A viking funeral

The grave

I remember they brought you in while I was laughing.  The smile was whipped off my face in the blink of an eye. At first, I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place as they placed you in the middle of the yard, cold, on a wooden stretcher.
He is just wounded I thought. He just got badly wounded. He is just sleeping, resting...
I turn to your wife. Her face is scalped in stone, emotionless, unchanged.
I only realize I am crying when your youngest rushes to my comfort. I see your wife’s slave girl softly holding her hand and whispering in her ear.
Your wife turns to me, then turns to the warriors who brought you in and quickly sent them away.
I rush to your side. I don’t know if I said anything. I don’t know if I even had the ability to speak. I touch your cold skin and your lifeless face.
You left me.
You left me alone.
I was right not to trust you.
And yet your loss hurts me.
You hurt me now more than you had ever hurt me.

Your wife comes to me and raises me from the ground.
She hugs me and together we mourn.

Soon the grave was dug and they hid you in the cold frozen earth waiting patiently for your funeral.
A man looked at the mistress’s thrall.
- Will you accept the honor of being buried with your master?
He asked the girl.
The mistress got herself between the two but did not say anything. She couldn’t. A thrall had to volunteer and it was the custom for the slave girls to be the ones accepting that fate.
I witnessed her in horror as she opened her mouth to speak.
- She won't! I will!
The wife looked at me with furry in her eyes.
- YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING! HE CLEARLY STATED HIS OPPOSITION OF YOU...
The man stopped her.
- You know the law, if one accepts the fate, they are not allowed to change their mind.
She walked to me in an instant.
- That was not his wish!
- I can't let him be buried alone.
- And instead you prefer to suffer for him? He asked you not to do this!
- This world has no space for me without him here. My place is on his side!
She shook her head.
- You did not have to do this.
She turned and disappeared.
It was then when two young women dressed in black clothes approached me. The angels of death.
- Come with us.
They simply said.
I followed without asking any questions.
They got me in an empty tent and left me there alone. One of them guarded the door while the other one brought me mead and food. I did not want to eat. No food could fill my void. My stomach, as if preparing for my demise, refused to accept the sustenance. I reached for the mead seeking a moment of relief from my suffering.  I emptied the decanter before soon, but the bliss was yet to grace me with its presence. A second decanter full of alcohol soon replaced the first one. I reached for it without so much as a second thought. The alcohol kept flowing and I kept drinking it. I started thinking of how much I had loved you, how much I hated you, how many times I hated myself for these feelings. I felt betrayed. I felt alone. You abandoned me. You left me here and you dared to have the audacity to ask of me to stay back. I bet it is to leave you alone with all the women in Valhalla. You shall not have it your way! I will bother you even after death. There will be no other touching you. You shall be loved by no other. 
Pain is a selfish feeling.
I was hungry.
You are lying in the cold hard earth waiting, as I wait too amongst the living.
Soon my love.
Of course, I would follow you! What else is left for me here? The world feels claustrophobic in your absence.  Then a thought came to me. A sad thought that I tried to force out of my mind to no avail. I never promised you I wouldn’t do this. What if the last thought you had was worry about me? Was I one of the last things torturing you while you drifted away? I couldn’t bear the thought.  It wasn’t your fault you died. I love you. I pray you did not worry for me with your last breath.
I wish I was there. I wish I could have held you. I wish I could have comforted you with sweet lies as you gave in to oblivion. I hope you left me peacefully.
It is this world! This world took you from me! I hated everything about this place. I hated the people, the cold, the earth beneath my feet, the fact that they caused you to die in a faraway land and left my arms empty…

Where I used to have a heart there was now nothing but a void, left craving for infinity.