Novelette Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Lark Sings a Sad Song

    The late afternoon sun casts a golden hue on me as I pass through the wheat fields. On either side of me the grain tassels wave in the wind as though acknowledging my passage. My husband of ten years has just died under the blades of a reaper.
    My family cannot understand why I have walked away from the scene, not even weeping or showing any sign of emotion. However, the pain I feel is real. I simply cannot stand to see the body, which to me had represented the perfection of beauty in the male form, so mangled and distorted. Paul had reminded me of one of the statues of Apollo I’d seen in an art book back in high school. This is why I married him.
     Strange, I thought how a mental image could exert so much influence on my choice of a mate. I wander past the mill pond and see the orange light sparkle on its surface as a breeze makes ripples through the calm waters. I sit on a tuft of grass by the shore and feel a deep peace fill my troubled heart. I feel guilty for feeling such serenity at such a tragic moment in my life.
     I remember seeing Paul swim across the lake so long ago. His body looked sleek and strong. His physique had a symmetry which seemed to be perfect. His body had intrigued me like one of those perfect Pythagorean forms must have intrigued the ancient Greeks. As I sit by the pond, a lark sings in the tree above me. I feel the lark’s song fill me with melancholy. Yet still not a single tear flows down my cheek.
    I cannot understand why God has let this happen to me.  I have always been a good girl.  I never cheated on my husband.  I have always been the sweetest, most pliant wife you could imagine. Sure, I entertained thoughts of adultery. But doesn’t it say in the bible, “He among you who is without sin cast the first stone?”
    Suddenly chest pains stab me. Am I having a heart attack? No, it’s just reality setting in. I hear a flutter of wings overhead. I am a widow now. God must be a real fucking bastard to let this happen to me. I rip my skirt, exposing my panties for all the decent world to see. My flaxen pubic curls brazenly
poke out from my undies. I tear my blouse to tatters with my bra my only concession to modesty. I revel in the prospect of leading married men into sin. I am impure and pissed off at God.
    The June breeze blows upon my cheeks. My dreams will come fleetingly now, a whisper, a shadow, then nothing. The sun of truth is so bright my mind dilates. The tree branches reach out to comfort me but my emptiness is complete.    
    Once I set out for an endless journey of life. Now I will wander in nomadic bliss to seek oblivion in the caverns of my mind. The corpuscles of my blood cry to heaven for release from this earthly body. But their cries fall on deaf ears. Only the sighing breeze is heard. And the purple sunset echoes my lost vision of what life might have been.
    I seek sanctuary in the Catholic church I’d been raised in. The altar glitters in gold as I kneel in the pew. The statue of Mary looks down upon me from the vestibule. Mary’s eyes look so sad.  Her only son is dead. I am alone in the world now.
My husband has gone back home leaving me empty. I know he went to a better place. He isn’t suffering anymore. But this doesn’t make up for anything. He doesn’t warm my heart with whispered love when evening falls so hard. Saturday nights are the hardest; Not that they all aren’t. The birds singing in the morning only magnify my sorrow. I look up at the statue of Jesus nailed to the crucifix which hangs above the sanctuary. Blood stains mark the brown wood.
His face is drawn in pain with the thorny crown upon his head.
    I wonder how God could let his only son suffer that much. Oh how mother Mary must have suffered. What a cruel God! Jesus is sacrificed and is humanity any better off? Are we any kinder and gentler to each other? How dare some old men tell us that through the martyrdom of a beautiful young man our sins are forgiven and we find salvation. Don’t women have a say in this? I raise my fist in anger at the invisible male force which has ruled my life till now. Tears flow like blood down my cheeks. I taste the salty wetness of my body. I feel the breath deep in my chest like a divine emanation.
    I think of Paul; His soft touch upon my shoulder; His warm body pressed against me; The taste of his mouth; The smell of his musk; His soft green eyes sparkling in the lamplight as he sat on the couch reading the paper. The cold lifeless statues gaze down at me dispassionately. I would even make a deal with the Devil to make love to him one more time.
    I rise to my feet in defiance of the ancient patriarch who is a stranger to me now. I scream, “Fuck You!!!” into the cavernous building. I hear it reverberate through the room as though the walls might fall if I yell loud enough. I rise like a fury. The swish of my dress and the slamming of the door punctuate this dream.
    I start a new chapter in my own book of life; Sans heavenly king; Sans shame and penance. Out of the open wound of pain in my chest, a beautiful flower blooms, resplendent with my own truth, sans phallic dictator.
    A week later at the house the wind blows through the open window. My solitude is complete. It is just me alone in this house haunted by memories.
    I lie in the bed and look out at the dust clouds which whirl across the parched yellow Kansas fields. The sun has almost fallen across the sorrowful land. I look down at my breasts as they rise and fall with each silent breath. My nightgown is spotted with mildew. I always planned on getting a new one. But plans have a way of going awry; especially when after ten years of marriage you are left with parents who can’t understand why their daughter seems more dead than alive.
    The Prozac seems to have little effect. Sometimes I think anti-psychotic medicine would be more appropriate. The curtain call of another day falls heavily upon a fragile peace.
     This evening the fog of my depression has lifted enough for me to write in my diary. I record my memories of Paul which read like the murmur of a dream.  Abruptly, I contemplate committing suicide. I feel unbearable tremors in my stomach. I cannot banish my dark thoughts.
    I sleep and dream of making love to Paul.  I awake and push the soaked sheet off my body. I wrap my robe around me and go to shower. I turn the shower head on, step into the shower, and feel the cold water shock my body sending a shiver down my spine. Then the H2O turns hot and steam rises. Hot liquid rains upon my body like little needles. I feel the beads of water pulse into my skin, penetrate my crevices, and bathe me in sensations of pleasure.
    My whole body is exhilarated and alive with sensual yearning. I wash my back gently. My tired body awakens and as I step out of the shower I shiver.
    My glowing face stares back at me from the mirror through the shower mist. My wet curls hang down against my breasts. My golden eyelashes curl across my eyes. I step back, gaze at my curves,
and at the lemony forest between my legs.
    I am woman, beautiful, sensuous, capable of loving and hating. I am full of tenderness and fire, the embodiment of men’s torrid dreams. My soft cleft is the place of pleasure where men’s pain is extinguished in rushes of wet exhalation. The aching in my loins grows as I gently wipe the droplets from my triangle.
    I dry off and and open the drawer of my dresser. My hands tremble as I touch Paul’s bathrobe in the cathedral silence. I hold this memento of our love like a relic. His wraparound is enshrined by my passion like a sacred shroud.  
    I walk to my bed with his raiment in hand. I slip my arms into his sleeves and wrap myself in the cotton vessel which once held Paul’s flesh.
    I sink into the bed. Underneath Paul’s robe I am naked. My fingers trace the seams and luxuriate through the cotton on a sensory memory journey. I entwine myself in the grapevine of his bathrobe. I inhale the scent of his cologne from the fabric. My thighs embrace the terrycloth. I hold it against my breasts.
    A tingling vision unfolds like an opium dream. His supple form comes alive beneath my fingertips. Just as an autumn leaf put between the sepia pages of a memory book, I press his cherished robe into the into the heat-slickened folds at the crux of my thighs.
    The wind, through the open windows, makes the curtains billow out like sails. I turn onto my side with my upturned hip exposed to the cool breeze which blows from the window.  I curve my legs like scissors and my flaxen hair falls across the pillow in waves of curls.
    I lie there feeling as though I am drugged. I gaze upon the last picture taken of Paul which sits on the nightstand. His eyes stare back  at me with love written in his smile. The feel of his robe betwixt my legs is sweet torture. I press the soft fabric into my sugar walls. I feel the chasm of his absence like an open wound. I reach for the cup on the nightstand and grasp an ice cube. I gently dab my nipples with ice. They harden with astonishing swiftness as I coo softly.
    I glance at Paul’s portrait with bird movement. I see his eyes glitter with fondness for me in his Kodak image. My fingers trace lines through Paul’s frock, with rain drop tenderness, into my garden of earthy delight. They pause oh so tantalizingly on my maidenhead. I feel tremors of pleasure move like a warm river through  my hips. I drink in my own touch.
    My hands travel relentlessly down my stomach and settle deliciously on my Delta of Venus. I hold  my warm mons like an egg in the cocoon of cotton. My place of original magic throbs like a beating heart. My hands sink my woven keepsake into the cusp of my thighs like rain seeping into the earth. I tremble with the weight of grief. With each of my hip thrusts my thighs tighten.  My eyes are glazed with the fog of tears. I stroke myself with a tender breaking of delicate emotions. I feel like a vase shattering in slow motion which then lies broken on the dusty floor.
    My voice cracks like a china cup. The shards of my soul splinter like porcelain fragments. The seconds stretch out into eternity. Decades glide by every minute. My heart beats like a maddening rock song. I rub Paul’s robe against the diadem of my womanhood. The friction is merciless as memories of Paul flood my mind.
    My scent fills me with hunger to fall over the edge. The whip my hand slapping my fruit is the final blow which sends me beyond infinity into an ocean of bliss. Solitary moments tick by like my own funeral procession.