The beginning of this dream is lost. The first thing I
remember is dark, cold moors. There isn’t a house around for miles. No lights.
I have a job to do, but I don’t want to do it. Oh god, I don’t want to do it.
But I have to. If I don’t do what I set out to do, my life will be forfeit.
I smile in
the darkness, even though he can’t see it, and grasp his hand. I hope my grip
is steadier than it feels. The smile feels traitorous on my face. He drinks
more. Good. He’s drunk. Not drunk enough to stumble and fall. I have to make
sure he doesn’t drink that much. He’s bigger than me, so if he goes down, I
have to do it the hard way. The mere thought of it sends my stomach pitching
and rolling like the hills over which we walk.
Darkness
coats the moors like paint, but I look up and read the thick spray of stars
well. I know these moors and I know where I must take him. It’s not far, but
the bitter wind slices through to my bones and slows me. Neither of us has a
heavy coat, but that doesn’t bother him. Alcohol is his coat.
I stretch
out the hand that’s not connected to his and brush something hard and rough.
The tree.
I tell him
that we need to wait a minute, but I don’t let go of his hand. Don’t dare. I
can’t lose him in the darkness. I lean against the tree, wrap my free arm
around it and press my cheek to its crusty, craggy bark.
It’s warm.
I know what
it looks like in the light: Gnarled and twisted, dark and blasted. Its limbs do
not reach for the sky anymore; they’re arthritic fingers, curled into knobby claws
by time and age. It’s shedding its bark; it falls off in musty-mossy chunks.
Wind and water and day and night have worn away the ground around its roots.
They rise from the earth like the backs of sea serpents. He trips over them and
almost falls. My heart leaps into my throat. But he leans on the tree to get up
again.
“Don’t touch it,” I almost scream. “It’s not yours!” I screw my mouth shut
against the scream pressing against the backs of my teeth.
Technically
it’s not mine either, but I bare my teeth and snarl at him silently. He doesn’t
notice. He spilled his beer on the roots of the tree. I want to force his head
down and make him lick it off, but there are more important things to get done.
I don’t
want to leave the tree. I draw no comfort from its crumbling existence. Its
peeling, pointed bark pierces the bare flesh of my cheek and arm, but I grip it
tighter anyway. It is still warm, and that’s what I cling to.
It’s time to go, I say to myself. You have to. Now.
I let go of
the tree gingerly, feeling like I’ve left my heart impaled on one spiny piece
of bark. It’s connected to me only by strings, which spin out like thread on
spools as we make our way over the moors.
It’s
downhill now, and I know we’re getting close. I don’t hear it yet, and I hope
he won’t hear it until it’s too late.
There is no
moon, which is good and bad. Good because there isn’t enough light for him to
read the land and, more importantly, to read me. He’s always been good at that,
and I’ve been bad about keeping my heart hidden. Bad because I love the moon. I
miss the moon. It anchors my heart. It is my eye, my satellite, my safety, my
blanket of light in this always-night.
He doesn’t
notice when I begin to hum. He still holds the empty beer bottle and tips it
back from time to time, trying to drink from it. We still hold hands. I try
desperately to keep my grip from mimicking the clawed branches of the tree.
To my dearest forsaken
Who the earth now has
taken
Empty, the bottle drains
no more
A rushing, hushing sound begins to drown out my quiet hums.
I’ve been down here dozens of times, but that doesn’t matter. I must be still.
Because to most, the sound has no source. It creeps and surrounds, blankets and
disorients, makes you scared and dizzy. The very air makes the sound, it seems,
and it’s warning you like a rattlesnake.
But I know
better. I know how to find the source of the sound. I close my eyes and remove
myself from myself. It used to be a lot more difficult than it is now. I throw
my consciousness out wide in front of me like a net and find what I’m looking
for. Close. Not even a football field away. Relief and trepidation muscle into
my mind and I am sucked back into myself.
Awareness
begins to clear the cloud of drunkenness around him and he asks where we’re
going. I squeeze his hand in reassurance, which he seems to accept. We walk. I
feel the strings attached to my heart begin to pull. I hum.
It is true that I loved you
Despite the harm now on
you
Wash us; the river has
you, boy
As we get closer, the sound does not grow or change. It gets
colder, though, as we pick our way through the blasted moor grasses, down,
down. I glance up. The fog kicked up by the water is separating us from the
stars. That’s okay. It’s not them I’m wedded to, not their tiny needlepricks of
cold white light. I urge him deeper into the mist.
We may as
well already be underwater. It’s bone-cold and dangerously black. The air, the
fog, the sound presses on us like silt on a riverbed. Here is where it gets
tricky for me. I don’t know precisely where the drop-off is, so I have to tread
like a frightened child, reaching out to test the ground with one foot before I
take each step. I tell him not to step ahead of me.
Even though
that would be easier.
But I still
have hold of his hand; if he falls, he’ll grip me tighter instead of letting
go.
I can’t let
that happen. I can’t fall with him. I can’t.
The
heartstrings, connected to my heart still at the tree, are nearly taut now.
With my next step I reach out, step
on nothing but air. I find the edge of the bank, orient myself along it so that
we stand side by side facing the yawning crevasse the river has cut into the
flank of the moor.
Despite how
close we are to the roaring rapids, the sound is not deafening. That’s because
the water has spent millions of lifetimes carving this never-healing wound;
it’s cut so deep into the earth that the sound works so hard to reach us it’s
tired and weak when it gets here.
“It’s
warm,” he says.
It is. The
poisonous cold is less here, right at the bank, especially when you lean out
over the emptiness. The river ran so deep it must have struck the earth’s vital
warmth, which it was now releasing. I look down, even though it’s still too
black to see even a hand an inch from my face. The water must be boiling down
there.
I let go of
his hand.
Here on the eve of too long
Where you’ll think I
have done wrong
Waking in fear of you no
more
I am scared. I feel the triphammer-pound of my heart through
the strings, which thrum and vibrate and send out a frantic, skittery song.
He is quiet. Still. He’s sober now
and beginning to guess why we’re here. I have to do it before he realizes how
deeply I violated his trust.
I have to
do it.
I wonder if
he can feel the terror and anticipation baking off me in waves.
I have to
do it.
I will the
soft soil under his feet to suddenly crumble and pitch him into nothingness.
I have to
do it.
I put my
hand on his shoulder.
If he
decides to fight, he’ll win. He’s bigger and stronger than me. What will I do
then?
If I move
another inch, the taut strings of my heart will snap.
I have to
do it. Now.
I take a
shuddering, painful breath and push.
There is a
terrible ripping from the center of my chest. The pain is blinding. It tears
the breath out of me and I fall back onto the bank coughing and gasping. I
clasp the sucking hole in my chest, expecting to plunge my hand into gouts of
hot, thick blood, but feel nothing. Not even a hole.
I feel
nothing.
I lie there
for a moment and catch my breath. Gazing up into the stifling blackness, I
begin to hum again.
To my dearest forsaken
Dearest vow I have broken
Afraid of your angry hands no more
River may help me later
Sleeping my lost love
for you, boy
Song: "Dearest Forsaken" by Iron and Wine
