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Antigone skips from stone to stone like she’s dancing, light on the tips of her feet. Oedipus can hear the tap, tap, tap of her feet, skipping ahead of him, and he calls for her to slow down, keep close by his side. He is relieved to feel her small body pressed against his leg, her small hand taking his protectively, although her footsteps are now abashed, ashamed, and he feels guilty.
“I’m sorry you have to walk with me and guide my way.” He says.
“I don’t mind, father.” She says in that little iron voice of hers. Already she is growing up, he thinks, she sounds so serious. All his fault again. “I want to help you.”
“You should be playing with friends, not looking after me, an exile in your own land.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She clings to him. She is the one leading him, making sure his hand is secure in hers, guiding him where there are no rocks or fallen branches. How old is she now, he thinks – still only a child, surely? And she had crept away from her life to join him. “You are so devoted to me,” he often jokes, “If I had eyes I think I would cry.” And Antigone would laugh.
Every day he is amazed anew at her courage, her determination. Her ability to place one foot in front of the other without stumbling, constantly, day after day.
Days pass, weeks pass, years pass. Time moves on from that dreadful day, as it always does. The day he lost his mother, his wife, his children. Creon had meant well – of course he had, he had always served the crown so faithfully, so kindly, and Oedipus had never meant to bandy those accusations at him, not really – and of course he was right, wasn’t he, that it would be cruel and selfish to keep his children with him, to drag them down with him. And he had been so kind, so gentle, as he had prised Oedipus’ daughters from his empty clutching grasp and led them away to the palace, leaving him alone. Of course he had meant well. Didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt. But Antigone – constant Antigone, faithful Antigone – had crept away, put her little hand in his and led him. “I couldn’t leave you alone, father.” She had said. “It isn’t right for mortals to not care for their families.”
“How wise you are, my dear.” He had said, and caressed her downy hair. “Like the gods speak through you.”
How dangerous that was, to always speak the truth, to know the truth, beyond mortal constraints. To pry when he had been told to not prise open the lid of truth, to search for things he should not know. Some truths were better left undiscovered, left to grow cold and stale. Some mortal rules were better abided, even when the gods pulled on your heart to move. Even when you had no choice but to act, to ask.
And what was the consequence of his honesty, his drive for knowledge, for the truth – surely all excellent traits in a man such as him? Two empty eye sockets and a wicked story that both preceded and followed him like a miasma, a story that made people turn their backs and close their doors to him. And still Antigone stayed by his side, growing taller, her hand no longer dwarfed by his as much as it had been once.
“When you are a woman, will you marry?” he asks. “Who will marry you, my dear? No man will wish to wed you.”
This is a fear that crosses his mind more and more. Perhaps it’s silly, now he’s homeless, stateless. Marriage deals and dowries are a thought best left with kings. But when his daughter is a young woman – is she pretty? He doesn’t know – and he is dead, who will look after her? What legacy does he leave her; no money, certainly, no security either.
“Perhaps I will marry.” She says. “If it’s my duty. But it’s also my duty to care for you.”
“Wouldn’t you care for an independent life?” he rests, sitting on a rock, head in his hands.
“Why do you think I am trapped?” Antigone has her hands on his shoulders. “I chose to follow you here.”
“To lead me here, rather.” Oedipus manages to laugh slightly. Perhaps that is his daughter’s legacy, to lead herself through the darkness of the world, just as blind and stumbling as he. He has cursed her to this life, brought her through the same darkness he brought upon himself. Perhaps she will find her way, perhaps she will fall. But she has his proudness, his stubbornness, his almost-arrogance. If she falls, she will fall with back straight and head held high.
Antigone had not been by her father’s side when he died. That had been her regret, that she had been his most constant companion, and had not said goodbye. So when she crouches by her brother’s body and takes his cold limp hand in hers, bloated and soft with death, she imagines it is her father and brother both, who she can never get back. She stays there a moment, although she knows that Polynices is dead and it is pointless, that sorrow cannot bring him back from the dead, cannot undo the ravages of war. This is her father’s legacy, rotten to the core – war, death, and suffering. It has broken her spirit and her body on her long travels, and patched them together again with bloody seams. She cannot fear human punishment, mortal anger anymore. She has experienced enough of it by her father’s side, felt enough vitriol. It cuts through her like a blade, but like Caeneus it does not hurt her.
With bloodied hands she tears her nails as she digs them into the hard-packed dirt. She scoops out a handful of dirt and scatters it over the corpse. It falls like grain in a furrow in the spring.