I remember fearing him—and as he approached, trying to curl into myself, until I’d become a shadowed void he’d miss entirely amongst the gnarled, velveteen roots. But my body just lay there still. A windsong played about me, calling to him, beckoning him to come closer. He stood above me, and I felt him immense in stature, intense in being, but my fear soon shifted to a curiosity of this legend standing before me. I tried with all my might to piece together a coherent sentence as he knelt down beside me, but stuttering breaths and welled tears were all that escaped. He softly brushed the blood-matted hair from my eyes, and in doing so captured my tears on his finger, like iridescent armored entities, letting them scurry from his hand to the mossy bed beneath us.
He patiently studied my face with his eyes and his hands. I had memories of voices distant, echoing off the back of my skull, speaking of his harsh, chilly touch, but his fingers were warm like mid-May sunlight and he was soft; his hands, his eyes, how he looked at me, soft like twilight. He finally laid himself beside me, wrapping his arms about my body, and he smelled of fulfilled hours, bound histories. And then he spoke to me, and his words whispered into my ear felt like childhood security and tasted like entombed truths unearthed from myths.
‘You’re not meant for this.’
He sat up, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree, and tenderly pulled me into his lap. I was weakening and incapable of moving my limbs, so he cradled me childlike in his arms. He leant his forehead against mine, his right hand placed above my heart, and he told me to be patient and to trust him. He calmly instructed me to study the tree, all the life living about me, and nourish myself with all I learned from bearing witness to their strength, resilience, and will. He told me I would know when it was time to become one, that it would feel like a lunar tug on tidal lines, and that my first inhale would feel like my throat was engulfed in flames, but to not panic, and that he would always be near to me, and would one day return for me.
My breathing felt like an unnecessary chore and gradually ceased, but with each of my last exhales, he would inhale my breath into his lungs and lift his head to the leaves—a bordeaux depth that hinted to scarlet fire, as he exhaled a breeze of my essence that blew gently through the boughs. He pressed his hand to my chest, and I felt it work through my flesh and sink into and beyond my ribs—his palm about my heart as it beat one final time—his hand cupping that heartbeat, pulling it from my lifeless cavity, and thrusting his fist in between two moss cushioned roots, burying my pulse in the soil that cradled and nourished the maple that had become my deathbed.
He held me tight, rocking me to the rhythm of sunlight streaming through swaying leaves, as a feral scream escaped him, clawing its way through the atmosphere, and reverberating off the sound of a shovel slicing through earth. He struggled with letting me go, but eventually he laid my body atop the roots, his countenance darkening as he stepped aside, watching my murderer approach me, carelessly picking me up and walking me to the other side of the tree, where he dropped my body in the hole he dug at the foot of the maple, his voice winded as he said aloud, ‘You always loved this tree.’
He continued to watch in disgust and rage, his jaw set in hard angles, his eyes an undefined shade of hate, as my murderer filled in my grave and walked away without a hint of remorse in his footfalls and posture.
He stayed there by my grave for some time, the weight of my death and the intent of his actions bearing down on him; he had only committed himself to such a decision once before, and he knew the implications of his actions, he knew full well he would be met with anger and severe repercussions, as he had vowed after the last incident to never expand his purpose again—because you see, only One wields the power to return life to the dead, but for me, Death blatantly overstepped his boundaries and made an exception to the One’s inviolable rule.
{Excerpt}. E.A. O'Connell. 2018
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