Dear readers, I have wrote a short inspired story. :] Please enjoy and leave any comments deem fit.
Seaweed
“Do you have seaweed here?”
The fisherman “No sir there are no seaweed here. Never been grown in this dirty swarm of mine.”
Bang, the man ended his heartbeat.
Under the cap of darkness, itsy bitsy crickets sing harmoniously to the queer rhyme. It was as though they were sent by the singing love cupids. Two grape vines twisting towards each other sharing its fruits; two bodies morphing in place to share the same heartbeat; two atoms bonding to form a molecule. Inseparably combined. And even the displacement of time could not tear them apart.
Andre held Melissa’s delicate fingers with his coarse hands that were marked by all the rugby games he had played during his sportsman life. Like sand and water, the different surfaces of life has brought them together as distinctive individuals who ended up enrolling in the same team- a team of two. Amidst the abyss where shadow of madness creeps, the lovers remained elusive to shadow-bearers’ quest and allowed the light to aid them to the glistering full moon. The cow jumped over the moon with its diddling feet, shaded the obscure light. But when god recapture light from one source, he gift light to another- in the nest of the lovers’ hands lies two beautifully crafted silver fruits-their wedding rings. Twinkle twinkle.
They floated across the white moon with their hearts beating to the tune of the crickets. Through the blanket of trees, leaves, barks, the wild saw the dancing rays of light peeping through. One note samba, the circle of fairylight trundled like Melissa’s fallen rolling pin from her kitchen table top. “Wait here, Dre. I am going into the swarm to find our ring.” Melissa leaped into the gruesome wasteland like a witch throwing a frog into her pot of boiling toxic. The land of the dead received her with warped skeletal hands. Be back, be safe, be you, Andre prayed.
Andre suffocated slowly in the staleness of silence. The wasteland remained tranquil- calm and peaceful surface like a pond with a pebble un-thrown. Yet withholding the strong suspicions that evil still loomed beneath it. Time stood still as though god placed a hourglass stuck on the tabletop. He imagined her underground, with the world upside down, how difficult it must be to be the road rolling below the wheels of the car. God don’t send her angels but sent her him. He jumped.
He opened his eyes wide trying to see Melissa desperately beyond hell. He fell something caught his hands but he let go. “Andre, I am safe.” He quickly swam back to land and took off home. Dripping wet, he slumped into the seats of his car forgetting about the importance of the seatbelt when his heart is already in collision. Gripping the steering wheel so intensely brought him back to his days on the field whereby he was grabbing the opposing rugger trying to move him from his run, just that this time he cannot move his barrier aside-fear.
Returning to the door of his apartment, he made a beeline to the bedroom. Melissa ran towards him hugging him tightly. In a blink of an eye, his wife dispersed into a mist. Andre tried to shake away the figment of his imagination. He grabbed his disappearing wife, desperate to grasp the dust in the Amazon. His hand came back- empty. An empty bed; an empty house; a hole inside in his heart. Pulling the trigger to the gear of the car and to his heart, he accelerated. Doubts of his wife’s existence on this very earth tormented him with scorpions piercing in his head, poisoning him gradually. Death is like a milestone always reminding you to treasure the existence of your loved one. But what if your loved one has passed on?
Break of the dawn. The thoughts from yesterday unforgotten. His memories splintered his naked skin. He thought to himself, how could the swarm seem so beautiful at the beginning then morphing into the cursed land now? An old fisher man with dirt stuck in between his grimy yellowish nails was grabbing onto his net naively attempting to catch fishes which are non-existent as with any signs of life.
“Do you have seaweed here?”
The fisherman grumbled beneath the mysterious veil of his “No sir there are no seaweed here. Never been grown in this dirty swarm of mine.”
The fisherman hidden beneath his mysterious veil was the death god in disguise conveying the ungodly massage to him. He felt a deadly ecstasy. Concrete breath and dust filled tears. He saw fear knocking him down, forcing him to his knees. Andre now understood why when one partner passes, after being together for so many years, the other often leaves shortly after. Some cupids kill with arrows some with love. He embraced death with a shattering shot. Peaceful the world lay down before him.
Before him were the very hands that let go of his wife’s hair- the seaweed.