He Played the Fiddle

My great grandfather died when I was a toddler... On the anniversary of his passing I found myself going over the murky memories of his funeral and started typing.

The seats smell rotten, as if the tears of centuries have settled in and begun festering. The way it nestles into the back of your nose and anchors itself there seems like a morbid promise. It is a scent that makes a home of your memories, venturing out to remind you of its dark presence only when another life has been lost. 

 My little eyes, unusually bright for a two year old, seek a familiar face in the heavy crowd of black clothing and withered sighs. They find one after a few moments and glue themselves to its features. Its cheeks are wet, dripping more agonized nourishment onto the rotten seat below. Its red nose buries itself into a hand kerchief, blowing out slime in an impressive show of noise. This face belongs to my mother, its then unwrinkled skin shadowed by curly brown hair. I reach out two grubby hands, already dirty after having been scrubbed clean only an hour before, and tangle them in that hair. It wraps around my little fingers as if alive, and I giggle. “Hush, Brie.” Her pale lips part to admonish me, but the voice that issues forth does not belong to her. 

 It belongs to something far older, far more frightening. 

 The laughter leaves me in an instant as my developing instincts tell me something has gone devastatingly wrong. I turn my gaze away, searching the faces around me. It looks back at me from all directions, casting a chill over me that threatens to bring out my infamous cry. I have yet no name for this Being that has taken over the faces of everyone I recognize, but He frightens me to the core.

 I suck in a breath, my tiny lip trembling against the unnamed pain welling up inside my chest. My mother’s hand pats my head, reassuring me. I cannot take it anymore. I hop off of that awful seat with its deathly smell and run away from my mother’s cry. I have to get away, but a giant brown wall suddenly bars my way. The smell here has changed, taking on a sickly sweet nature that seems somehow worse than the former. There are white flowers everywhere, distracting me from that which had spurred my flight only an instant prior. I reach out, intent on taking one for my own, but a wrinkled hand falls into existence and strikes mine away. I yelp and swing my head up ready to scream at my attacker only to find my utterance frozen in my throat. 

 My great grandmother stands over me, her frail figure seeming to stretch ten feet in the air. From her face pour rivers of pain, but behind them a frenzied fury has twisted her lips into a scowl. She hisses at me, and I scramble away towards the wooden box in which I know my great grandfather sleeps. I knock on it with a closed fist, hoping to wake him and tell on her, but he does not respond. 

 “Sweetheart…” Her voice drifts down to me, devoid of the anger that had just given me such a fright. She kneels down and opens her arms to me. With the forgetfulness of youth, I run to her and cocoon myself in the first welcome scent that has touched my senses in hours. 

 “Papa’s not waking up, dear… He’s not waking up…” She says it over and over again, but even my inexperienced instincts understand that it is not me to whom she speaks. She is speaking to herself, to my mother, to my Papa. She is speaking to God.

  She is saying Goodbye.

Author's Note

Please be honest :)

Reviews

[Francis Orion]

Your story is very well written. You could feel the sense of confusion a toddler would feel going through this ordeal. Also, the grief felt by grandmother is well done. The story to me also had a haunting element. I feel the way you told the story was unique. Very nice job.

[Briana]

Thank you very much! The grief was my biggest fear in trying to portray, and I almost didn't write post this at all for my grandmother's sake. I'm glad I did, though. I never thought I'd get so many lovely reviews!

[Dawn Dreamer]

Oh my gosh! For a moment, you brought my back to my own toddler years, and I felt as confused and frightened as Brie in the story. Excellent writing!

[Briana]

Thank you so very much! This took a long time of work!

[Nora]

You write with such a beauty and it brought a tear to my eye. It flows exquisitely and I longed to read on. Thank you for sharing such a precious memory, I greatly enjoyed reading your story. :)

[Briana]

I'm pleased beyond words by your kind review!

[Hopkirk]

The image of a child knocking on a coffin is deeply moving. I really enjoyed the style of writing and changes in pace, especially at the moment when the voice issues forth.
I might be tempted to simplify some of the vocabulary to match the child's perception but that's not to say the words you used didn't paint a very vivid picture.
I've only just joined so I'm going to ignore the score box as I've no idea what the sites standards are and don't want to get it wrong.

[Briana]

Thank you very much! I thought of doing a little lowering of the words used but then decided if I started it would be too difficult to decide what to keep and what to change. There's very little a two-year-old can actually say or think, so I decided just to go with my gut.

The score box can't be used wrong unless you use it to punish people you don't like. It's a matter of opinion, and so long as you're being honest a score of 0 is just as valid as a score of 100.

[Lavorther]

A deeply emotional story, at the end i had tears in my eyes. Amazing how you were able to describe the way a small child experiences the situation and reacts to it. Simply beautiful.

[Briana]

Thank you so much! This was a hard story to write!

[Dhanadeepa Dixit]

You're a deeply talented writer. You don't overdo descriptions and keep the words pinpoint and well-chosen. The whole story kept me reading from beginning to end without losing interest, which is so rare even for published authors. Just a peaceful warning careful not to overdo the florid language (which thus far you have'nt).

Excellent work (:

[Briana]

Thank you so very much! I can't begin to express what it means to read this!

[alifeacoustic]

A beautiful write on the confusion and innocence of childhood. The sadness surrounding an innocent mind and the comfort of those words, spoken not to you, but as dreadful confirmation to the speaker. Beautifully penned. Thank you for sharing this.

[Briana]

Thank you for such lovely words! I don't have any memories of his face, only a hazy image of him on stage with his fiddle and those of the funeral.

[alifeacoustic]

You're very welcome :)

[William Richards]

Hi Briana, I really enjoyed your story. Great title by the way, characterising and interesting all-in-one.

Just a few grammatical things: 'great grandmother' probably should be 'great-grandmother', and 'two year old', should be 'two-year-old'. No biggie, but for some readers it might create a disconnect.

Otherwise many things done well in this piece. I liked some of the phrases like 'the tears of centuries' and 'withered sighs.'

I also like how a 2-year-old recognises the strange power of sadness over the people she knows and how she can't quite work out what is going on. I liked how you described this without feeling the need to write in a 2-year-old's vernacular - which would be rather limited. Mind you that might be a challenge!

Well done and keep writing!

[Briana]

Thank you so much! Honestly, I'm just awful at remembering my dash's. For some reason they are something I consistently miss when I write. I'm so pleased by your review! And now off I go to happily return the favor!

[Arezzo]

I wanted to say that it's "beautiful", but that's not the word. "Haunting", "touching".

You do a remarkable thing here - you show us how a two-year-old experiences the world. Part of it is an acute series of sense impressions, part is a swirl of emotional cues, which she picks up from the adults, and yet another part is an atavistic instinct which tells her with assurance that death is not a good thing to be around.

You give the whole thing an immediacy so stark that it's almost painful by telling the narrative in the simple present tense.

It's a deeply impressive piece of writing.

[Briana]

I barely have words to thank you for such a kind and elegant review... This was an extremely emotional story to write, and I'm so pleased to know that even a small piece of that made it onto the page. Thank you again for your lovely review!

[Arezzo]

For some reason, I'm having trouble opening your full comment. I'm pleased, anyway, that you liked my review.

[katie]

This is wonderful! Perfectly captured the sadnesses of a wake and the fear of a child who can't yet understand loss. I felt as though I was there. Keep writing!

[Briana]

Thank you so much! I'm sorry for the squished formatting!