Wednesday 20 June 2012

Isolde, For Her


ATTN: Coming from a multicultural family in a diverse community, I respect all walks of life and all branches of faith people believe in. This piece of fiction was created to ask questions and stimulate discussion not to offend people of a particular faith.


Isolde, For Her

The world was a different place. Gone were the technological advancements of a civilised age. Rubble and bone littered the ground, piercing the feet of those who sought to survive. We lived in constant fear in a land suffocated by smog and ash from the fires that consumed all we once held dear. Or at least that’s how I remembered the world, before they took my eyes.
They had burst through the barricade I’d set up during the night. The Beasts, the last remnants of the religious heretics that set the world aflame with their scaremongering, had taken up residence nearby. The door flew off its hinges and they swarmed in screaming, their arms flailing. Mary screamed beside me and retreated. I plucked up my rifle as quick as I could and fired a shot. Down to three, I reminded myself. One of them grunted and collapsed but it wasn’t enough, they were upon us. Their hands groped for my neck, nails digging into my skin. I tried to push them off, panic bubbled inside me. Mary screamed again. One of them began to light a fire, their grisly features made that much more terrifying in the flickering light. They were humans once, now they resembled a pack of wolves, hairy and feral. Their backs hunched over, their finger nails were long.
“Richard!” I glanced over as best I could and saw the pack dragging Mary across the floor, whatever clothes she had on her were torn. The beast on top of me grumbled something in a guttural language to one of his brethren. Not her, she’s all I have left! I thought as I pushed harder.
“Without pain, there can be no penance,” the beast grumbled at me, his breath was rancid and hot. Another one shuffled over, a bottle in his hand which he handed to the one on top of me. They both looked at me as they pressed the bottle against my face, the molten glass burned. I screamed. My skin began to bubble as he pulled the bottle away and uncorked it with his teeth.
“May this oil help you see the father in a true, pure light,” he groaned as he poured the hot liquid into the whites of my eyes. I screamed again and woke up alone.

My hand instinctively went to the bandage I had wrapped around my wounds before setting out. Making the bandage from my sleeve was easy; using the last of my vodka to disinfect the mess in my eye sockets was much more difficult. A cold breeze stabbed my skin like sharp needles, it howled in the darkness, chilling me to my very core. Now I walked through a valley of death, shrouded in shadow and darkness but I was not afraid. I had her with me.
Mary. Her face swam before me; raven hair framed her fierce green eyes. I took a deep breath and her scent tickled my senses. I had followed her perfume this far. It guided me through the darkness, a breadcrumb trail leading me back to her and her warm embrace. The perfume she wore was called ‘Isolde’; we found a box of it in a ruined warehouse a few months ago. Apparently Isolde smelled of blueberries. Before the war they had produced a male fragrance, ‘Tristain’, but we never found any. I smelled again and found myself inside her, her sweat on my lips, her breath rushing past my ear. I could feel her drawing me in as I devoured her odour.
“I’m coming, Mary,” I said out loud. I had to save her. I wasn’t going to leave her to those beasts. We were meant to be together, I told myself as I pushed off the rubble with my rifle.
“My rifle is my life,” I mumbled. I smirked when I realised what I had done. Echoes of my Lieutenant’s voice rippled in the darkness. He used to bark that phrase at us. You have no idea how true that is, LT. Checking weapons for ammo, stripping them down or inspecting them came easy to me – they made us do it blindfolded. I trapped the butt of my rifle in my armpit and set off carefully through the darkness. The rubble of civilisation strewn across the floor made for a difficult terrain to traverse; the floor would ungulate and dip unexpectedly. My ankles and shins bore the bruises of my tumbles.
Blueberries led the way; every so often I would take a deep breath and feel closer to Mary. Her love acted like a shield, keeping at bay the nagging fear and doubt of what was out there in the night. There used to be groups of travellers, tradesmen and hunters looking to trade their wares for something in return. They’d often tell stories of demons walking the earth, their eyes as bright as fire and of men practising dark arts to raise their loved ones to warm their beds once again. It had been six months since I last saw someone other than Mary; we’d locked ourselves away when we found out the beasts roamed close. We’d once hidden in the attic, huddled close in the dust. I still remember how red her cheeks had gotten from running up the stairs. We were playing hide and seek, must have been no older than seven. We’d always been together.
An image of a crucifix flickered in my mind, like a weak bulb expending its last reserve of energy. The beasts had taken residence in the nearby church; I had to laugh at that. They were the ones that slaughtered innocents in the name of their God and subsequently believed that he had abandoned them. That was where I was heading, my gun in my hand, vengeance warming my heart. They’ll pay. Back in the civilized world I wouldn’t have dreamed of taking up arms against a civilian but we were no longer in a world governed by rules or laws. No faceless set of morals guided our day to day lives anymore, this was survival of the strongest, kill or be killed and the beasts had failed to kill me.
My leg slammed into a hard surface. I tumbled forward and hit the rubble. Instinctively I reached out for my rifle that fell beside me to make sure I still had it. For a moment I just stayed still, my heart thumping as fast as a drum. Anger burned in between my teeth, I allowed myself to seethe for a moment before taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. I imagined lying back in green pastures; the smell of freshly cut grass filled my nostrils. I would never see a green field again, that warm green glow you get when the sun rises. Blueberries tickled me once more, Mary’s smell bade me to get up but it wasn’t until I tried to get to my feet that I noticed something wrong.
A sharp pain stabbed through my left leg as I tried to move it. My only pair of jeans, tattered and sweat stained clung to my leg, warm and moist. I slowly reached down with my hand, the pain got worse the further I got towards my knee and then I felt it. Old, cold and rusted, a piece of metal had lodged itself in my skin and worked its way under my kneecap. Pain throbbed in time with my heart. I tried to keep calm. I’d already used my left sleeve to bandage my eyes so I turned to the right; I ripped the sleeve off my shirt and took another deep breath. I grasped the grotesque jagged piece of metal with my right hand and… one, two, three… pulled it out. It slid out with ease, the motion nauseating; the metallic smell of my own blood mingled with rust saturated the air. I quickly tied my sleeve around the wound and pulled tightly, the pressure felt comforting.
I laid back and brushed away beads of sweat and bits of dried blood off my face, my heart still thudding. I reached out for my rifle and used it to help myself up. It clinked against the floor as I used it as a walking stick. I dragged myself onwards; no amount of pain was going to stop me from rescuing my beloved. As I staggered in an unknown direction, guided by the faint smell of perfume, I couldn’t help but remember an image of Mary. She glided down the aisle dressed in pearly white. Lace and netting complimented her wedding dress, her green eyes shone through a vale, even covered they sparkled magically.
The ground began the slope upwards, the strength in my wounded leg continued to seep away but I pushed on. My arm, outstretched in front of me, began to ache. Each step was a step further into the darkness there was no light at the end of this tunnel. My head began to spin, being suspended in eternal darkness caused my sense of direction and balance to become erratic. The blood loss wasn’t helping matters either.
“We’ve always been together,” I mumbled to myself, my words were slurred as if drunk on love and determination.
“I know,” I answered back.
The hill began to relent, I felt the air open up around me and the ground levelled out. In my head I was stood atop a tall mountain, the decent a vertical slope down. A gale rushed around me. I leaned onto my rifle to steady myself and took a tentative step forward as if dipping my toe into a pool. A soft noise in the wind roused my courage; a bell hanging in a large tower rang softly – the church… Mary!
My heart leapt, but it wasn’t in joy. It was more of a lurch as I felt my foot slip. I was in a free fall, my hand clutching my rifle. Cold air slapped me time and time again as I fell for I don’t know how long. Finally, science brought me back down to reality. The floor hit me the hardest; the wind was knocked out of me as I continued to tumble bouncing off the surface. Bits of glass and rock impaled my skin until mercifully it was over.
A white light began to fade into my vision. It flickered and struggled as the darkness fought it off. Was I dying? I heard the soft bell toll again, closer this time. People always said stay out of the light but I didn’t have a choice, it was overwhelming me. Apart of me did want to just give up….
Something grasped me around the neck and the white light took over.
***
A cold slap made the whiteness dissolve, my face dripped. My back was against a hard surface, it was warmer than before. I tried to move my arms to find them bound to something. Something hard and coarse scraped the skin around my wrists.
“You must leave,” a voice uttered from the darkness. It was the same guttural growl as before. I recognised it. Anger bubbled up inside me like lava and I erupted.
“Mary! Give her back to me; give her back to me now!” My voice echoed in the room, it must have been quite tall and cavernous. I shouted and screamed until my throat tightened and I felt like throwing up.
“Quiet, fool… You must leave and never return.”
“Fuck you!” I spat back with all the venom and hatred I could muster. “I’ll kill all of you, I swear to you. I will rip you apart and gorge on your blood you sons of bitches!”
He made a sound that resembled a chuckle.
“How? I have your weapon,” he muttered something I didn’t quite make out and then I heard footsteps getting closer to me.
I licked my lips as if I was ready for a meal.
“Yes, that’s it come closer,” I said, ravenous. A second one laughed as he made his way towards me. I felt a thick, heavy hand strike me violently across the side of my face.
“Is this close enough, godless?” he asked, his breath hot and surprisingly sweet.
Another eruption of anger exploded out of me, I snapped forward with my head and bit into him; any part of him it didn’t matter. Warm liquid filled my mouth and dribbled down my chin. I pulled back, bits of flesh fell from my lips as the beast howled and cried. I spat back a mouth full of muscle and tendon and screamed. The sound of gurgling and retching indicated that I had hit the throat. Good.
“He’s just the first! I’ll get you all! You should have killed me when you had the chance! You’re pathetic!” I couldn’t stop the anger kept flowing out of me, all my frustration and fear. “He left you, he left you to die!”
“Enough!” This voice wasn’t like any of the others. It was thick with emotion and soft, it was the voice I had been longing to hear for so long. I heard a door close, the beast was still dying nosily in the room somewhere, I didn’t care, fuck him.
“Abraham, leave us a moment please,” Mary said. “Take John with you and ease his pain.”
I heard them shuffle out wordlessly, the one I wounded still moaning in pain. The door clicked shut again.
“Mary?”
“You shouldn’t have come here, Richard,” she said softly. I felt her get closer to me. “How did you find me?”
“Blueberries,” I said with a slight smile. “What… let me down… we need to get out of here.”
“You need to leave, sweetie.”
“What? Mary… what’s going on? I c-came for you, let’s…” She touched my face, the warmest and lightest of touches. I felt my legs weaken, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
“I don’t agree with what they did to you but they’ve been kind to me,” she said in little more than a tender whisper. A sudden urge came over me, I leaned forward again, my face covered in blood to kiss her. My lips met hers but she withdrew. “No, we can’t…”
“Why not?”
“It’s wrong! Because… I don’t have to let you do these things to me anymore…”
“I know… I know I might have… started it but I know you liked it, I felt it… how can love be wrong?
“I’m only human, Richard. It had been six years since anybody had touched me, kissed me… any one would have enjoyed it, that doesn’t make it right.”
“Love is love… haven’t I kept you safe and made you feel good and… why won’t you just come with me?”
“They look after me here Richard. They’re well stocked with provisions,” her voice began to crack with emotion, “you can’t stay with us though. As much as it breaks my heart to say this, you can never come back.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
The door opened again. I heard Mary shuffle away.
“How is he?” she asked the newcomer.
“We’ll bury him in the cemetery at dawn.” It was Abraham, I recognised his voice in an instant now and the anger reared its ugly head inside me again. I heard him walk towards me.
“Richard, I tried to warn you. I tried to send you down the righteous path and give you a chance to atone for your sins. Yet, here you are.”
“Unchain me and I’ll begin to atone, right after I rip your throat out. I don’t know what you bastards have done to her but…”
“What we did? We rescued her from your sinful ways. We provided her with warm shelter, protection, food and a chance to rebuild a life… what did you give her Richard? You kept her locked away in fear and raped her…”
“Sinful? You’re the ones that attack and kill people in the night! Don’t you dare sit there and judge me in your high and pious seat, fuck you!”
“I’ve had two chances to kill you and I have not taken them yet on both occasions I have lost a brother to your rage! Even now, I cannot bring myself to pull the trigger on your rifle.”
“You blind me and disguise it as a blessing… don’t make me laugh, I know all about your God and his ways.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“What kind of God would put guns in the hands of children or let planes fly into buildings as innocents went about their day to day lives? What kind of God would make me and the person I love most in this world siblings? A cruel one, that’s what. If he ever existed, he’s left this place and all of us to rot.”
“He gave us a chance to start again Richard. That’s what you fail to see. He gave us a new perspective on life, as I tried to do for you. We will rebuild our lost civilisation. For years we’ve struggled to survive but we’re in a good place now. We have food and supplies to last us for generations, medical supplies and the ability to bring children into this world. Mary’s child will herald a dawning of a new age.”
“Mary’s what…? You’re pregnant?” I asked, breathlessly into the darkness. Her voice replied, meek and afraid.
“Even the sinner may contribute to his divine plan. I took pity on you Richard; I could have left you out there to die from your wounds. I watched you stagger around, blind, your rifle propping you up. But it was my compassion that led me to bring you in, clean you up and tend to your wounds,” Abraham prattled on, I had lost all interest in him, my rage had subsided. All I wanted was Mary.
“Mary… why didn’t you tell me?”
“What good would it do?” she answered softly. “You can’t be involved in the child’s life.”
“Because I have to leave… because I’m a sinner… You’re both full of shit. You sit there and talk of pity and compassion and yet you’re throwing me out. You beasts will never be able to achieve anything anyway, look where religion got you the first time!”
“My hair may be long, my teeth rotted but there’s only one beast here. May God have mercy on you Richard, my mercy has limits. Here, give this back to him, I’ll wait for you inside.” I heard a click and then something small, heavier than a pin, dropped to the floor. Heavy footsteps came towards me and fumbled with the chains around my wrists. My arms finally fell back down to earth, they were heavy and lifeless. I could scarcely lift them. I heard the footsteps fade away, followed by the click of the door handle indicating that Abraham had left.
“You’ve got the gun haven’t you?” I asked glumly. Mary didn’t answer. “You’re pointing it at me aren’t you?”
“Richard… I will always love you but…”
I held my breath. I couldn’t quite tell how long went by in the eerie silence. I waited for the white light to consume me once again. If falling in love with the wrong person was a crime then so be it. I would pay my price gladly; I didn’t want her to be afraid of me anymore. I loved her too damn much.
“There’s a door to your left,” she said finally. “I’m leaving the gun at your feet.” I heard her place it on the floor and then retreat to the door. It clicked open. “I’ve left you a bullet.”
“Will I see you again?” I asked, my lip trembling.
“I… don’t know,” she said, her voice straining. She closed the door.
I fell to my side, utterly exhausted. The floor was warm wood, clean. My limp arms fell in front of me; the tips of my fingers brushed the rifle. I grasped the butt and slowly dragged it towards me with all I had left. I used the rifle one last time to help me sit up. My rifle is my life. I felt like crying. Can I even cry now? I wondered. Can someone cry without tears? The butt nestled perfectly in between my crossed legs. I ran my hand up the smooth barrel and reached the rough edge, worn away by the unorthodox use. I opened my mouth and stuffed the barrel inside, until the tip touched the ridge of my gums. I’ll sin so she doesn’t have too. My rifle is m- the white light took over.

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