Ripples of grief

Chapter 25

In the jaws of that sinister cackling, and a rasping breath looming from the shadows, echoing through into the outside; but there it seemed hollow, as if every voice was false and every whisper was untrue, simply a serpent around your neck with the complexion of hopelessness, and the gaze of a parent as the door closes and they mock with cruel cackling. On top of everything lay a cold realisation in her mind – a knowledge she would never dare let spill out of her mind. Within that bag lay every shard of shattered hope, with lassitude haunting every step she held it as the weight simply pulled down, and down and yet she still stood, motionless; broken glass to tender flesh in every pulse and every step of the yellow tendrils of gas rolling on. And yet that was all hope was. Something to be tossed away because its glinting, blinding light gleamed with dread, and cast that ominous shadow of grief. And the jaws of the viper awaited with darkened corners where you couldn't see. And all was those shadows. Where the last remnants of hope could be found, tossed to a corner and never devoured as the shop revealed its golden fangs among the dark. The dark and the damp where those golden threads glinted, slits among a sea of ink that held so few answers – and yet the cold stare of those vipers seemed to pierce the veil of ink that rippled with the smile of a sea, crooked yet calm, serene and tranquil, yet ominous in its silence. As if the whispers stopped, awaiting the figure that stepped behind the door, vanishing, even seeming not to appear through the glass of clouded windows into reality, unclear and blurred. The hush didn't stop, even when the figure stood among the golden threads, silhouetted against false truth. And the strangest thing was that nothing else stood out – it was a silhouette of course, so it was blurred, an all-consuming fog of black smoke engulfing all light. But the glare seemed to always echo back, and that smile. It crept over – with that appearance of so much contained in every blink – every moment when the hollow eyes never once showed a hint of shadows, nor a hint of a flourishing glow. And yet they held so much within that grey, dreary darkness.

There was a flood of guilt lingering in her hands even as she passed the bag from hand to hand, somewhat crimson as the thorns glared into her flesh and tore through the thin veils that kept blood from the surface – she supposed that it was only beneath if you scratched away the surface, that remorse that never ends, never stops, an endless river flowing and flowing until it joined streams with that of the looming fate. She would have followed this path no matter what, for it was one seam in the shattered river, and that single silhouette had torn it themselves. And now they both fled to here – perhaps to fix what they had torn with the agonising sound of rippling thunder. Or perhaps for another reason. One that she could gaze into the sea of serpentine ink forever and search for, and never find. Perhaps the lake tore the current forth for them to wash their hands. But they would never be clean now. He was just a silhouette stitched onto the horizon, and all because of her. All because of her. But there was that smile on the thin figure's complexion as they watched the river flow, and the bag be placed on the table, blood drying on the damp wood of the counter; but it was just a delusion of malady; but then he seemed to flinch. Perhaps he saw it too. All had led up to the moment of that dreary, trenchant smile, full of a vitriol she could never erase, stitches that would never tear – that smile never once wavered as she placed the gold glinting bag onto the counter, and even as they turned away, she knew that ominous, melancholy joy still lingered on that image of cuts that would never fade, a scattered corpse of so many torn and broken shreds of fabric. It would always loom above her. She had seen it for a moment. And yet the golden threads choked her. Before she breathed a last breath, and she watched that sinister smile vanish into ashes as she watched in blank, woeful sorrow; it now became an innocence – so... Empty. Lit among dim candles and dry wood, the inside of a jaw enveloping and engulfing their complexion in scarlet. And yet the hollow, pale figure seemed so frail, so easily stained by blood. For they saw it too.

In a moment everything snapped back, but she saw a kind of innocence in that haunted, frail gaze, one that could never be stained with anything, but the blood spilt by fangs – then perhaps that was all it was, a sinking facade put up as a false smile, but so easily pierced by cruel, mocking laughter from the shadows where you never dared to look. Because if you couldn't see it, it was still there. Corpses can't scream. And the figure was pale enough to be a corpse, she realised as she gazed around at the last of the celebrations. The Lebkuchen stand, warm gingerbread wafting toward her with the bittersweet stench of childhood; a stench because perhaps there is an innocence gained from blood spilt – silken veils shifted, but everything was as it had been. That haunted, soulless gaze said more. Spoke words and yet she told herself again and again and again and again: corpses can't scream. She saw their crooked figures in her words; serpents blending into the night and peering around trees as the sun rose – she heard that twisted whisper in her ear as the figure seemed to awaken, cogs turning those eyes grey with steam and metal. And upon the counter they placed a single coin. She said nothing. Those golden threads had warned her.