XI
“What’s wrong with her, Master?” asked Rex, hanging like a creeping shadow, over The Grieving Woman, who now writhed on the ground by a lightly kindling fire. “A day ago she was fine; sad, yes, but capable of much more….”
While she wrenched and twisted her hips, grinding her knees into the sand, The Grieving Mother’s arms, like two concrete cinder blocks, were dead weights, lying still at her side. The rest of her body, though, shook and convulsed horrendously. It was a horrible site to bear witness to, but neither The Ringmaster nor his most trusted cohorts could turn away.
The Grieving Mother’s eyes rattled inside their sockets, at one moment sounding like buttons being picked off a shirt, and the next, like a bag of marbles, swimming in brine. Her pupils dilated until there was just a round, black dot, swinging back and forth, left and right, with such ruinous ferocity. And then they stopped, and their direction changed. Right to left, right to left, right to left. And as the pace quickened, and that horrible rattling and slushing sound returned, her pupils shrunk to the size of minute pin marks as if drawn on with the faintest touch of a finely pointed quill.
And while her eyes rattled and turned, and her body shifted and shook, her lips acted as if she were suspended in the midst of delicate and salacious passion; kissing the air, as if every molecule were the soft and moistened lips of her imaginary lover, and the warm crackling air from the lightly kindling fire, were the ardour and lust of his breath.
Surrounding the young woman was a circle of faces, and nearly all looked down with estranged and disturbed fascination. As her eyes spun, so too did theirs - to the very best, or worst of their abilities. And as she pouted and mouthed in a sensual address, so too did they.
“It’s the strangest thing,” said Rex, looking to his master.
“Is she liking or disliking what is occurring?” asked The Three Legged Midget. “I am confused.”
“I’m not sure,” said The Ringmaster. “I have never seen anything like it before.”
Rex stared at The Ringmaster with long and piercing eyes.
“A mixture of both maybe, or it seems,” said Rex, still looking at his master.
“Just to be clear,” as The Tiny Tattooed Man, “we’re saving her, right? This is not a mercy mission. Because if you want, I can punch her.”
“God no,” sighed The Ringmaster, touching the convulsing woman’s cheek.
“Yep, good, as I thought, just checking,” said The Tiny Tattooed Man, stowing his club.
“What do we do, Master?” said Rex. “What is her cure?”
The Ringmaster shook his head.
“What is her illness?” he asked.
The circle of ogling faces all shook their shoulders, stumped by the question.
“First day,” said a voice, from behind a pile of shrubs and dirty laundry.
The Young Boy stepped out of the shadows and into the group’s unexpected attention. The Ringmaster was the first to speak. “What’s that boy?” he said. “Come here. Don’t be conspicuous.”
The Young Boy was hesitant at first, not so much by the troupe’s deformities, but by the vigour of their glares. His defences lowered, though, when he saw in the group, The Coloured Lady, she whose painted face looked as if her heart were filled with a bounty of joy, that when in sadness or sheer delight, she wept small, coloured snowflakes.
He walked with a certain swagger and took his time in the short distance between the shrubs and the fireplace. He was young, small, and scrawny looking, but his chest puffed out like a silverback, and he swung his arms back and forth in his stride as if his fists were great wrecking balls.
The Young Boy stopped just short of the troupe. He had everyone’s attention, even the woman who lay on the dirt, writhing about in a candid and vocal cocktail of passion and despair. He affixed his belt, loosening and then tightening the buckle. Then he lowered his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans, real cool-like, and he glared back at the troupe with squinted eyes, as if what he was trying to see were sewn into the fibres of their colourful garments.
“It’s the first day,” he said again, in a voice that could herd cattle.
“The first day of what?” asked Rex, looking with concern to his master.
“Of three.”
The Young Boy stepped into the circle and stared down at the young woman, whose body now twisted and squirmed to such painful looking extents that it seemed that it might just come apart, like a poorly woven braid. Her veins puffed up and stuck out of her legs, her arms, and on the sides of her neck. Her toes stretched wide and then coiled, tiny and tight as if she were fighting the urge of some incorrigible itch on the bottom of her feet, one that her paralysed hands couldn’t scratch. And yet her mouth, and her tongue, they behaved in such a way that it seemed as if the agony and misery of which she perspired onto her dry, cracked lips, tasted piquant and exquisite.
The Young Boy stared at her, though, and he saw his mother, on her first day.
“And what happens in three days?” asked Rex.
The boy stared at the woman’s body, and how awkwardly it twisted. His mother’s had done the same; one-half going one way, and other, with just as much drive and derision, going the other.
“Like a dishcloth,” he said.
The others were taken aback not with what he said, by how intimate he was with this illness, and how the sight of her this way caused him no more concern as would, the site of a scurrying insect, or a runny nose. But it was the way The Young Boy stared at the woman’s open sores, and at the grooves in her hips where her skin twisted and reddened, and how close he put himself, which had the troupe in both kinds of awe.
He remembered telling his father the same thing; “She’s like a dishcloth.”
And it was true, to him at least. It had looked then, as it did now as if some invisible giant were ringing out her body like a mop, a wet towel, or a dirty and slimy dishcloth. Something was ringing out her soul, and because of it, she perspired from her open pores, every inch of life within her. And her every orifice smelt like discard; like some malodorous and mouldy pot left stagnant under the sun.
“She’ll get worse,” said The Young Boy, inches from the woman’s pouting lips, “much worse than this. But not just for her,” he said, “for the person or persons that did this to her.”
“Who would do this? How could a person do this? What science, what magic, what faith would have the power to do this?” asked Rex.
They all looked at the boy, and he, at the writhing woman.
“Whoever loved her, whoever did this, on the third day, they and only they, must bury her.”
And though their faces were cheery, they all frowned.
“Surely there is something we can do,” said a whore, number five.
“There’s nothing anyone can do. It starts with a nosebleed. It always does. And then this. And then it just it keeps getting worse and worse until it’s so bad that you think she’s near the end, she has to be,” said The Young Boy, as they all stared down at the writhing woman. “And then she’s not. There are no words to describe the end; how she is, and what she does and says. Nobody really says much on the third day. Most folk are kinda quiet, just doin’ what they have to do, what they think is the right thing to do. But this,” he said, pointing to the woman now gnashing on her tongue. “This is just the beginning. She’s already dead. This….these three days, this suffering, it’s not for her. It’s for whoever was cruel and callous enough to love her,” said The Young Boy, recounting his father, word for word.
“So this is a mercy mission?” asked the Tiny Tattooed Man, reaching again from his club.
“We shall heal her,” said The Ringmaster. “This is why we have come. This is our test, the test of our faith. Light is the cure. And we carry it in our hearts, our hands, and in our eyes. We are the cure, each and every one of us. We will stop this dreaded illness,” he declared.
The Ringmaster leaned down and kissed the woman’s pouting lips. The others all churned, and
nearly vomited where they stood, all except for Rex, who despite his gargantuan size, and despite the horror festering on the woman’s skin, imagined himself in her place, dented into the soft sand, and lying on his back in dire sufferance, awaiting his master’s kiss.
“At what state is the day?” asked The Ringmaster.
The coloured faces all craned towards the sky.
“The sun is hanging master. Its death will come soon.”
“We’ve little time then. Rex…”
There was no response.
“Rex,” he said again.
The Ringmaster never repeated himself, never.
“Rex,” he shouted.
The gentle and grotesquely deformed giant flinched. “My apologies, Master, I…,” he said, his words trembling like a young child’s admission of guilt; his lips still pressed and parting, waiting to be met with another’s.
“Are you with us Rex?” said The Ringmaster as the rest all sniggered. “Would you like us to make you a bed too?”
The answer to that was most certainly yes, but instead, the bashful giant’s awkward feelings stuffed themselves into his mastodonic feet, and there they swelled into common rage, a feeling that could mask his blushing cheeks.
“We have a good half hour before evening prayer,” said Rex, now back on his feet and shouting in an almost abusive manner; a little uncalled for, considering… “Have your costumes ready, nut out your performances; any kinks, and errs….There is only one first show, one shot to make your mark. Just…” he said, his little hands having a nervous fit. “Just go.”
The circle of coloured faces followed his request. They were gone in a second, rushing through the encampment towards their carriages and tents, excitedly and anxiously tearing through their drawers and chests, lining up their blouses and dresses, and garters, suspenders and shorts, and jeans and bright puffy pants. And shoes too… Who could decide against so many? Which size, shape, and which mash of colour would most duly suffice?
“We’ll need someone to watch the poor woman,” said The Ringmaster, being fitted into his favourite purple jacket.
“Yes, Master,” said Rex, turning back to the writhing woman. “I’ll…”
“I’ll watch her,” said The Young Boy.
Rex and The Ringmaster both turned. The odd looking boy hadn’t left. He stood there like a disorientated puppy. And neither man knew whether to feed him, offer him a bed, or kick him in the arse, and move him along.
“It’s not that hard,” said The Young Boy. “I’ve seen it many times before. I know what to expect. And I know what not to do.”
The Ringmaster kneeled down to the boy and pressed his shoulders.
“Where is your home, boy?” he asked.
“I have no home,” said The Young Boy.
“And your family? Your mother and your father?”
The Young Boy thought of his father, probably barricading his door, or curled over the toilet seat, dry retching and weeping inconsolably.
“They are dead,” he said. “It’s just me, alone.”
The Ringmaster looked at Rex as he always did in this kind of moment.
“It’s your call master,” said Rex.
“I know tricks,” said The Young Boy. “I can escape things and places… places inescapable.”
“I don’t know if we can feed another,” said The Ringmaster, stroking the boy’s cheek.
“Food is not an issue, Master,” said Rex, even though it was.
“I don’t know if we can love another.”
“You know yourself, that too is not an issue,” he said, feeling, once again, the potency of his master’s passion and attention to him, dilute even further. “The choice is yours, whether we take him in or not. It will be difficult yes, as every adoption has been, but all things will sort themselves out. They always do. Maybe we can name him ‘Problem’. Like I said, it’s your decision. This is your troupe, your family.”
The Ringmaster looked at the boy again. He imagined him dressed in coloured attire and painted in a way so that his face was not grey and lifeless, as was the face of one and all in this cursed town. He imagined him on a tightrope or dancing on the back of an alligator. He imagined him juggling inside a tank full of gasoline and electric eels. Then he imagined him as an old man, dressed just like he, in purple, silver studded pants, with long mauve tailcoats and a diamond-encrusted top hat.
The Ringmaster smiled,
“What do you say, Problem?”
The Young Boy smiled too; a grey toothy smile.
“You watch her, lad, as you would. I am putting a great deal of trust in you now. This is a debt I never pay in advance. Think of yourself as special then,” said The Ringmaster, kissing the boy’s cheek, and gripping his tiny shoulders, digging his thumbs between the boy’s clavicles. “Look after her. Work off this trust I have I loaned to you. Earn yourself some more.”
“Yes sir,” said The Young Boy.
“Do not call me sir,” said The Ringmaster in quiet and assuring address.
He took The Young Boy’s hand. It was shivering, maybe with fear, maybe with delight. But regardless, the boy was beside himself. The Ringmaster smiled. His teeth were crooked and yellow, but there were diamonds and jewels glued to each one, and so they distracted from the plaque and ulcers that rotted his gums. “You call me Master,” he said.
The boy smiled once more.
And Rex turned away.
“Tell me, boy, were you healed this morning?”
“I am not sick,” replied The Young Boy.
The Ringmaster tensed up. He had patience, though, for the boy was new.
“That was not the answer to my question, dear boy,” he said, smiling, in a conniving and insinuating manner. “Focus, child, focus. I’ll ask one more time, understood?”
The Young Boy knew, or he felt rather, that if he said no, he would be spanked.
“Yes sir,” he said.
The Ringmaster’s face twisted and turned in a bent and sour expression.
“I mean…” said The Young Boy stuttering, “….Master. Yes. Yes, Master.”
The Ringmaster smiled and let go of his whipping stick.
“Were… You healed… This morning?” he said, nodding his head as he sounded out each word, with the little monkey clinging for dear life to his teetering top hat.
The boy had no idea what that meant, but he was learned enough not to ask.
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t. Is that…”
“Ahhhh,” said The Ringmaster, lifting his shushing finger and shutting The Young Boy up. “Focus, boy, focus. Rex!” he shouted.
From the far end of the carriages, a giant head popped up, almost to the height of the trees. He wore a dopey expression as if he were only now waking from a coma or a heroin overdose.
“Yes, Master,” he said.
“Where is Delilah?”
“She was with your daughter, Master.”
“Never call her that.”
“My apologies. The girl, Master. She left with the girl.”
“Together?” asked The Ringmaster, muddled.
“Together, Master.”
“Well, whatever. I don’t have time for this tonight. I have to prepare. Be sure that one doesn’t kill the other or does… whatever. Just, I need one of them.”
“For what task, Master?”
“The boy here hasn’t been healed. Ensure that this happens before the finale.”
“Have you decided who you will go with?”
The Ringmaster thought about his petulant bearded whore, and his asinine daughter; though he thought of her not as a daughter, but as a tumour, one that could not be so easily removed. He had no idea yet, which of the two would be closing the show. The thought alone caused his ulcer to worsen. Rex could see, even from where he was, the pain in his master’s face. He wished there were something that he could say; some trick that he could do that could smother the fire in his master’s belly. Instead, he stared fixed and doe-eyed, as if he
were waiting for scraps of chicken or further clarification.
“Ensure the boy is healed,” shouted The Ringmaster.
XII
The Father was just where his boy had envisioned him, on all fours, and heaped over the porcelain bowl in his suite, weeping into his watery reflection below. It wasn’t that the boy was a prophet or pertained some supernatural talent; it was just that the toilet made his father’s sobbing echo through the house, and more so, the endless cursing and blaming of the boy’s mother, for having loved him in the first place, and then after having left, for leaving him so ill-prepared to carry on.
The Young Boy had grown so accustomed to his father’s weeping, and with it, the accompanying miserable and oppressive monologue, that even here, by a small campfire, outside of his prisoned room, and nursing a dying woman, he could mouth every word.
But it was in the boy’s house, not at the campsite, where strangeness was about to occur. The Father was, as was to be expected, a snivelling mess, hunched over his own choking damnations, spitting into the bowl whenever he caught a glimpse of his own doleful expression. This was not unusual, as the boy would tell you. And the picture in his right hand, which got crimpled and scrunched every time he made a fist in anger, and which almost dropped into the bowl when his anger turned weak with tears, it wasn’t unusual either. The boy would confess to that too.
It was the knock on the door, as The Father wept, which was strange.
“Heloooo,” spoke the voice behind the door, wrapped in inappropriate cheer. Anybody home?”
The shock alone had The Father almost swallow his tongue. He knew the voice. He knew too, the face from which it erupted. He knew exactly who it was, but he hadn’t heard her speak like that, not in a very long time.
“Darling,” said The Neighbour, “darling I know you’re in. I don’t want to be a bother, it’s just, well, I was wondering if you were going to the show this evening and….”
The Father’s thoughts spun like a washing machine; round and round and round, and then thumping when his attention returned to his pale and sickly reflection staring back through the toilet water, before turning, round and round again. Her words were like shards of glass, turning over in his brain. He could even feel them, digging into, and itching the back of his throat, and then irritating his inner ear, way down low, where even a stick or a sharp needle couldn’t reach.
He’d listened to so much screaming since his wife died, and since every other ‘better half’ in town died along with her; screaming, blubbering, cursing, begging, vomiting, convulsing, shouting, moping, and of course, the endless streams of distressed and deranged monologues. His ears had grown warm and faithful, to the pitiful suffering and penance of others. It made his own seem common, and to be entirely expected. And it stopped the peace and quiet, which was so much worse.
“Darling it’s me,” she said. “Take your time darling. I brought a book…or something. It’s like a small book. Take your time though darling, I’ll wait here on the porch. I’ll read my little book then. Shan’t be long, there aren’t many pages. But you take the time you need,” she said, already engrossed in the chapter headings over her little, palm-sized book.
The Father stood in front of the mirror, glaring at his decrepit reflection. His eyes hung out of his head. One of them was distant and glassy, and the other was bloodshot, and of a completely different colour. His hair stuck up and out at all sides and improbable angles; and no amount of combing, brushing or even clamping could make it presentable. His teeth were dark grey, verging on black, but they were hidden behind his thick beard, which grew longer in some parts than others, and of which looked and smelt, no better than a wet dog. He looked like a man who had more pressing things to worry about than his appearance. He looked like a man who had been vomiting and crying for years.
On one side of the sink, there was a toothbrush smeared with a grey paste, which might or might not have been toothpaste. It was hard to tell. The label had vanished over time. It might have worn off, or been scratched off, it didn’t really matter, but it was the same part of the sink where he kept his cymbal cleaner. And on the other side, there was a loaded gun. He could hear his neighbour laughing to herself as she read her book, and saying things like, “Oh my,” “You don’t say,” and “Well that makes perfect sense.” And it wouldn’t be long now before she started asking questions and wormed her way inside. The Father fought his glaring reflection for some insight on what to do; for an answer or a sign - for anything. He didn’t know whether to brush his teeth or to shoot himself.
“Darling, have you read this little book?”
Fuck, it happened.
“Darling if you haven’t, you really must. I got mine from those travellers, you know? It’s about God darling, riveting stuff. Really uplifting, aside from, you know, all the death. But once you get past that, I mean, once you get it all in perspective, there really is a wonderful moral there. Did you get one darling?” she asked.
The Father pressed the gun beneath his chin.
“Fret not, you can borrow mine. It’s a little book. Did I tell you that? A couple of pages, that’s all,” she said, in her surprised tone. “But that’s the thing, “she said, continuing, as The Father clutched the trigger, “it’s a small book, but when you read it, it doesn’t at all feel like you’ve just read the gist of something. You really feel like you got the meat of the story. Does that make sense? But you know what I mean. If you don’t, you’ll read the book, and you will. It’s like it grows inside of you, like a seed, or gelatine, or a flower. Yes, I like that, like a flower. It grows like a flower. What’s the flower with all the pretty blue petals? Bright blue, you know the one, darling?”
His thumb pulled back on the hammer.
“Your wife, she grew them once. They were imported or something. Delightful looking thing it was. And so was she you know? Now that I think of it. And your little girl too. They were both so pretty. And your boy?” she asked. “He looked just your gorgeous wife. He’s still with you. How is he? It’s been so long since…”
The Father lowered the gun, but he didn’t let it go. He closed his eyes and imagined himself rushing down the corridor towards his son’s room and tearing off the wooden boards and panels, one by one. At this point, the gun would be holstered behind his back so he had both hands free. He imagined then, after undoing the last lock, bursting the door open and finding the boy asleep in his bed. It was easier to imagine it this way. And he tried not to think about how much the boy reminded him of his wife, and how he slept on the same side as she, curled up as he was. And he imagined himself taking the gun from his pants and shooting the boy in the back of the head before he had a chance to wake.
“Darling,” said The Neighbour. “I hate to hurry you and all, but I do have to ask a favour of you if you would be so willing. To hear me out, of course, but to say yes too, for old times, old friends.”
The Father dragged the toothbrush across his teeth.
“It really is a wonderful story. Did you know that this is not the only life? Apparently there’s more,” she said. “Isn’t that nifty?”
He had the gun holstered in his pants, in case he needed to use it. He opened the door, but only just slightly, so he could be considerate enough to be seen whilst spoken to, and yet, ensure that the whereabouts of his son’s room remained hidden.
“Darling, you look….”
He looked like neglect, robed in grief.
“Splendid,” she said though her expression were as if she had interrupted two dogs mating.
The Father expected to see a woman as ruinous as he, with an expression as drab and ragged as the torn shirt that barely covered his stinking chest. He expected to see a woman in a state of squalor, looking like she had been set upon by a pack of wolves, her clothes torn to shreds and her gaunt face, as pale and peeling as the paint on his walls, maimed and starved by a ravenous depression. He expected to see a woman, as dilapidated as he.
But she was ravishing. She was grey yes, but not as grey as he. And there was something else about her, something that was not entirely visible, something that didn’t jump out, but something there, something about her, something different, other than her strange and somewhat unnerving, well-groomed attire.
“Darling,” she said, pretending to lean in a kiss his cheek. “First things first darling, here, you have to read this,” she said, handing The Father the little book.
‘The Good Story,’ it said, on its cover.
“It really is a good story you know. What an apt title. You can keep it,” she said, “I spoke to my Light auditor. Delightful if you ask me, but anyway darling, keep the little book, she assured me that I can request another, without much bother. They have plenty. Now,” she said, asserting her serious manner, “to the favour. You would know obviously from your auditing, which by the way, I feel fantastic. I mean, I miss Clarissa I do, but darling, I feel as if a cloud has been lifted, a great weight off my shoulders, but you’d know that too. Sorry darling, I haven’t felt this light in years, it’s hard to keep focus. But listen, I do need a favour. The travellers have a show tonight, the first show; it’s supposed to be a spectacle or something. I just have no way of getting there, especially in these heels. Could I beg a lift off you? I hate to ask but, seeing as you’re going, and you have the space free…”
The Father reached for the gun.
“Where are my manners? How are you?” she asked as if it were her first question. “And your boy, I can’t for the life of me pick his name; how is he? Such a darling lad.”
“He died,” said The Father. “Everyone…they’re all dead.”
The Neighbour looked confused as if up had been explained to her as down.
“Are you sure? I could have sworn I saw….”
“I know the condition of my own family. I know the difference between living and dead. And trust me when I tell you this, my wife, my daughter, and my son, they are all dead. Each and every one. I buried them all. I’m sorry if I offend you in any way, and I’m glad that you feel so….sprightly,” he said. “That’s great. It really is. Good for you. But you’ll forgive me if I tell you to get the hell away from my house. Leave, and never come back.”
“So, no on the lift?”
The Father slammed the door.
“Ok, then darling, sorry to impose, really I am. We’ll see if one of these kind folks can be of assistance,” she said, acknowledging the flood of people along the footpath. “Keep the little book then darling. It’s fabulous, it really is.”
The Father peered through one of the wooden slats that boarded up the front window of the house. He watched as The Neighbour wobbled down the steps, hanging for dear life onto the railing which was just as sturdy as her tottering heels. The last time he’d seen her was after her wife had died, and not long before his own fell sick. She looked good, she did, all things considering.
But it wasn’t just her either. The sidewalks were filled with people, all of them looking pretty, handsome, or striking in their own particular way. Their hair all looked neat and groomed, as did the clothes that they wore. And they all traded smiles and high fives, and they shook hands, hugged and even kissed each other’s cheeks. The Father hadn’t seen such affection in such a very long time. It felt a little inappropriate, all things considering.
A small group gathered on the path in front of his house and they stood in two lines, one facing the other. Each person looked deeply at and touched hands with, the person at their front. They stood there silent for maybe a minute, maybe an hour, The Father couldn’t tell, but all of a sudden, they broke out in some kind of song or prayer.
Each had a copy of the same little book that The Neighbour had so kindly left with The Father. Some carried theirs in their hands, and others, in the pockets of their shirts, or draped around their necks on long silver chains.
“You look fabulous,” said one person.
“Oh, and you too,” said another.
“I like your blouse,” the first said.
“And I like your teeth and gums, and your dimples too,” replied the other.
“Isn’t it just a wonderful day?” said a third.
And they all nodded and smiled, staring up at the grey sky.
“It is,” they all said in unison.
“Praised be…” said the first person, a little apprehensive.
“Light,” said another, assuring.
The group looked excited, excited but nervous.
“Praised be Light,” they all said, coming together into one embrace, holding hands, touching faces, and slowly rocking back and forth while they hummed.
The Father stared at the book in his hands. It looked simple and rather unimpressive, but that was exactly how dangerous things liked to present themselves, as innocuous and unassuming. It had a white leather bound cover with nothing but its title addressing the front. And on the back was what appeared to be an address, but it was written in another language, one full of strange symbols that looked as if a young child or a strung out junky had scribed them with their ill-favoured hand.
The Father opened the book.
“I don’t get it,” he said to himself.
There were no pages.
There were no words.
There was just a mirror.
A reflective surface.
And nothing more.
The Father stared at his reflection. His face looked haggard. His eyes were both bloodshot, and his cheeks, like two great sink holes, disappeared behind the dense scrub of his bushy beard. When he pulled down on the straggly hairs and flattened the beard out, he could see how much weight he had actually lost, and he could see too, the scabs and scars from the constant scratching, clawing and crying every night. He looked nothing like the people outside, whom only a day before had looked no different to him.
He stared back out on his verge, but the people had gone.
Across the street more and more flooded and flowed. They were people who only a day ago had neither the strength nor the courage, or even the gall mind you, to step out onto the street in this way; dressed how they were dressed, smiling as they were, and acting as if everything were rosy, which, of course, it wasn’t.
They all moved in one direction, toward the giant tents.
It would be foolish to say that he had no desire to follow. It was that desire which had had him leave such a neatly placed crack in the wooden boards in the first place, so as to suffice his curious peering and spying. He stared at them, as they made their way toward the edge of town, with the same puerile wonder as a toddler might, a brightly coloured ball, bobbing up and down in an unfenced swimming pool.
He wanted to follow them.
He wanted to walk and to talk like them.
He wanted to dress and to smile and be like them.
He wanted it to be over - the death, the disease, the suffering.
Instead, he took a shovel, and he went out into the backyard. It was chilly out, and the Light was starting to dim. It had been a while since he was last out here. The weeds had overgrown. They were nearly the height of a man. And there was a tree in the back corner that he couldn’t remember planting. He stood there, breathing as if his life depended on it, and after a moment or two, he worked his way through the weeds to the middle of garden, and he dug up his dead wife.