Obituary

  Ice creeps into the fiery blood pouring from my torn heart, gnawing, biting, until it creates frozen crimson blades salivating for justice. Sleep evades my every effort; the long weary hunt for the merest glimpse of it ending with an equally drained December sun dragging its chilled light across hostile skies. Darkness falls again, all too soon, leaving any hope of life on distant shores. I run sore hands under scalding water, standing in lifelessness with the heat seeping into my bones, not taking note of the steady passage of time. The stickiness remains, cannot be washed away.
    At last I unconsciously turn the faucet off and pick up a length of rope that has been sitting on the counter for uncounted hours. I move without thought now, placing a few clean cups in the cupboard, and folding the laundry, not really knowing why. It would all be over soon. I look outside and watch the dirty snow falling from rent clouds blackened by the night sky. I pick up my coat; it will be cold, but then realize what it is I am about to do. I lay it across the back of a matronly rocking chair, clutch the rope in hand, and step out into the flurry of ice.
  It cuts into my arms and face, merciless, uncaring. Ice does not feel. It does not know pain, or suffering, or hollow, aching sorrow. This distinguishes it. There is no life. No longer do I feel. The shards slicing their path into my skin are part of me, and I take their essence for my own. Their lifelessness will be my own.
    The first street lamp offers a sickened pool of light. Light should be hope. Here, it only reveals the darkest sight of all. A crude structure has been built of three wooden poles, shivering in the wind. Two reach for the unwanting sky; the third is laid across in reminiscence of the great Stonehenge. But no Druidic ritual is performed here. Four corpses hang, icicles flowing from their fingers and toes, the nooses tied so carefully around their necks now frozen so that the wind cannot even sway them in gentle lullaby. I squeeze my own rope tightly in my hands and continue to walk. There is no room for my body here.
    The black landscape reveals more of these structures, none with enough space for me. Hopelessness pervades all that remains of society. I am alone, the only movement the shuffling of my feet through the muddy snow. I hear a creaking and look up. Tattered remnants of clothing flutter in the wind, clinging desperately to the still warm body of a young boy, his spirit so recently passed into the ethereal realm. He is the only person up there. There is a ladder nearby. I struggle to lift it from its frozen place. A loud crack whips through the air as it comes free and I settle it near the poles, climbing to the top.
    My fingers stumble through the knots as I tie the noose. I am numb, shaking, burning, sweat frozen on my brow. The ladder is a high one. From here I can see movement in the darkness. They chuckle and slither, spines and teeth, chattering, shivering in breathless delight. They wait for my death, then they will swarm. Why am I up here? The warm stickiness reminds me. Blood drips from my hands. It is not my own.
  My sluggish heart struggles in competition with the black clouds surrounding it; my breath freezing as it comes from my lips, waiting for a never-coming spring to thaw.
    A glimmer of movement catches my eye, sending a shiver down my spine. They become bold in this darkest of night. Demons to haunt my every memory now insinuate themselves into reality, no longer waiting for my death, ready to prey on my soul here and now.
    But as my scattered eyes peel themselves away from the noose, they are cordially greeted with a sight I have never beheld. In the coldest reaches of the light there is a girl. But she is a woman; no, out of her shimmering body sprout the wings of an angel, now a dragon. But she is again a child. I am captivated for she dances, and around her the snow swirls as the purest of whites. Twirling with grace, her bare feet are the essence of the music that is not a sound, but an aura. I blink; shake my head, but she remains.
    The rope in my hand is now shame, and my heart quickens with that which I have never known. I feel something. I cannot understand.
    She beckons and I am unable to resist her call. My fingers tremble as they slide down the ladder, snagging here and there on jagged ice. It does not matter, whether it be the blood of another or my own. It is my curse.
    The girl-the creature, I know not-glides into the darkness, and I stumble in effort to keep her pace. She does not seem to be effected by the ice laden air, drawing me ever onward. Our journey takes us along abandoned streets, through still playgrounds in which children lie scattered as corpses, into alleys where the scent of death clings, gnawing at the very heart.
    We come to a bloodied ocean and I stop, wondering if this was what I was to see. Even nature is tainted. The creature holds out a hand, and without hesitation I take it. We fly across the water; ocean spray covering my face though the night does not permit my searching eyes to see the waves.
    At last we find ourselves on dry land again, though I do not recall the shore. The creature has disappeared, though perhaps she never was. Emptiness cradles the land, but for one hill on which is constructed a wooden structure. My breath is caught in my lungs and I begin to scramble my way up this hill, pushing the snow aside and falling to my knees before this one wooden structure.
    It is not like the others. Two beams cross one another in horrible crudeness ;nailed and roped. From it hangs a man common, but beaten horribly, beyond recognition. He is nailed, hands and feel to this wooden structure and he stares down at me with eyes filled with eternity.
    My trembling fingers stretch out and touch one bloodied foot. I stare at my hand; the blood that had so long stained them has been washed away. I look back to the man, I only see a wooden structure of three beams. The man, the island, the hill are gone. There is only the structure and the ladder I had leaned against it. I am kneeling; alone in the snow. I push myself to my feet and go home. There is much to consider.
    A noose swings gently in the wind, empty.