Category Grief

The Conversation – Magpie Tales

freyathewriter 8 Comments

035a

“This is where we marked her passing,” you say.

“She didn’t die here?” I hardly dare ask the question, my voice barely a whisper. You are a man for statements, not explanations.

“She did not die here,” you say. It is a bald statement.

Yet again, as has been our custom, I let the silence hang between us. It is a new routine, to replace those of my prior, solitary existence.

“She died out there,” you say, pointing to the hills that brood on the horizon.

“I am sorry,” I say, looking at you. You are staring towards those hills, as if to destroy them with your thoughts. I kneel down, reach out to brush the dust and lichen from the worn stone, to reveal her name to the elements.

“NO!” You grasp my arm, pull me up and away from the headstone. I bite down on the yelp of protest as pain arrows across my shoulders. You do not like dissent. I have learned this lesson well.

“She was careless,” you say and stride away from me. You mount your horse, landing in the saddle in one, supple move.

I turn my back and walk into the house.

You will return.

You will return.

 

————

Here’s my latest entry into Magpie Tales. There is a theme running through my weekly writings once again. If you want to know more about Sarah, please read my Five Sentence Fiction and Three Word Wednesday entries. Can you identify with her at all?

Verite – Magpie Tales

freyathewriter 9 Comments

grocery

“Why are we here, Papa? It’s so very quiet, like it’s Sunday or something.”

The man stares at his teenage daughter, his heart aching to see the ghost of Sarah lingering in her quizzical expression.   He fingers the scar running along his jaw, a nervous habit he knows only too well.

“Did you and Mama work here, during the war?”

Bless her, she is as sharp as her mother, he thinks, his heart breaking slowly. He can’t believe it makes no noise in doing so, is incredulous that there is no pool of blood dripping onto the cobbles at his feet in witness to what is about to happen.

It has been ten years, since Sarah died here, in the road, outside this small magasin.

‘Not died,’ he thinks, correcting the lie he had been telling himself for a decade. ‘Killed. By me.’

He hopes his daughter is as strong as his mother had been. She will need to be, once she knows the truth.

——

Here’s my latest entry to Magpie Tales. I couldn’t quite leave my trilogy behind, so thought I would write a kind of post-script. You can read the other stories in order here, here, and here, if you like!

I hope you enjoy it – and please do visit Magpie Tales for more poetry and prose!

 

magpie tales statue stamp 185

Deluge – Five Sentence Fiction

freyathewriter 12 Comments

Falling_rain_in_mexico-804x1024

Photo source

The raindrops pelt my hair, my face, my arms, my hands until I am drenched.

I stand in the empty street, arms outstretched, palms turned upwards, embracing the clouds above.

I know eyes are watching me from behind nets, behind doors held slightly ajar and deep in the shadows just out of reach of the streetlight’s glare.

I know they are whispering behind hands and underneath raised eyebrows – to them I am the woman who has lost her mind with grief, for nobody sane stands in the street, in the rain, in her nightgown.

But I do – it is a relief to feel something other than the weight of profound loss – it is a relief to feel so refreshed.