07-07-2016, 09:42 PM
One. Two Three.
Three. Two. One.
Witching. Gravely. Reap.
Now there is only Gravely.
One. One. One.
It becomes a chant in her head, and from her lips that hold the graveside hush - “One, one, one.”
One. Her. Gravely.
She stares through a curtain of pale frothy hair; her stare is cinnamon in color, dark cinnamon, like spice and shadow, and there is a loss in it that few know of - three, two, one - one - one, only one, all alone, so very very alone! It is enough to slaughter the thick dumb meat that beats inside her; a loss as thick as bread on a starving tongue, and it chokes her every moment she opens her eyes and rediscovers herself as alone, as one. She has lost the sense of them, one-two-three, and is adrift. Bereft, even.
Mother is in the grave, Gravely thinks. Are they too? Their names do not cross her lips; kept secret and dark, a hole inside herself that she can crawl into and say their names to herself, say one, two, three and three, two, one. Repetitive, but there is a balm in the repetition that soothes the ache of loss in her, lessens the severity of it until she is a mantra of oneness - one, one, one, such a lonely number and a lonely thing. Gravely does not smile, her hair still hiding her face as she looks out at them, they are alive and she hungers - thirsts, even - for a taste of their aliveness. She can feel it tremble against her lips like the wings of a moth promising a kiss and a sigh tumbles out of her mouth, careless, murmuring. One becomes once, then one again. Her gape-mouth closes; maybe on a thought, a half-said thing that her teeth crumble back into the dust of silence and disuse. They do not need her words anyway, they are not deserving of them.
The silver bay slides back further into the shadows, not sure why she still looks since there is no hope left in her. That - hope - died long ago, the same time she sucked in her first breath. Embers, ash, and pain; one, two, three and three, two, one so alone that she hopes never to live again but hungers for a touch of life to ease the cold burn of death in her. She dies, just as much as she lives this half-life, breathing and thinking and the like, but so very much the chill of the grave that sits just inside her flesh.
Three. Two. One.
Witching. Gravely. Reap.
Now there is only Gravely.
One. One. One.
It becomes a chant in her head, and from her lips that hold the graveside hush - “One, one, one.”
One. Her. Gravely.
She stares through a curtain of pale frothy hair; her stare is cinnamon in color, dark cinnamon, like spice and shadow, and there is a loss in it that few know of - three, two, one - one - one, only one, all alone, so very very alone! It is enough to slaughter the thick dumb meat that beats inside her; a loss as thick as bread on a starving tongue, and it chokes her every moment she opens her eyes and rediscovers herself as alone, as one. She has lost the sense of them, one-two-three, and is adrift. Bereft, even.
Mother is in the grave, Gravely thinks. Are they too? Their names do not cross her lips; kept secret and dark, a hole inside herself that she can crawl into and say their names to herself, say one, two, three and three, two, one. Repetitive, but there is a balm in the repetition that soothes the ache of loss in her, lessens the severity of it until she is a mantra of oneness - one, one, one, such a lonely number and a lonely thing. Gravely does not smile, her hair still hiding her face as she looks out at them, they are alive and she hungers - thirsts, even - for a taste of their aliveness. She can feel it tremble against her lips like the wings of a moth promising a kiss and a sigh tumbles out of her mouth, careless, murmuring. One becomes once, then one again. Her gape-mouth closes; maybe on a thought, a half-said thing that her teeth crumble back into the dust of silence and disuse. They do not need her words anyway, they are not deserving of them.
The silver bay slides back further into the shadows, not sure why she still looks since there is no hope left in her. That - hope - died long ago, the same time she sucked in her first breath. Embers, ash, and pain; one, two, three and three, two, one so alone that she hopes never to live again but hungers for a touch of life to ease the cold burn of death in her. She dies, just as much as she lives this half-life, breathing and thinking and the like, but so very much the chill of the grave that sits just inside her flesh.