Ficbit: The Living Wife
I'm kinda beat today, so I figured I'll post the reason why. I realized it'd been forever since I wrote just to write a story, not with any kind of arc in mind to fit it into. So I wrote love stories until four am even though I had work today. Inspired some by Ane Brun's Humming One of Your Songs and some by the writings of cosmogonic and gogoangelgunboy. Though I know you can't tell either.
1122 words. It's unbetad and a bit rough and probably a bit silly, and there's an overabundance of "most." But I had fun.
It happened one day that the Senior Dead Lord’s wife came to life. It wasn’t certain what happened to cause this, but the Senior Dead Lord mourned her deeply. Many nights passed that he thought only of how he missed her, and many days, too. The Senior Dead Lord was a man of honour and dignity, for although there at this time were many Senior Dead Lords in this place, he took his job most gravely, as one might today when they are many fewer. The Senior Dead Lord was indeed a man of honour, and he worked diligently to hold up his end of the contract he had signed, long since, to serve this place. But his wife was alive, and it ate at him worse than maggots. Many nights, when he could be away from his work, he spent watching her sleep; the rosy tint on her beloved cheek, the rise and fall of her bosom. In the dawn he must leave her, but he always kissed her warm lips and promised to return.
With time, the Senior Dead Lord grew moody and dark of mind. He began watching flowers and colourful butterflies under the green lights of this place. He even began to neglect his duties. Dusk and dawn he could be found humming to himself under a vast tree, spinning a delicate flower between his fingers. All agreed it was most eerie. Suggestions were made that he find himself a new spouse, perhaps less prone to unfortunate accidents. But the Senior Dead Lord maintained that he was already married, and would so remain. That his lady was alive was only a mild misfortune.
When the Senior Dead Lord’s wife had been at life for three witch moons, his peers had all but given up on him. His behaviour remained erratic and very strange, and they said he was overcome by grief, struck mad, and that it was truly quite a shame.
Then the Senior Dead Lord returned, suddenly, to his post. He threw himself most vigorously into work, only detaching himself from ancient tomes at the brink of sunrise and then returning when the sun had but barely set. His peers nodded in satisfaction and grated their teeth. The Senior Dead Lord, they said, was after all a man of honour and dignity; a minor setback could happen to the best but not incapacitate a man such as he. The dry grinding of their vertebrae filled the Dead Halls that night as they all nodded in assent.
Another moon passed, and it became quite clear that the Senior Dead Lord was not entirely well. He spoke oddly, in jumbled rhyme and song, and the pages of the tomes he had read were all interspersed with pressed flowers. A living wife was perhaps enough to drive even the best mad, after all. It wasn’t as if though they had not heard her singing; it very nearly drove them mad, too. And it was not on their ceilings she danced, or they who rushed to her side before dawn for a brief, longing glance. Something, they thought, ought perhaps to be done about this living wife.
Strangely, it was the Senior Dead Lord’s bizarre new interests that settled the matter. One night, when all were bent low over their work, he rose in his place and called into the hall:
”Look upon this flower!”
And they were all so surprised that they did.
”Look!” The Senior Dead Lord held it high in his fingers, a brittle, brownish thing that had, in its way, a certain beauty they had not seen in flowers before. ”This flower was alive not two nights ago, when I plucked it from the ground of my beloved’s garden. It had a most vibrant colour, not unlike that of a freshly-stilled heart. Now look at it!” The Senior Dead Lord’s voice boomed and creaked in the hall, and all looked. ”Dried out and brown, like a body left in hot sands.” He turned his arm so that all might see. ”Dead.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
”Such,” continued the Senior Dead Lord, ”is the way of all life. Such,” and the dry skin of his face creased and flaked in a smile as he brought the flower to his chest, ”is the way of my wife.”
And he sat down and did not move from that spot again for many years. He would not answer any inquiries or, indeed, anything at all; he would only work, and hum softly. Sometimes he would shift, so he did not grow stuck to his seat. But that was all he did for so long that some forgot he had ever done anything else.
Then one evening he stood, abruptly. He shut the tome he was reading with a loud thud and left the hall. The other Senior Dead Lords, a full twenty-and-hundred in number at this time, stared after him as he shuffled past. Spiders who had found him a comfortable place for themselves and many generations of descendants were shaken loose and trailed after him in a confused gravitation towards their habitat. The Senior Dead Lord walked without hesitation. None followed him.
Had they done so, whether another Senior Dead Lord or a dislodged spider, what they would have seen was the Senior Dead Lord striding through this place to the other side. They would have seen him move up a certain hill like a gust of chill autumn wind, towards a certain house, and they would have seen him enter that house without ever touching the door. If they had followed him still, they might have seen him beside a bed, holding the brittle, warm hand of a living woman. Her bones were nearly as stark as his, her skin nearly as creased and dry. She did not have his round, yellow eyes, nor the greenish pallor of his skin, but she heaved one rattling, stuttering sigh and was as still as he. The Senior Dead Lord sat for some time with the cooling body, her bony hand in his. When she was cold he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the resting place they had shared, before she was alive.
After a while she opened her eyes and, seeing him, smiled.
”I had such a strange dream, my husband; I dreamed I was alive and could not see you. It was such a terrible dream.”
The Senior Dead Lord squeezed her fingers, leaned down to kiss her. ”All that is over now, my wife.”
And whatever had happened the first time, the Senior Dead Lord’s wife did not come to life again, and they remained together and were happy.
1122 words. It's unbetad and a bit rough and probably a bit silly, and there's an overabundance of "most." But I had fun.
It happened one day that the Senior Dead Lord’s wife came to life. It wasn’t certain what happened to cause this, but the Senior Dead Lord mourned her deeply. Many nights passed that he thought only of how he missed her, and many days, too. The Senior Dead Lord was a man of honour and dignity, for although there at this time were many Senior Dead Lords in this place, he took his job most gravely, as one might today when they are many fewer. The Senior Dead Lord was indeed a man of honour, and he worked diligently to hold up his end of the contract he had signed, long since, to serve this place. But his wife was alive, and it ate at him worse than maggots. Many nights, when he could be away from his work, he spent watching her sleep; the rosy tint on her beloved cheek, the rise and fall of her bosom. In the dawn he must leave her, but he always kissed her warm lips and promised to return.
With time, the Senior Dead Lord grew moody and dark of mind. He began watching flowers and colourful butterflies under the green lights of this place. He even began to neglect his duties. Dusk and dawn he could be found humming to himself under a vast tree, spinning a delicate flower between his fingers. All agreed it was most eerie. Suggestions were made that he find himself a new spouse, perhaps less prone to unfortunate accidents. But the Senior Dead Lord maintained that he was already married, and would so remain. That his lady was alive was only a mild misfortune.
When the Senior Dead Lord’s wife had been at life for three witch moons, his peers had all but given up on him. His behaviour remained erratic and very strange, and they said he was overcome by grief, struck mad, and that it was truly quite a shame.
Then the Senior Dead Lord returned, suddenly, to his post. He threw himself most vigorously into work, only detaching himself from ancient tomes at the brink of sunrise and then returning when the sun had but barely set. His peers nodded in satisfaction and grated their teeth. The Senior Dead Lord, they said, was after all a man of honour and dignity; a minor setback could happen to the best but not incapacitate a man such as he. The dry grinding of their vertebrae filled the Dead Halls that night as they all nodded in assent.
Another moon passed, and it became quite clear that the Senior Dead Lord was not entirely well. He spoke oddly, in jumbled rhyme and song, and the pages of the tomes he had read were all interspersed with pressed flowers. A living wife was perhaps enough to drive even the best mad, after all. It wasn’t as if though they had not heard her singing; it very nearly drove them mad, too. And it was not on their ceilings she danced, or they who rushed to her side before dawn for a brief, longing glance. Something, they thought, ought perhaps to be done about this living wife.
Strangely, it was the Senior Dead Lord’s bizarre new interests that settled the matter. One night, when all were bent low over their work, he rose in his place and called into the hall:
”Look upon this flower!”
And they were all so surprised that they did.
”Look!” The Senior Dead Lord held it high in his fingers, a brittle, brownish thing that had, in its way, a certain beauty they had not seen in flowers before. ”This flower was alive not two nights ago, when I plucked it from the ground of my beloved’s garden. It had a most vibrant colour, not unlike that of a freshly-stilled heart. Now look at it!” The Senior Dead Lord’s voice boomed and creaked in the hall, and all looked. ”Dried out and brown, like a body left in hot sands.” He turned his arm so that all might see. ”Dead.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
”Such,” continued the Senior Dead Lord, ”is the way of all life. Such,” and the dry skin of his face creased and flaked in a smile as he brought the flower to his chest, ”is the way of my wife.”
And he sat down and did not move from that spot again for many years. He would not answer any inquiries or, indeed, anything at all; he would only work, and hum softly. Sometimes he would shift, so he did not grow stuck to his seat. But that was all he did for so long that some forgot he had ever done anything else.
Then one evening he stood, abruptly. He shut the tome he was reading with a loud thud and left the hall. The other Senior Dead Lords, a full twenty-and-hundred in number at this time, stared after him as he shuffled past. Spiders who had found him a comfortable place for themselves and many generations of descendants were shaken loose and trailed after him in a confused gravitation towards their habitat. The Senior Dead Lord walked without hesitation. None followed him.
Had they done so, whether another Senior Dead Lord or a dislodged spider, what they would have seen was the Senior Dead Lord striding through this place to the other side. They would have seen him move up a certain hill like a gust of chill autumn wind, towards a certain house, and they would have seen him enter that house without ever touching the door. If they had followed him still, they might have seen him beside a bed, holding the brittle, warm hand of a living woman. Her bones were nearly as stark as his, her skin nearly as creased and dry. She did not have his round, yellow eyes, nor the greenish pallor of his skin, but she heaved one rattling, stuttering sigh and was as still as he. The Senior Dead Lord sat for some time with the cooling body, her bony hand in his. When she was cold he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the resting place they had shared, before she was alive.
After a while she opened her eyes and, seeing him, smiled.
”I had such a strange dream, my husband; I dreamed I was alive and could not see you. It was such a terrible dream.”
The Senior Dead Lord squeezed her fingers, leaned down to kiss her. ”All that is over now, my wife.”
And whatever had happened the first time, the Senior Dead Lord’s wife did not come to life again, and they remained together and were happy.