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God ForgiveBy
Paul Campbell
Sweat that adorned the smell of rot flowed between the cracks of the old man's face as he lay hacking on his last bites of breath. His days had been long but now his minutes grew short. Knowing this, he let the past roll from his quivering mouth along with the spittle.
Chained to his bedside crouched his wife of burden, neither comforting nor caring. Hurt once too many, twice too long.
“The children… mother.”
Turning her head, he could hear the bones crack in her neck as she let his final words feed her head. In an effort to acknowledge his existence she half-smiled displaying a toothless gap of despair.
“Listen woman. The children… no one took them. I buried them in the backyard. God forgive, I buried our children in our own backyard.”
Pus rolled from his yellowed eyes as they rotated in their sunken sockets.
“We were young. They were infants. You left them with me knowing my fear. It’s just as much your fault as mine.”
The words he spoke sank into her brain like a fist pushing deep into mud. Her thoughts raced like lightning seeking out the pages that held the memories of that day. She had gone out of town on business for what was supposed to be only a day. The day turned to several which elapsed into a week. When she had returned, the children were gone. Assumed taken from the home, they were never seen again. This had been forty seven years ago.
“Beneath the work shed… mother.”
With this his eyes rolled up into his head to never see life again.
Running a crippled race from the house, she fell to the ground beside the shed. With her hands more bone than meat she began clawing. The earth quickly proved too hard from age breaking the bones in her numb fingers.
Seeking to remove the shed from the path of her babies, she burnt it with madness and gasoline. The flames licked the sky. The wood being old burnt quickly without a fight revealing a small hole which had lain hidden beneath it.
The hole cried with an emotion of darkness and loneliness. Falling again to her knees, she sought to purchase site within, caring not for the smoldering flesh the still hot embers ate from her body. All was too dark… too lonely.
Crawling back to the house she called for help. They were quick to arrive and convict.
“Listen woman. The children… no one took them. I buried them in the backyard. God forgive, I buried our children in our own backyard.”
These had been his words. He had never said anything about killing them. He had merely buried them beneath the shed. He had fed them daily through the small hole. They had grown into adults in darkness. Being too young to have known any better, they had learned to believe this as life to be.
“The children… mother.”
Although the shed had burnt quickly, it burnt long enough for the flames to have drained the hole of its air, suffocating them both.
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© Campbell, 2006
© Artwork, Campbell 2006
