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Death Of Gwion by Yvonne Rathbone |
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Tales & Fun |
He had
wanted that taste. Enough that he allowed his mind to slip just
so, and spill the sacred elixer. Had he really not thought of
the consequences as he brought his fingers to his lips. Or had
some deep desire forced his hand up, to taste the dewy drops
of heaven. For many years he hid. At first there had been a lot of running. He ran through the woods, tripping over roots, face scratched by branches. In the dark, in the rain, he ran. In the dewy spring and the quaking summer. And the forms, not just otter and mouse, but all realm of thing. He was grand as a quasar, fearless as a waterfall, horrible as a volcano. A young mother, a king, a prostitute, murderer, saint, even once an accountant. Through it all, he stank of fear and guilt at his crime. Years pass, the hiding becomes instinctive. At first he holed himself up in cabin at the edge of the known world. From his own hand he made the wattle and daub hut that served as home. The meadows were peaceful for a while, even if the cliffs were a little too enticing. He almost had a life there, tending to sheep, drinking beer and singing half forgotten melodies in the twilight. But she had come, eventually, a scrub jay harrassing him incessantly until he fled again. Later, he worked the night shift at a factory in Victorian London. On the assembly line of the new industry he chased his own demons away, allowing the stink of the machines to fill the crevasses once touched by poetry. That time she came, a mangy dog, to chase him through the alleys until he felt his head would burst from the grey smoke fog he had to breathe. She snickered a rabid grin as he slipped away once more into the grimy fog. And once, he cloaked himself in pinstripes, raised high up above her blessed earth. He tucked himself away behind a desk of power and wealth. A shield to guard against her stinging needle gaze, her chant and song. He felt her behind every glass window, saw the faint outline of her hagged form while watching the sunset from 40 stories up and ignoring the desire to dance. But in the end she snagged him good, a child on a swing she grabbed his heart and finally after all that had gone before she ripped that heart from him. Laughing in triumph, she rent his flesh and tore him a new asshole. He watched her snack on his pancreas, pop his kidneys in her mouth like crackerjacks. And with each organ and piece of meat, she took as well his dreams, his loves. He could no longer remember his mother, or his first sex act. The acts of a thousand of lives dried up and blew away. He lost his house, his car, his stock options. Every failed attempt at music and love, each scar he'd left on the face of the earth. And finally, as she picked her teeth with a femur splinter, he lost his reason to run. And with that, he shuddered and died. Shrunk down to almost nothing after having all he thought was necessary torn away, he felt his being sound the univeral Om. He'd never heard it so clearly until now that he had no ears - she'd eaten them. The sacred vibration went through him hotter than coming, fiercer than running for his life. And as he finally gave up the ghost and became that note, he felt the snaking fingers of form start to weave themselves into something new... |
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