SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.42: The Reuniting

Well, I grew tired of that kind of talk, and got up to make tea for the morning. It was autumn now, and the leaves were turning warm to fall cold on the ground. I'd counted six years now since I left home. Although my comfortable meeting with The Artist was a great relief to my solitude, I was still aware that without her, I had no real reason to remain. Not in Catalite, not anymore. She tossed and turned in the sheets a room away, groaning softly. Fun as it was to have her back, it was only a short visit, to celebrate The Heathen Lord's passing. She wasn't moving back – the house was a painful place to return, and our child had gotten used to the ranch now. Already a year old, and a second one not far behind, I was told – but not yet stout enough inside her to show. The Lumberjack had kept his promise to take care of her, in whatever ways she needed. The Artist had decided ours was a girl, and that unless she decided differently, she'd remain that way. I missed seeing my babe, but I was informed she'd begun to walk now, and could call for her 'mama' when something was wrong, or when she wanted a hug. It overjoyed me to hear it, but I didn't want her seeing me in my disheveled, post-murderous state. I was still wracked by the after-shock of my own actions, and the way I'd commanded an entire town to commit a gruesome killing; almost too enthusiastically, against someone who looked like he was my last living relative before me. I hadn't even plucked the hair from my face in over two weeks, and I was beginning to look like him again. But he'd killed my genuine uncle The Builder, he'd hurt my part-time father The Chef, and he'd done horrendous things to everyone else. His rampage across this entire town, back and forth, raged for seasons on end - and it had stolen an entire year of my life. I was excited to leave, but as The Artist roused from her sleep, she said she'd miss me, which warmed me fondly. She was taken now, by a nice older couple. My friends, I remembered, but still. I was a diversion, not the status quo.
I used the leftover flame in the oven to boil some apple slices in a sauce-pan, adding a slight touch of cinnamon. The Heathen's cupboards had been mine and The Chef's to raid, and we were surprised to see, even stale, what flavors he'd been utterly wasting on himself from under and misuse. When the apples were done, I poured some of their liquid into the pitcher where I then laid in some tea leaves, calming and bitter. I filled it with boiled water, and the leaves rose to the surface, where I pressed them gently into water with a thin, wooden disk full of small holes. The liquid could pass through, the leaves couldn't. After a few minutes, I pushed a thin wooden stick (with a wide catch at the bottom) into the center hole of the disk, and guided it down to the bottom. The color concentrated and seeped into the brew. It was a trick I'd learned from The Doc, who used it to make himself the worst coffee I'd ever tasted – but that was because his water had been too hot, every single time. And because that was how he liked it. I hadn't been able to re-create the practice until now, when I had access to The Builder's old tools – finer saws and corkscrews, with sandpaper to smooth, and enough small bits of wood for an accident to work itself out over several iterations. And that reminded me why she'd come, my morning visit: we were going to visit his grave, and that of her brother.

LOSS

You were before I met you
I was before you too
and still we can be afterward
without resent accrued

I am what I was made as
you were how you were born
what changed was how we played ourselves
in games of rose and thorn

perhaps we'll meet again someday
but in another life
dramatically, perhaps in death
or just in time gone by.

* * *

We stood before the stones, her in a black gown and me not feeling up to it. I settled for pants and a black shirt. She'd cut my hair not an hour before, and even trimmed my beard for me, fine enough that one could scarcely see it unless they came close. I didn't quite like how I looked in her vanity's mirror, but I'd called it upon myself through neglect. The Builder had been buried next to The Author, in what we started calling Theatre Lane. We set down on each soil bed another round of flowers, plucked from neighbor's gardens in charity towards our loss. Behind them in line were The Author and Artist's parents, as well as the older actors who'd first arrived almost a hundred years ago. It was The Actor's grandfather, he said, deciding to share with me his reason for staying so long in the first place.
"I wanted to honor my past," he said mournfully.
"And I want to get out of here," said The Mystic, who was uncomfortably cold in her dress for legs exposed and recently shaved.
He put his arm around her, and gave her a kiss. It irked me to see it, that she'd moved on so quick. Our entanglement had followed me across my millennial journey through the mindscape and stars above, and it was a heartbreak to learn that she had spent far less time thinking about me. Not to mention I'd just saved her from a lifetime with a fat, rapacious wretch.
"Hey," said The Artist, "watch your mouth, I'm carryin' some pillows m'self here."
I sheepishly grinned, and gave her a hug with one arm. "You're soft and curvy, like a loaf of bread. Not grotesque and spilling, like a broken bowl of oatmeal. It's not the same thing at all." I broke a humilated sweat.
She rolled her eyes and spat on the ground, away from us. "Sure, it's not. Spare my feelings, why don't you."
"Hey, I used to be just as b-"
The Actor kicked my boot. I looked at him, and without looking at me, he shook his head 'no'.
Embarrassed again, I changed the subject back. "Still, while I support you and our friend here, I'd like to know what was so wrong with us."
The Mystic only shrugged. "It was beautiful, what we did-"
"What we HAD," I cut in, eyes half-lidded.
"Yeah, uh, right. Whatever. But you said yourself, it's not right for us to marry-"
"SO SOON," I corrected.
"Exactly. Well, I'm giving myself some time, and I think I need a little adventure," she explained.
The Actor chimed in, "Exactly! A nice run about the land, a jaunt across the sea. She can act the raven for the stage, like she was always meant to – soak in some praise, live the high life, and then we can all love like bunnies until sunrise!"
"Or snakes," I rolled my eyes.
"A group thing, then?" remarked The Artist.
The Actor smiled. "You're both invited, any time. Except you, Reaper."
I squinted. "Then who's the other person in your 'both'?"
He moaned, and laughed to himself. "Oh, who else? Your other self, with the mask and cleaner face, in that fine black dress. The Grim one. God, that girl turns me on."
I frowned. "I'm right here."
He put up his hand. "Not now, Reaper – I'm picturing a beautiful maiden."
The Mystic agreed. "She was gorgeous."
I frowned. "Of course you two would prefer me in-character."
She giggled, and clung to The Actor's arm. "That's the appeal of you, I'm afraid. That's why I had to have you, at least for a bit. We're all in-character at some point, aren't we? Once we figure out what that is. I just needed longer than most, I think, to figure out mine."
I stared straight ahead and let out a laugh through my nose. "She's a character, alright."
'He's an asshole,' The Actor whispered to her, not nearly out of ear-shot.
'I know,' she replied. She cleared her throat. "Such a shame The Actress has twins now, but I'm so grateful she agreed to nanny for me while I'm gone." It was said in just such a heightened way that told you she was none too sorry at all.
My eyes went wide. "You see how that's unequal-"
The Artist put her hand on my arm as I gestured, and shook her head 'no'.
The Mystic went on, "You and I were a fun idea, Reaper, but the sparks have waned... as have I for this place."
I sighed. "Best of luck to you, then, both of you. Sorry to hear you're leaving before the acting classes start."
The Actor shrugged. "Acting is about entertaining silly ideas. You people are pretty fucking silly already, you'll manage."
Annoyed, I re-affirmed my goodbye. "WELP, I hope you TRULY FIND what you're LOOKING for."
He nodded, and scratched his goatee.
The Mystic said, out of the blue, "And if anyone puts another baby in me, I'm going to throw myself off a bridge."
We stared at her, and she stared at nothing in front of her. Hands on her hips, she was dead serious.
"Oookay then," chimed The Artist. "Maybe let yourself out of those, um, group things, then?"
The Mystic, unmoving, turned sad with realization. "FUCK."
"Sex makes babies," I reminded her with a laugh. "Just like the first time."
"Not the way I do it," smarmed The Actor.
And that was about all of them I could take. I gave The Actor a hug and a firm handshake; he gave me a kiss on each cheek, and tried once for the lips. I gritted my teeth and stopped him with a finger to his mouth. He licked it and stepped away, and a slick shiver ran down my spine.
'Oh my god,' I repulsed.
Then I gave that kiss to The Mystic instead, who took my tongue like it was a calling card. I wasn't exactly ready to give up my name so fast, but it was nice to get just a bit more of hers before I lost it, possibly forever.
The Artist narrowed her eyes. "We're LITERALLY at a funeral here, for Chrise-sakes."
We parted, I a bit embarrassed, and her smiling.
"Just practicing for the stage," she jabbed.
Then, before The Mystic could get away, The Artist gave her a kiss as well, quick but just as temptuous.
The Mystic blushed. "What was that for?"
The Artist shrugged. "I just wanted to take something that used to belong to my brother."
The raven-haired brushed her hair behind her ear, and grinned. "Wow, um, okay. Yeah, we'll call that one, uh-" she stumbled back, "stage practice too, I guess."
Then The Mystic and Actor left, arm in arm. He looked back at us, expectantly, but she turned his head forward again. I gave my red-headed girl a wry smile.
"We're at a funeral, for Chrise-sakes," I repeated. "If we keep this up, some Catholics might rise from the ground and scorn us."
"We're not the dead ones here," she said, jabbing her elbow into my side. "I'm half-thinking I'd go with them, actually." She looked restless.
I gave her a hug, with both arms. "Oh, you'd never, not now. You love our kid too much," I soothed.
"My kid," she corrected. "And I do. I should get back to 'er, now." She looked me dead in the eyes. "Take care, Reaper... all of you."
She kissed me fairly, but politely, in longing for another chance which was now passed: for us to start all over again.
I stood in front of those graves, my black shirt rapping in the wind, seeing at once my past and infinite future before me. But I turned around, and behind me was more of it – in the land, trees, and sky; and in the possibilities that awaited me elsewhere. From this grave-site and from this very moment, I could do anything, and be anyone... anywhere I wanted to be. All I had to do was walk in the other direction, from the slated stones that marked my buried friends.