Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Charliegh: The Monsters in My Mind

(Charliegh: unedited)

There was something about the cemetery that struck her as both beautiful and tragic. The energy seemed different there, as if stepping through the rusting iron gates had brought her to another dimension. It was a careful place, brimming with marble sculptures and decaying flowers, the curving tails of epitaphs darting like hummingbirds throughout the air.

The ground was cracked, and froze glistening silver in the winter. The paths were worn down, bricks jagged and broken. The tombstones were missing pieces, and words were worn off their solid fronts, from far too many mournful hands. Everything was deteriorating, set on a slow, deliberate course of destruction.  

But there was something about this place that captivated her. The dead never spoke, nor would they judge her. It was the only place where, at four in the morning, she felt justified to sneak into and sprawl across the yellow grass before Randall’s remains. It was a safe place – wind snatching tortured sentences from her lips, ground curving about her bruised spine as she sat and pulled her knees to her chin.

Now more than ever, she needed somewhere safe.

Here, she could look at the death before her and marvel at the life still within her veins. She didn’t have to sit entrenched in the apartment, surrounded by sympathy flowers and countless empty mugs of cinnamon tea. She could scream hysterically up at the sky, and because the cemetery was located far, far away from the center of town, she could remain screaming as long as she liked.

Charliegh. She dug her toes into the earth and imagined Randall whispering her name, right before he had said goodbye. The worst part about death – the silent part, one that came in the aftermath of grief – was the guilt. The knowledge that if she had tried to love him, maybe he would be alive.

But then again, would that really have saved him? If he had been fixated upon suicide, she had been nothing more than a distraction, a girl who wrote too many sonnets and not enough memories. She knew that Earnest would have come after him regardless.

Love was enough to surpass boundaries, but it wasn’t a bandage. Randall – and now, consequently, her – had been filled with gaping internal wounds. They were deep, festering wounds, and a pair of bright red hearts would not have healed them. Love, Charliegh reflected, was not a medication.

And when two broken people tried to fit the jagged pieces of their emptiness together, they wound up ruining themselves completely.

I’m sorry. She extended one hand and touched the epitaph gently. All the usual, reassuring phrases were written upon his tombstone – Beloved Son; Lover; Friend. But nothing personal, nothing thoughtful. She wasn’t sure what he would have wanted – even after months in his company, his shocking decision had thrown so much into question.

She tucked her chin into her folded arms, propped up against her knees. “Randall,” She mumbled against the holes in her jeans, “I keep making the same mistakes.”

She had fallen into intimacy with one of the quiet ones. And, a season after his passing, she had fallen into another. She had a penchant for understated things and understated people. But, as she was beginning to realize, it was more of an underestimation that an understatement.

Nolan had been one of those people that, upon one glance, his story seemed to stream from his fingertips like the colored smoke from the tip of his cigarette. He had red eyes and unlaced shoes and a walk that was a mixture between a saunter and a stumble.

People were complex. They were not paper figurines. And, as she had discovered, they had the ability to disguise terrifying secrets. His secret had been his bloodlust – his insatiable search for revenge, and reconciliation.