d never run before, through the air, across the park and all the people around me seemed invisible, suddenly unimportant.

I rushed into our woods, that had suddenly grown dense, trees hiding from sight the last beats of Will’s heart.

‘She never loved you like I do,’ I wept. Into his soft-smelling hair, I wept and I caressed him. ‘No one would’ve ever loves you like I do.’

There have been a total of one hundred sixty eight deaths inside our secret forest, inside our ever watchful park. And while the park does not wish harm upon any of its visitors, now and again, it may be swayed by sensible arguments.

For a good while, Will would not speak to me. He would not even see me, becoming invisible and impossibly out of my reach. But after a while, he came around. He sat beside me, where I waited for him on our bench and told me one of his stories. One of his made-up ones about the people walking just outside our secret forest. Safe, for now.

The End

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@ all images are my own.

Lake Side View #3

I used to think other people didn’t see us. But then, darkness would fall and it would be time for Will to go home again, and I would remember. They just didn’t see me. Only that’s not exactly fair, is it? Children sometimes saw me, particularly small ones. And they would scream like there was no tomorrow and their mothers wouldn’t know what the matter was, but I did. Old folk sometimes saw me, too.

See, I think in a way, those closest to me could see me the easiest. I don’t know what this place is and I don’t think it’s Heaven. Or Hell. But I don’t honestly think there’s more to it, either, even though I’d like to.

In the first days of my… confinement, I thought this is some sort of punishment. That my soul was trapped and something had to happen for me to ascend, to move forward. But then, when I met the others, I realized there’s no forward to ascend to. This is all there is, there’s no absolution, no eternal salvation. Just cold and darkness, wandering alone through this stale world forever.

There are others, of course. I’m not the only one who died in this park. And I remember thinking about all those boys who died in wars, on those same fields. Those places must be awfully crowded by now, I’d imagine. But through all the people and all the years and all the noise, you’re just alone. And you know you’re alone, because there’s no footsteps to be heard. All the people who haunt this world do so silently.

Dogs. Dogs can sometimes see me, too, though I never understood why. Maybe it has to do with some heightened sense or something like that.

And finally, Will. Will could see me from the first moment and I remember I looked at him and for many minutes, I thought he was looking through me. He must’ve been, he was too young and too healthy to be anywhere near this cold, dead world of mine. But then he stood up and came, through the bushes, and sat beside me.

 

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It was easy to make up stories, at first. I let him talk and then I made up this perfectly plausible life for myself that would, in no way, ever bump into his. I told him I went to a different school and what subjects I liked and didn’t like. I told him about my family, about my father and my brothers and he believed me.

The first time I thought the earth beneath me would give way, that he would discover my lie and run away in disgust was when he asked me what my favorite song was.

And for those first few seconds, I couldn’t think of anything to say. All the songs I’d known hadn’t been popular for a hundred years, at least. But then, I remembered. Not two weeks before, I’d been walking through the grass in the early morning and I’d heard it.

A girl, slender and not much older than I had been then, was dancing on the little hill above. All alone. And she was so graceful, so utterly perfect, like someone meant her to be there for the sole purpose of being so beautiful.

I hummed the song for Will and he laughed, said I was quirky.

But nothing lasts forever, does it? And things eventually go bad, as they must. We’d known each other for some two months before he realized something was wrong with me. I thought I was doing a pretty good job, but looking back, I must’ve been rather evasive. And when he asked me if we could go to a coffee house instead because it was starting to get cold inside our forest, I just shook my head.

How could I tell him I would never leave this forest? That whenever I tried to step outside the park, it was as if an iron chain pulled me right back inside?

I don’t know, but in the end, I told him everything. I didn’t think he’d come to meet me in the park much longer, not with the way things were going. And I did really want him to keep coming, because he was warm and if he stopped coming, I’d be left all alone again. So, I told him. I started with my house above my father’s shop and I told him about Russell and about the man with one eye. And about the darkness inside the water.

And he sat on our bench, shivering slightly, and listened to everything. And then, he ran. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t look at me, and I thought that was it. That I’d gone and ruined it.

But the next day, he came back to the park again and all through winter and all through summer. Every day, he came back to me, to find me. And each day, I would wait for him.

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I would look for him at the park gates. Or I would climb atop the tallest hill and look for him. Or I would sit on our bench, surrounded by our own secret forest and I would look for him. Until all I could see before my eyes was his face.

I used to walk through the forest and notice the hearts carved into my beloved trees by children. Teenagers in love, just like my William. Yet, so unlike him. There was nothing normal about my William, nothing like the other people who walked through my park. Still, I would look at their little hollow hearts and wonder where the sense was? They could scream it and write it on every wall, but the only thing that mattered was that the other heard. If they didn’t, then it was all pointless.

And so it was that in my walks, I slowly became convinced that Will couldn’t hear me properly anymore. Because before, he’d never missed a single day. In over two years, not one day when he didn’t come to the park to see me. But that day broke everything, because even though he tried to act as if everything was normal, I knew it was not.

He’d stopped hearing me and I could feel him slipping away, in the way he stared at the grass sometimes, in the way he said nothing on purpose so that I would grow uncomfortable and he would have a reason to leave me sooner.

When he finally came out and said it out loud, I’d been ready for it for days. The sentence that would, in three weeks, break us apart forever.

‘My dad died.’

I didn’t need to ask. Suddenly, I knew why he’d missed a day and why he risked missing many more.

‘I’m so sorry.’

But Mr. Crane’s untimely death was just the beginning. He told me how heartbroken his mother was, even though for as long as she’d been alive, she hadn’t loved Mr. Crane for one single minute. And he told me how she would be moving, back to some indistinct city she’d come from twenty years ago, on a young Mr. Crane’s arm, to start a new life and a new family.

But the family she’d started here was now shattered, so she was going back to her old one. And of course, she expected her son to go with her.

‘You can’t. How could you go?’

‘How could I stay?’

‘Well, you’re almost eighteen.’

‘Almost, though not quite. Besides…’

He let his words trail off, but he didn’t need to say it for me to know what he’d meant. Besides, he didn’t have any reason to stay here. After all, what was he going to tell Mrs. Crane when she demanded to know why her son wasn’t going back with her? That he needed to stay here, not for school and not for his lousy boxing job? But because of a girl who’d died in a park more than a hundred years ago?

And I saw, as I looked into his eyes that afternoon, that he would never tell Mrs. Crane that.

To be Continued

 

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@ all images are my own.

Lake Side View #2

Missed it? Read the first part here!

I was sitting in the grass when they found me. I knew the eldest of the boys, but the others looked…well, they looked like mere children really. My brother’s age and he was just a kid. I didn’t understand what he was doing dragging them into this. But back then, I didn’t know many things, I suppose.

I knew the oldest one, though, I’d seen him around my father’s shop, always lurking by the counter, but only when I or my brothers were in the shop. When my dad came in, he used to scuttle out of the store and make like he was never there. I didn’t know what he was doing, at first. I thought he was maybe looking to steal something. Russell had that look in his eye. Mean and unpleasant, like he might bite you if you went too close. So, I always stayed away. And when I realized the reason he was there was in fact me, I stayed even further. I never told my father, though. And in the time since, I’ve wondered why. So many times, I have lain awake, staring up at the sky and wondering…what might’ve happened if I had said something. If maybe the outcome would’ve been different. But what’s the sense in thinking that?

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I was reading by the lake, like I sometimes did when the weather was warm and the shop was quiet. My father didn’t like me going off on my own, gallivanting, as he called it. Not because he was worried something bad might happen to me, but because he had no one to help out in the shop sometimes and that drove him so mad. But I was sixteen then, I was alright because by then, dad was already training Carl to take care of the shop. Ever since we were little, we had our lives carved out in front of us. Carl, the eldest, would take over dad’s shop when he was old enough. It was family business and to be honest, dad always loved Carl best of all. Then, there was my sister, Angie, who was the apple of dad’s eye. She was an angel to him, though unruly. She always got in trouble, but by the time of our story, she was already married to the equally difficult heir of a very prosperous family of merchants. They were a few cuts above us. Angie did really well for herself. And then, there was Daniel, who was thirteen and a real troublemaker. But by the time he came around, mom and dad were already so weary from three kids that he got away with most of his tricks.

Then, there was me. There was nothing special about me, really, but Russell had somehow got it into his head there was. I wasn’t the heir to some great fortune, I didn’t have any womanly talents, really. I wasn’t a great beauty, certainly. But there was no arguing with Russell when he got something into his head. He was a very strange boy. About my age, I think, but a stray. A scrubbed-up stray, but a stray nevertheless. A child of the streets, born and raised in the dirt and the violence. You could see it, by the look in his eye. There was something menacing in there, something wild.

And whereas I’d been able to keep away from him until then, that afternoon there would be no escape. I looked around me and saw how the park had grown quiet. I always sought out the quietest spots, by the lake, where the light was just right and there would be no children to bother me.

No one to help.

The other kids were strays, like him. I didn’t stand up, because I knew they’d stop me, so I figured I’d stand my ground.

‘You can have this, though it’s not too valuable,’ I said, touching the silver necklace my mother had given me the year before. But I knew, even before I looked into Russell’s eye that he wasn’t looking for that.

‘How courteous of you.’

His speech was slurred, like he thought he knew the words, but he wasn’t very sure. Who teaches a stray the proper words? Who even cares if he learns how to speak at all?

‘Really, I have nothing else of value.’

‘No? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?’

He grinned wide and I had to bite my cheek, so that he wouldn’t see my disgusted smirk. Three of his front teeth were missing and the ones that were left were almost brown and hanging askew.

‘Yes, I swear I don’t.’

But even as I said the words, I knew I should’ve listened to my dad that day, I should’ve stayed home. But I didn’t and in a way, it seemed fitting. My father always told me I’d get myself in trouble someday. And I did.

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I like to think I’ve forgotten most of what followed. I mean, it’s been so painfully long. But I always remember one thing. Russell’s foul breath on the side of my neck, his dirty cheek against mine. And sometimes, when I’m walking in the park around dusk, I still feel it, like a cold breath of disgusting air against my skin. Like the park remembers that day, too. And I suppose it does. After all, they hurt her too that day.

‘What should we do with her?’

‘I say we leave her.’

‘We can’t leave her.’

This last one was Russell, I felt certain. Just as I felt his eyes burrowing into my bruised body. Because for Russell, it wasn’t enough and he needed to take more. I’ve thought about this for a long time, and I understood something that should’ve been clear a lot sooner. He hated us, he hated my dad, my family, not just me. He wanted everything we had. I suppose he thought it would be unfair to leave me like that.

‘She’ll rat us out. She knows my face, for sure. I ain’t going to jail for this bitch.’

I could tell the others were scared. They were tough, or at least, they thought they were. But I told you, they were just kids deep down, and they knew they were going too far. I don’t think any of them wanted to go through with it, they were afraid of what might happen if they did and so, they hesitated. But in the end, it turned out they were afraid of Russell more.

I lunged at the first one who came towards me with all the strength I had in me. It was one of the kids, must’ve been thirteen, fourteen maybe. Not older than Daniel, definitely. And one of the last things I remember thinking was that Daniel would never behave like this. Much later, I saw him here again. He was with a little girl and an older woman – his family, I suppose. He was much different, no longer a stray, and from certain angles, he even seemed respectable. He was still missing one eye, though, from where I got him that day.

The only one I didn’t hit at all was Russell himself. They were holding me too tight. It was a bit like being paralyzed. Russell dug his fingers into my hair and yanked as hard as he could. And I couldn’t move, but the others moved me anyway.

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When I was a little girl, my father sometimes took us to see the sea. And I used to hate it, because then, I’d have these terrible nightmares. I’d wake up screaming, dreaming I was caught underwater and I couldn’t breathe. Nobody bothered much about teaching me how to swim. And I always used to be so afraid that one day, I’d slip off the pier and plunge into the cold water.

And yet, all I remember from that afternoon isn’t the not breathing. It’s the darkness. That horrible heavy blanket of tar that falls over your eyes and no matter how much you blink, you just can’t seem to open your eyes.

There was darkness in my life for a long time after that. I watched and I saw a lot, more than I would’ve liked to, at times. I slept among the kids with needles in their arms, sometimes. I sat with old people, grieving for their lost loved ones, who were utterly alone in this world. Many things happen here, if you have the eyes and the time to see them. And I had all the time in the world.

And then, one day, I saw Will for that first time, and knew I wanted to sit close to him, always, because he somehow kept the darkness at bay.

To Be Continued…

 

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@ all images are my own.