Image: © Chloé Leresche
Author: Chloé Leresche
[Content warning: blood and gore depictions, physical injuries, death/death of child]
She tries to cry out, but it is swallowed by the wet and harsh fabric. Her movements too, restrained by the drapes, drowning her in her panicked heat and cold sweat. She has to go find him. She must. He was right there, going into the woods. She fights, her frustrated and desperate groans increasing as she suffocates in the darkness that envelops her, crushes her. She must catch him before he goes. She must save him. He’s so small, the forest is going to eat him.
The breath leaves her lungs as she meets the ground. For a moment, all is quiet, and only the heavy dark exists above her. There is nothing, and he is not here. Only then does she feel the cold lurking, sliding on her skin as would the embrace of a dead man, biting in her flesh under her sweat. Her son is not here. The gasping breath she takes feels like void filing her lungs, like toxic mist, making its painful way through her insides, to her rotten liver.
The floor under her is hard, flat, steady. You are not outside. You are not with him. You are just lying there, a miserable, pitiful childless mother. Slowly, she raises her arm, and, as if it was waiting for her to calm down, the drape swipes gently to the ground. Now free, she puts her hand on her stomach. She does not wince under the cold contact of those lifeless fingers; she does not tremble as the cold kisses her all. She lies there for a while, staring at a cold dark that does not look back at her.
Like a phantom, she gets up, and quietly, she leaves.
She is awakened by the sun, this time. She sees it through her closed eyelids, feels it warming up hair. Then the sounds come to her, the birds’ distant but beautiful songs and the gentle touch of the leaves dancing in unison. She can smell the moss before even opening her eyes. There is a bit of morning dew on her dress and shoulders, small droplets. Some ants are walking down her bony arm, and there are other insects on her, tickling her, already claiming her body.
A shadow passes by, behind some bushes, not far. It is quiet and light, innocent. It stops for an instant, and the small head of a young doe appears, framed by the vibrant green leaves. Its curious eyes judge her, body ready to jump and run away, but not too fearful, almost playful, even. For a moment, all is quiet, and only exist the fawn, herself, and the rays of light filtering through the tall trees above. Is this what the medieval poets envisioned, speaking of virgins and unicorns in clearings? The fawn spooks and runs.
Like a phantom, she gets up, and quietly, she follows. She sees him from afar; frail silhouette standing before the cliff. The wind will catch him, it will grab his young limbs and throw him to his death. She calls him, yells, cries out, but the wind grabs her words, laughs at it and brushes it away. She runs, but the wind pushes back, not even bothered by her, not anything. He does not hear her, and she can only watch as the wind takes her son’s hand gently and whispers to him: “Fly.”.
She opens her eyes in a gasp that is not quite hers. Completely still. For a moment, all is quiet, and only exists the blue of the sky above and the mocking laughter of the wind.
She feels her crushed bones, her bleeding organs, her ribcage intertwined with her son’s, his bones puncturing her lungs. She found him, she’s happy. The wind got them, it’s happy.
A phantom, she gets up, and quietly, she disappears.