Gone the Tides of Earth

Knelt at the edge of morass, I nestle beside the girl and below aside the hanging tree. The ground is matted over and boggy, stuck in the muck clumps of contents that were once a portfolio scattered. Merely only the top parchment is not ruined, yet remains damp, browned just like the rest.

The letters are transcribed in English longhand cursive, this particular parchment double-sided with some short stanzas and a brief poetic musing:

A black room. Lifting white noise.

Dark bodies in a pale parade.

-

There is death

budded on

brambles of cold,

rocky shoots.

Fell the heads:

Timorian wretches! Flee

scatter-flea diaspora -

lest thee supplant; inexora.

The great gusts -

fie the fires fall

from the sky,

for lands, here -

far yonder,

wither in dyes.

Witness weeps -

tectonic cries.

Alas, witness martyrs -

as I

cast the line,

curse the divine,

succumb to thine.

Feel thy burning heart -

pique eyes!

Life but a

day left to live.

For all have seen

olive buds,

withered on

olive trees.

Crouched, still, I let go of the letter; borne away within the wind, despair silencing. Naught but the immobile female and male counterpart, one hanged from a dying black oak tree. For sanity’s sake, I presently compartmentalize the condition of his murder, horrendously inhuman as it is - despite exerted mettle the sight remains such that, cannot entirely draw gaze away from entirely. Such it is will sear into mind long after, perhaps linger there for eternity; never had I seen life so mistreated, nor in a state that a human might see a buck with nonchalance or think it strange otherwise. Upon seeing such evil, one understands a legitimacy of universal transgression, viz without any deposited wealth to inform or codex for parameters it is something that one feels.

Not without a great measure, I look away from the flayed carcass, noose around bulbous purple neck, manacles shackling his limbs outward like the depiction of a star or crucifixion - prepped, drawn, quartered - and gory chest cavity cloven, eyes that will follow long after disembarkation, icy, abrupt, bluer than lightning, brimming with lifeless, energic vitality, skin around them grated, revealed underneath blue-veined, red-white physiology, electrical circuits encircling shocking blue orbs.

Finally diverting focus from the carrion corpse, to the mannequin girl. Below sight, a worshipful puritan prostrated before religious idol, he a divine bust erected for the goodness of adherents and silencing of heretics and atheists. Keeled, she the mournfully devoted, he the condemnation damned, both perpetrators of supposed felony. A signpost far down afield, warning passersby what may befall any transgressor.

Fearing to startle the girl, I pass around the grassy soils behind her, in wait. Something burns inside, I go with necessary caution, anxiety heeding a need to be away from the horrific place. It is like a dismal Earth-bound purgatory, one that might be cursed or happened upon - drives fear like stake through the heart, grips lungs with metal greaves. Idly I stand by, degree of patience as commodity, for at least knowing what came before, conquered in the ghostly hills, shall not pass again. This reality simply a horror I must stomach, mind - bravery for her I do not yet know. But from peripheral impossible to miss the grotesque form that looms up above. Therein I felt couldn’t wait any longer, unholiest being here - death an abomination made out of life, ruthless assassination of one’s lover – so I approach cautiously, ambling around from the blindside to light the palm of a hand upon shoulder of soiled robe.

Head rolls back, face moves feebly upward like an old lift. Soon, I see its festering plain, brown skin stained with mud, blood, the eyes grey. Countenance works up and head gyrates, eyes remain fixed on ground affront. Teardrops swell, tumble down cheeks, onto robe and into the Earth. Next the glossy eyes flicker up, gaze fixates on mine, she is entirely shaking, caving forward kneeling. After a pause I move affront, almost slipping in puddles, having tripped on one of the serrated cleats anchoring the big-game shackles. Both hands I delicately smooth over the thick, loose materials her body drowns in.

‘It’s alright,’ says me. ‘I’m going to take you away from here.’

Her lip quivers, bowing head so chin is jutted into throat, and she breaks. Right then and there, and nobody living would be able to do anything to fix it. Tears soak into her face, sound of sorrow as desolate anything I ever heard. Ruinous as this place, blasted terrain, sunken groves, consummate sense of hell. While she broke, I lifted her into my arms; slender, fairly tall, very light. After I lifted her, started away from the place swift, for life, good and all which was pure.

Always I would wonder about how long she looked back for, as we went.