Originally appeared in the now defunct Journal of Microliterature, July 7, 2013

Mistress

Fog saunters down like a long, deliberate kiss from the heavens. Rabbits dance over my soil – a quilt – this blanket of Mother Earth. Termites are the gluttonous little devils aiding my escape.

I was found lying in a field, face down, hoping for one last breath, one more word, a moment of truth. My judge and jury came to see me only to witness my death on display. They watched in fear that I would rise again. Seek revenge. So they confined me. Allowed me to rot, while above me they planted a tree.

The roots tickled when they first entered. Then they latched on, grasping, choking. What once coursed through veins, now throbbed and gushed through the roots, the trunk, and the branches of a fledgling oak.

But there’s solace in the coffin; peace in the jutting nails that hold me, embrace me. The knotty pattern above tangles and twists. The curves…free floating clouds. My eyelids heavy, pressed hard, guided by gravity, against my sockets. They shield my mind from going any further, further from this sheet of skin.

I can hear the wind, howling the way it does, like a lost forgotten animal led by a cold and distant moon. Above me I hear the crisp crumple of brittle leaves. Footsteps approach: kittens, wolves, a fox – no matter to me now. A bird perches on the stone – my pillow, my unmarked pillow. I listen for … friend or foe, snow and thunder, the sound of thoughts. My limbs like branches, I stretch.

Words slide from the tongue: so simple, so vague. Other words stutter, tempt, dance, but few know how to let them lead. Dark angels have stronger wings. Temptation makes most of us good.

But with a soul that stinks of fortitude, here lies my naked carcass, cold and hollow. I remember what I forgot to say, the secrets I kept, the love I denied …I cannot remember the hour of my death. So I am weathered flesh, frightened, quivering, the skin hugging my skeleton. This bone in my neck that touches no others I call Truth. It is fractured like the lies that infest.

Author’s note: “Mistress” was inspired by a trip to the Chesterville witch’s grave in Chesterville, IL. It is said that the witch is buried in an unmarked grave and her spirit confined to the tree planted above her. Should the tree ever fall, her spirit will be released.