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Alfred spins a sprig of lavender in his mouth, long sudden ridges of the stalk rolling over his tongue and clacking as it strikes his teeth. He sucks in his cheeks and fills his mouth with skin to subdue the sound, and hears the pink morning creep into being.
Vibrant streaks of soft red light border the low, fat hills, casting the barn and farmhouse dusky greys. Shadows on the dirt road play with the stones he kicks, and with brief separation their darkness tumbles after them. A hush of a breeze ghosts between the young cotton, rustling insects and the smooth emerald sea into tiny waves just visible in the cool light of the dawn. It is a lonely scene, and he walks with his hands in his pockets, fingering the clasp of a tarnished silver cigarette case and a faded matchbook from the Ritz. With his cool, slow gait, hawk eyes scanning the countryside for imperfections in his crop, he shields his anxiety and builds a careful wall around his perfectly slouched shoulders, all the way up his lax jaw and halting under his eyes. A furrowed brow and worried baby blues reveal him, and he struggles to bury these additional weaknesses.
The brightening crest of the hills, still and dull against the white panels of the house, leaks through cracks in its covering and fills windows with gentle light. He scratches the back of his head and dodges a tough weed lodged in the soil, wary of onlookers but aware of his isolation. For all his hard life, he’s still only nineteen, and it bites into his pronounced Adam’s apple, pulling a gulp down into his gullet to stew. Winter made him skinny, and his lanky limbs seemed to wither in the snowstorms and the flurries he’d brave and enjoy. His skin paled from glowing gold to a sallow, deathly yellow, outlining the sagging rings under his eyes from long nights of tense waiting and fetching wood faced with four walls of white. The season was cruel and fruitless, and everything lied dormant in him ‘til the drifts yielded and fed thirsty sprouts. He could feel his cracked knees rejuvenate and store vigorous energy, and eagerly anticipated the heaping portions of a summer workday’s lunch slapping meat on bones thought brittle with cold. Not so. For he is a great man beneath that youth, and he pays handsomely for it, in blood blue and red.
He remains strong, even for his faults; he is now two collectives and ideals, but one body altogether, torn relentlessly by his children, and the children they begat. Suffering and pleasure alike know no bounds in his existence, and he has not lived a day without some faint memory of their affects. Of souring alliances and green crocus leaves creeping between dead bracken. He knows the pain of rope skidding over a thin neck and the fear of staring into the wide mouth of a musket begging to end him. He knows the warmth of a body next to his and the peace of parents doing laundry; he knows the terror of watching his friends writhe, crying in the steaming mud, flesh taut and slick with sweat and bloody vapour.
An unbidden gulp narrows his throat once more and he chokes on it, feeling stupid as he hides wet coughs in the folds of his jacket, thinking of the people who will emerge from their cabins and work his land as if it were their own. The barn approaches, and the horizon has birthed greater rays to wash it white of the dusky colours of shadow. Horses neigh and snort and fill the air with mist as they peer out into the corral, bad-tempered from sleep and hunger and unwilling to bend their noses to his touch. He sighs and wades through farm tools and leaning stacks of hay bales to the feed barrels, dipping in a rusted pail and filling the small buckets lining the corridor. They fight over the food and push at each other ardently; selfish, starving. He fills hastily, smiling as they content themselves with the grain when he spies a small patch of tender buttercups growing unmolested outside the pen. In his mind, they beckon to be picked, but as his hand raises and bids his foot advance, he drops it, and retreats toward the entrance.
Doors begin to creak and slam as ex-slaves wrestle out of wives’ beds and greet the day with sore shrugs. The earth is dark for them, dust patted down but not muddy, and they relish the feel of boot soles finding purchase without evaporating the ground they seek into small tan eddies. Alfred takes pleasure in their sleepy satisfaction, and smiles at his children as they slump beneath the newborn smoke of cooking fires heating the air, where the dawn would suck it away.
The birthing pains of his nation, his desperation in seeking liberty for them and legitimacy in government he believes were well worth it. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but one had not witnessed true beauty until they had seen the cities they yanked out of mind and rock; the patchwork farms stitched into a coarse but marvellous cloak for his wild pink skin. He gave them greater life and they gave him sheer numbers, brilliance and innovation clever and fast enough to mend his flesh where it tore and right their misgivings without his overwhelming influence. He could leave them to their own without fail and see them learn and live as they willed, trust them not only with their lives, but his, and here he stops, for he is sidling a precarious edge between his own country and another.
Arthur continues sleeping in a warm bed in the comfort of the farmhouse.
Renegade hay dust blows lazily through the barn, and he leans in the entrance, feeling clouds brush the backs of brown boots and tickle the dark grey cuffs of his slacks. The land is rising from the arms of the night, when he’d heard crickets chirping wildly in the grass and frogs feasting on loud targets. When he’d lain on a Mexican blanket, cradling his head with folded fingers and stared contentedly into the clear starry sky. When he’d listened to the steady, concentrated whisper of his father as those crickets and insects fought for the noise against a finger poking holes in the heavens, to seep stories of Andromeda and Orpheus into cool humid air, just submerging the weight of fog into dew droplets on his eyelashes. No sound in the world could be as comforting, ensuring, loving as his father’s. He revels in it, gone so long, ears empty of that dry serenade. As he toes the dust, dragging the tip of his polished shoe in a circular pattern, it revives for a shake in his mind the kind, quiet voice and his laughter before dispersing and leaving him lonely for more. Those hundred years were torture.
And then he hears it.
Woman’s voices resound in the cooking fires with all the purity of a heavenly chorus, and as his eyes flicker with each hum and sigh, they emerge in quiet groups, water pails attached to their hips. He waits in the shadows, withdrawing his existence until they trudge by, hair mussed with sleep, tired frowns or calculating faces balancing food and time and chores even in the early hour. Silence perverts his situation and he nods as they pass, a dopey look gracing his face just innocent enough to sustain it. A young lady eyes him warily, no more than seventeen, before she grips the pail a little tighter and weaves in with the other women chatter. He grunts and fumbles with the matchbook again, riding the faded cover with a chewed-up thumb and wiping it clean of his sweat. Sunrays pass gently through the barnyard, commanding invisible spires of dust as heat floods the valley and the grass chokes up enough water to steam from the cool ground.
-
His pocket watch lies on the kitchen table from last night. Arthur holds his hip tenderly as he gazes dumbly at it from the open kitchen door. Why he found himself here in the first place, he refuses to acknowledge. Thoughts of preparing tea and breakfast fill his sleepy head. Alfred is obviously a man, now. He can fix his own meals, even if he couldn’t care for the aftermath. Clothed in a simple white chemise, Arthur wonders if he should even be awake. Spying the greasy stove, he examines the whole of the kitchen with disgust and limps forward through bruises and aches to redeem it.
An angry roar of pain rips up from his jaw when he wipes it with his sleeve, and he graces the purple blotch with feather touches, disbelieving and soundless. He chooses to ignore it and reaches for a food-crusted plate sitting at the bottom of the sink. For all of Alfred’s field hands one might think he’d have the smarts to send a woman to care for the house. He rubs blindly at spots and stains, scouring the flatware, then the silver, polishing it, and makes to scrub down the stove, but the moment his back bends the tiniest bit, the whole of his spine shrieks in protest, and he crumbles against the squat cast-iron body.
He runs his hand over his mouth and closes his eyes, willing his legs to harden and stand, but they tremble weakly, and he regrets having woken. The door to the nook clamours open and he scrambles to raise himself against the rough black wall staring him down. A hushed voice swears and his hand fumbles over his lips. His eyes shut tightly and he yanks himself upward with great pain, hunching over the stove as he grits his teeth and attempts to shuffle back to the stairwell. Feet cross the stone floor and a cold breeze strikes his bare legs. He latches himself to the sink with a stunted sigh and wishes the world away. Then he greets the end.
“Good morning, Alfred.”
He can’t see the boy. He busies himself with the rag, ignoring every horrible pain bolting through his nerves as he tends the countertop with halting, awkward wipes. Alfred doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t bid any words. The boy grabs the back of a scuffed chair, grappling the top with some difficulty and pulling it backward with too much force. It clatters to the ground and Arthur drops the cloth and grips the counter’s edge, shaking, pale, knuckles turning white. The window offers a wide view of the plantation, of the fields and the hills and the sun creeping higher. It bathes Alfred’s dusty shoes as they still in shock.
“Arthur.”
Arthur jolts and makes his way back to the kitchen door, wanting to crumble and die with each step,
“I’ll just go wash my face,”
“Arthur.”
Every step is hell. Every movement, every shift in the air reminds him of breath behind his ear, hands breaking his hips. He feels nauseous. The room is tight and too large and each space is filled with some awful memory. His little boy playing in a house he’d built just for him. He’s not ready for this. The house is too far away and Alfred stands there behind him, walks toward him and all he wants is to die right now, right now.
“Are you alright?”
“Fine. I’m fine, darling.”
The callused hand on his shoulder feels like the claw of the devil, and breathing is suddenly quite difficult. Realising he’s panicking, he widens his eyes to prevent tears and refuses to face his boy.
“Arthur?”
“I’m really alright. Don’t worry about me. I just need to get dressed.” The hand tightens and he sucks in his breath with a whimper, begging it to let go or bloody do something because this conversation is killing him and Alfred’s too dense to know. His boy, his baby boy,
“Arthur, look at me,”
His body jerks without him and he yelps; all he can think is Dear God, what have I done to you?! Not again, never again, never again, and a warm chest is far from burying his teary face, and all he sees are two serious eyes bearing into him with all the force of a child grown and gone; a true man, and he feels powerless and stupid. A thick finger traces the dark spots on his face, circling his black eye, rubbing his swollen jaw, and his mouth falls open and his cheeks feel wet.
“Alf… Alfred—I don’t—Please—”
Alfred hushes and draws him in, absorbing him, muting him with leather and sweat as Arthur clings to the present and desperately avoids the night before. His eyes scan the nook quickly, sight shaking as ursine arms hug him tightly, almost suspending him as his back curls and Alfred leans forward to nuzzle his neck. He chokes on scents of earth and oil.
“I’m so glad you’re back.”
-
His mother is dead. His father is young.
He sits on a wooden walkway in a golden marsh. Grass bends toward the hills as wind blows in from the sea. Over the black crest of the fire trail, he can see the sun dipping, orange, sinking into the water. Broad, flat rays absorb the field as he kicks his feet in the water, watching frogs jump. His canvas fishing kit slumps into itself, the pitch-lined basket from his mother holding several small trout. They swim in circles in his periphery, lulling him into a quiet routine. Watch the fish. Grass. Hills. Mountains. Wood. Fish. Grass. The sun blasts through his skin with its last power and he glows, buttons on his overalls glimmering. He is alone, his supper sitting beside him. He is reluctant to bring them home. His father will only burn them.
He remembers them flopping against the rough, dry wood, struggling to make it back into the water. The basket offers inhuman comfort. They’re practically already dead. He thinks of how his father will slit their bellies the moment he sets the basket on the counter, with that brief look of detest. Mother never existed. It was a rule.
He sees his father’s slender hands dripping watery blood, slicing through slick fish skin, yanking at rubbery intestines, travelling along the spine with deft fingers in search of stray organs, pushing flesh against skin from the inside. At this point, they finally die. He stares after the fish blankly, hate turned low to shade his eyes. The sun creeps below the tree line, speckling the valley with shadows and golden gaps of farms. He pushes the whole basket into the creek and watches the fish dart out immediately. It floats through the reeds, brushing past leaves and twigs before tumbling over a rock and around a corner. He continues sitting.
His father will be angry with him. He’ll be scolded for losing the basket, but he knew the man loathed it as much as his mother. The idea of replacing the worn treasure will overcome the hatred. They will go out to purchase a riveted pail from town, and spend the day shopping for candy and other luxuries. His father will be delighted with the loss. He is sure of it.
-
Light peeks through the curtain to reveal a thick flow of shimmering dust. Arthur’s breaths are deep and steady. Rays warm his face and attack his closed eyes until he grunts and tries to turn. Pain freezes him. Groggily, his hand searches the pillow, the bed. Sheets tangle around his legs, the quilt long gone. He groans, opening his eyes to see Alfred’s hideous wallpaper speckled with morning light. His mind short-circuits.
Sitting up ends with him doubled over, squirming, eyes wide and fearful. He touches his arms to find them coated in bruises. Light fingertips trace a brutal swollen blotch on his jaw. His hips creak in agony and his wrists sport nasty purple marks, dark and many; wicked testaments to farm labour and calluses and the chaff of a rifle. Hiding them in his chest, he pulls his legs up into the foetal position, and almost shouts at the pain. One tentative hand braves the trip to remove the sheet, and what he sees makes him sick to his stomach. Fingers retract instantaneously. Blood spots populate the mattress in small colonies. Where he rests lays a broad, sinister stain spanning at least an inch. Short vicious scratches line his legs from his waist to his calves, and muscles tweak as he shifts against the bed. Face whiter than the sun, he reaches back and between his thighs to identify a scabby feel. They return sporting a small amount of pale pink crust. The semen is mixed with blood.
He trembles. He doesn’t know what to do. He stares at the opposing wall and the little chestnut bureau with no thought or energy. The information, pain, Alfred’s room spiral through his head until even that aches and the dark circles under his eyes just beg him to pass out. Blood seeps too quickly out of his face and he leans over the side of the bed to vomit.
Fists curl in the white pillow as he heaves onto the worn wooden floor. His throat burns and eyes water, and the pillow hints the scent of his boy; his son. He leans over more, torso hovering above the floorboards, one hand nearly slipping in his mess as he cries and pushes back up, shaking, body afire. Every touch is pain. Every object is a threat. Alfred could be right outside that door, his child, his opus, and there is nothing he could do to stop him.
Light saturates the cotton drapes and illuminates the pale room. Even as he closes his eyes, it finds him and burns them a deep red. He gags on his own tongue but his stomach is empty and quivering. His whole body is quivering. His sanity and security are ages past. With each twitch, his pain is renewed, and finally he succumbs and stares blankly at the wall, manoeuvred onto his stomach with great pain, head cocked to the left as he watches the lines of the paper disappear into each other.