Post by Lets_Eat_Paste on Feb 15, 2013 22:03:26 GMT -6
OoC: Not my best work, but I'm too frustrated to edit. BiC:
The weight of grief was no figment of the imagination. It sat like lead in her every crevice until it seeped through her, the threat of strangulation hanging in her ribcage. No, grief was very real, palpable and surprisingly concrete. What had sat dormant for years finally erupted, ready to boil over until nothing was left but a vague numbness that would lay in her hollow gut until a gentle distraction made its way into Gwendoline’s life.
She looked to the ashes Tristan carried so gingerly in his hands, half expecting a perfect infant with Torben’s eyes and Gwen’s smile to rise from the phoenix dust for a second chance of life. Instead, they rested dormant in the salt urn, the brackish grains mixing with the vestiges of a life unlived.
She could remember the blood—the blood from her. The selfsame liquid of life that had once feebly pumped through her daughter. She could remember the heartbeat that fluttered weakly beneath her own and the erratic dancing behind her ribs. She could remember the tears that she cried and the tears that Torben tried to hide as they flowed into his beard. And with it all came the denial that their universe had collapsed on itself until they floated in a black oblivion, searching for some spark of creation to caress in their careful hands.
She clung to Torben’s sleeve like a terrified child as Tristan laid the remains of their daughter (Daphne, Manon, Ellabell and a dozen other names they had considered calling her) into his cumbersome arms, which became a bed for her final sleep. She looked at the ashes, astonished at the change. They looked nothing like the precious, unmoving form she had willed into this unforgiving world. There was no trace of the bulging, shut eyes, or the gently folded arms, or the fuzzy tufts of hair that had begun cropping up on her head. It was funny, almost laughably so, how fire worked. It could warm Gwen in the winter, or destroy the product of her and Torben’s love. It was a plasma paradox that had the ability to roar to life or render it to a mere heap of grey ash—the exact embodiment of death itself.
Together, she and Torben knelt by the river, dipping their fingers into the urn and sprinkling the ashes into the water’s sunset that glowed apricot and indigo. They watched the grey clouds of their child billow beneath the sparkling river surface. With each fistful, Gwen felt her shoulder grow lighter and the weight in her heart shrink until it could fit in a thimble. She looked at their hands, which were black with the final remnants of their daughter’s life. Together and separately, they held their infant daughter for one last moment before washing her clean of them in the cool water. She watched the dusty trail of their child trace out the downstream current, watching her scurry away gracefully into her final peace.
But she would never be gone, which Gwen knew too well. She remained in the form of a softened spot on Gwen’s chest like the bruise on a peach. She touched the spot gently as Torben’s hand slid into place on her back in attempted comfort. But he could feel it in his chest, too. He didn’t have to tell her, but she understood. Nestled inside one the ventricles of their heart would be their daughter’s permanent home.
And it felt wrong, but just like that, the three of them were, at last, free.
The weight of grief was no figment of the imagination. It sat like lead in her every crevice until it seeped through her, the threat of strangulation hanging in her ribcage. No, grief was very real, palpable and surprisingly concrete. What had sat dormant for years finally erupted, ready to boil over until nothing was left but a vague numbness that would lay in her hollow gut until a gentle distraction made its way into Gwendoline’s life.
She looked to the ashes Tristan carried so gingerly in his hands, half expecting a perfect infant with Torben’s eyes and Gwen’s smile to rise from the phoenix dust for a second chance of life. Instead, they rested dormant in the salt urn, the brackish grains mixing with the vestiges of a life unlived.
She could remember the blood—the blood from her. The selfsame liquid of life that had once feebly pumped through her daughter. She could remember the heartbeat that fluttered weakly beneath her own and the erratic dancing behind her ribs. She could remember the tears that she cried and the tears that Torben tried to hide as they flowed into his beard. And with it all came the denial that their universe had collapsed on itself until they floated in a black oblivion, searching for some spark of creation to caress in their careful hands.
She clung to Torben’s sleeve like a terrified child as Tristan laid the remains of their daughter (Daphne, Manon, Ellabell and a dozen other names they had considered calling her) into his cumbersome arms, which became a bed for her final sleep. She looked at the ashes, astonished at the change. They looked nothing like the precious, unmoving form she had willed into this unforgiving world. There was no trace of the bulging, shut eyes, or the gently folded arms, or the fuzzy tufts of hair that had begun cropping up on her head. It was funny, almost laughably so, how fire worked. It could warm Gwen in the winter, or destroy the product of her and Torben’s love. It was a plasma paradox that had the ability to roar to life or render it to a mere heap of grey ash—the exact embodiment of death itself.
Together, she and Torben knelt by the river, dipping their fingers into the urn and sprinkling the ashes into the water’s sunset that glowed apricot and indigo. They watched the grey clouds of their child billow beneath the sparkling river surface. With each fistful, Gwen felt her shoulder grow lighter and the weight in her heart shrink until it could fit in a thimble. She looked at their hands, which were black with the final remnants of their daughter’s life. Together and separately, they held their infant daughter for one last moment before washing her clean of them in the cool water. She watched the dusty trail of their child trace out the downstream current, watching her scurry away gracefully into her final peace.
But she would never be gone, which Gwen knew too well. She remained in the form of a softened spot on Gwen’s chest like the bruise on a peach. She touched the spot gently as Torben’s hand slid into place on her back in attempted comfort. But he could feel it in his chest, too. He didn’t have to tell her, but she understood. Nestled inside one the ventricles of their heart would be their daughter’s permanent home.
And it felt wrong, but just like that, the three of them were, at last, free.
