Alone in this Grave of Ours

A chill overcomes me.  Alone, I wake alone in this pit of mine.  It is my pit, yet somehow I share it with another; is it then mine, if not mine alone?  Stirring, I shrug off the snow and deadened leaves which have settled upon me.  How long have I slept?  I cannot remember.  It must have been an eternity, outcast within this pit of ours.  Yes, it is not my pit alone.  I somehow know this; yet how can I not remember such a basic thing as to why?

 

“Welcome to this pit of mine,” echoes a soft voice beside me, the voice of a child.  Turning towards the voice I am overwhelmed by the explosion of color.  Lying beside me in this dreary white is a small girl, dressed in the most potent of crimson.  Such color, in a pit such as this, seems æthereal.  I have an urge, more overwhelming than the cloth draped upon her slight frame, to reach out and stroke her long pale hair--such contrast.  How could I not wish to stroke her hair?  She seems almost like a doll, so fragile, as if she might break from the slightest touch.  With this thought I withdraw my not yet outstretched hand; I cannot touch.

 

She stares beyond me, looking right through me.  At first I feel she is looking at something greater than myself, but with sudden realization I know she is within complete darkness.  Her milky green eyes seem to glow with an emptiness that I cannot fathom.  How can emptiness fill something?  How can her milky green eyes, so vacant, seem to glow?  This question haunts me, and now her eyes are all I see; any thoughts of her pale skin, her soft crimson dress--such thoughts are gone.  All that remains are those clouded eyes.

 

“You should not focus on these blind eyes of mine,” scolds the small girl, “For you have a wrong you must right.”

 

These words make no sense; what wrong could I, should I, set right?  I delve within my mind, but it is as vacant as her eyes.  How should I respond?  I quietly confess, “I do not know what wrong has been done.”

 

The girl shrieks with harsh, sharp laughter, “Here you are, with only myself to speak with.  Yet you cannot remember?  Cannot remember the greatest crime committed against you?”

 

I hang my head in shame, I know not why.  Is it so shameful to forget?  But the girl’s scorn realizes within me the knowledge that I must be ashamed.  I don’t know why, but I must be ashamed because I know not why.”

 

“You have not always been alone,” remarks the girl, in an offhanded manner, “Another once shared this pit of ours.  Another...”  She fades off with these last words.  A feeling of unease shivers through me.

 

No matter how hard I try to remember, I cannot recall another.  I know only this feeling of isolation.  Again, the stab of shame, her words must be true.  I would only feel shame for that which I don’t know--if it is a truth which I had overlooked.  So surely the girl spoke the truth, how else could I explain this shame I felt?

 

“He wronged you, and he must pay.  You must collect our vengeance.” murmurs the girl with a hint of fervor in her words.  Her body feels so warm beside me, even if her words seem so cold.  A fervid chill, how odd.

 

I shamefully confess yet again, “I do not know who this man is.”

 

She regards me with little but scorn, “You don’t remember, even the man who has wronged you?”

 

I already know it makes little sense, but does it matter so much, to not remember?  Memory is a fickle mistress, never to be trusted; why then must all be expected to hold such a thing so dearly?  Does not holding the fickle close injure one in the end?

 

The girl snarls, almost as though she can hear my every thought, “We must always remember.  Alone in this pit, it is all we have--if we look away, we will lose sight of what we must do--never forget, never forgive!”

 

Her warm hands seize me, trying to tear me away from my desired inaction, “Come!  Come!  A wrong must be set right, and the debtor must pay!”

 

I struggle against her, a losing battle, “I wish only to sleep alone!  If I cannot remember, it must be of little importance; if it was important, I would remember it.  I don’t wish to seek justice against the petty deeds of others!”

 

Breathing heavily into my face, lips drawn near, she assures me confidently, “But it is, it is no small thing.  He left us here.”  I can feel the warmth of her body radiating outward, yet I cannot feel her breath.  There is nothing, how odd.

 

I silently moan, “Why must I do this?  Can you not go and right it yourself?  Leave me here, I have no reason to follow.”  I do not wish to pursue a memory which has long since deserted me.  Is it not futile?

 

The girl’s eyes widen, even as her milky eyes remain vacant.  It is unsettling, to see eyes which hold nothing, try and show emotion.  Grabbing me roughly with her small arms, which no longer seem so fragile, she snarls at my mute complaint, “I, go alone?  It would never work.  We need each other, we can never right the wrong alone!”

 

Frustration tugs at me, why must I right this great wrong?  It is the worst committed against me, the me I do not know.  Shall I travel the world to avenge a mere stranger?  That is all I am!  Even 'stranger' seems too intimate a word.

 

The girl pleads with me, “You can see, I need you.  We need you!  We will never reach our absolution with my blind eyes alone!  We need you to carry out my vengeance.”

 

“But I remember nothing, I would not know him if I saw him.”

 

Exploding with laughter the girl asks me, “Is that all?  Because you cannot remember the crime, you will remain here?  Idly close your eyes to all, and sleep eternally in this perpetual snow?  How silly, how utterly absurd!  You do not need direction to reach your destination.  If you but walk, you will eventually reach it.”

 

Her words contradict; am I not blind as well?  I grudgingly ask, “If one does not need direction, why can you not find your destination; even in the darkness?”

 

With a rolling chuckle, the girl answers, “How would I know him if I cannot see?”

 

I snap harshly, “How shall I know him if I do not know him!”  I do not mean to sound so forceful, but I feel frustrated towards myself, and towards these answers.  Who wouldn’t be?  Why should I be expected to, expect myself to?

 

The girl smiles, letting silence answer, evade, this question of mine.  Her frosted blond hair, almost as white as the snow itself, obscures her face from me.  I know she is smiling because I know it to be so--such things can be known.

 

Seizing my arm she pulls me up.  Without thinking, simply following the momentum, I strive forward, easily leaving the pit.

 

“Was his only crime dragging us within this pit?  For it seems so simple to leave.  Surely this could be no great wrong.” I ponder aloud.  But a few steps and it is as though the crime never happened.

 

The girl scoffs, “Yes, it was his crime.  But you cannot fathom the depths of this sin.  You cannot even remember his face, nor why you were placed in this pit, all alone.  Why then, in your ignorance, do you seek to question its severity?  I told you it was the greatest crime, is my word not enough for you?”

 

Somehow it seems so petty, how could something like this actually matter?  “I am no longer alone in that pit, the wrong has already been set right,” I try to reason with the girl.

 

“No longer alone in the pit?  Look around you!” she commands me.

 

I look around me; it is a forest, a taiga--an endless sea of trees.  The trees stretch into eternity, the snow indiscriminately covering each of their roots.  Each tree looks so weak and fragile, so easily toppled.  I am struck by the silence, it is complete.  “So this is what it is like to be alone in a sea of trees?” Somehow it seems lonelier than the pit--how can it be lonelier?

 

The girl solemnly replies to my unspoken question, “In the pit you at least had your walls; the earth around you, like a womb, to protect you from the openness of these trees.  Here on the endless horizon you don’t eve have the comfort of surrounding walls.  You have nothing, not even your pit.  You are alone, alone in this forest of superficial lives.”

 

The impact of her words stab my heart like a sword of ice; I was truly alone, alone in this forest which was never mine.  But still... the pit lies behind me.  I can still crawl back into its embrace, back into that pit of mine.

 

The girl shakes her head slowly, as if in pity, “You can never return to the pit.  You have left, there is no return.”

 

I turn towards the pit; it seems so small, like a shallow grave.  Surely climbing back in would be every bit as easy as climbing out of this grave of mine.

 

Tears form on the small girl’s cheeks, tearing at my heart.  She, with soft lips moving slowly, mourns, “Even if you enter the pit, you will never be able to leave the forest of trees.  Earthen walls will give you no comfort, for beyond them is the taiga.”

 

I had already been amongst these trees before, even if I had never realized it.  Yet somehow I know her words to be true, not from shame, but rather by the emptiness I feel; would I feel such a thing if it was not true?  No, I know I could not.  Sinking to my knees I only want to end myself, but I cannot remember how.  To sleep eternally amongst such lonely trees, I cannot bring myself to resign.  But then, what must I do?

 

I must have uttered the last words aloud; the girl crouches beside me and prompts, “We must right what has been wronged.  He who placed us in this forest of trees, so very alone, he must suffer as we have!”

 

I now understand, this was truly the greatest crime perpetrated against me.  I might be more distant to myself than a stranger, but in a forsaken forest such as this, I have no other.  Even if I am without knowledge, I know that I must carry out this painful vengeance.  I have a destination, even without direction.

 

“I understand now, just how greatly I have been wronged,” I murmur.

 

“No, you have not yet understood the gravity of this crime.” replies the girl, a grim look on her face.  She no longer looks like a delicate young girl, so much as a frail woman of great age--her hair now blondan to me.  “Now come, you already climbed out, you might as well finish what you set out to do.”

 

Had I set out to do anything?  Such a thing hardly matters, if I can seek justice against a man I don’t know for a crime that I don’t remember, then perhaps my original intent towards this whole ordeal is irrelevant.  Turning away from my grave, I begin walking, where to, I did not know.  I will eventually find the man who cost me so much, wronged me so deeply.

 

The lady in red, her white hair trailing in the gentle falling snow, followed me closely, grasping me with her withered hand.  Her grip upon mine--unnatural.  It’s a grip I will never escape--something so frail with such a grip upon myself--for she does not merely grasp my hand.  Yet even with the lady pressing in behind me, I am still so terribly alone; for she simply clings behind me, a burden I cannot shake.  Should a burden be a comrade; a comrade a burden?

 

Years pass, years of wandering in the snow; or so I feel.  Eventually the forests are but a distant memory, replaced by barren tundra as far as the eye can see.  An endless snow devoid of even the trees I had once found so lonely; how I have grown to miss those trees.  Without even grass, only a field of snow below and a heaven of white above, not even a horizon to look towards; everything fades into the same--a world without direction.  I finally understand loneliness.  

 

Like the horizon that I cannot see, everything becomes blurred and distorted in my mind, except the realization that I wander alone, searching for someone whom I have never known.  A lifetime of searching, exactly how long I do not know, and I found nothing... nothing.  Neither the man whom I searched for, nor what my purpose has been; how ironic, a horizon that I cannot see.

 

The woman in red remains silent, never again guiding my heavy footsteps, yet never allowing me to stop my endless stride.  I dare not look back, fearing the face that will gaze back.  Besides, what purpose is there in looking?  In this void land, was there anything to be seen behind me?  I have no choice but to look forward; I am a slave to a destination I can never possibly know; shackled by a companion that had never been.

 

At last I come to realize that this man had not simply left me alone in that grave of mine, nor had he left me alone in a sea of trees I had never known... No, this man left me alone, completely alone with my stranger self, in a world alien to myself; a world I could not possibly come to understand.  How can I right a wrong I can never understand?  And left with nothing to understand, I finally understand; I have nothing.

 

As my vision too fades away, my sight growing dark like the endless night which inevitably sets, leaving even the barren tundra behind.  Wandering an empty land without form, I realize my destination--one I have been too blinded by my sight to see--it is truly a destination without direction.  Who had cast me into this lonely, most miserable, existence?  Who had thrown me into my grave?  The girl?  No...  I have always been alone in this world alien to me.

 

The man I have sought all these years, the one who wronged me so deeply?  It was no other than the stranger of myself; and with this realization I understand just how deeply I have been wronged; a sin so great that the punishment for the guilty would never end.  It is a wrong that I will never be able to right alone, but alone I am.  I weep, weep as I walk, always walking, because I finally understand, and I can never return.

 

Always walking, always alone.

 

Reviews

[Woody]

breathtaking, Nusquam! I know I've said it often enough but I can't but repeat that your writes can stand side by side to the masterpieces of great writers on a bookshelf.
you're so good with the soul searching and the self discovery. what a talent, my friend!

[Nusquam Esse]

Thanks for reading; I am glad that you enjoyed this one... It was actually my first attempt at writing a short story. I wrote it on a sudden mood, while listening to music... so I just vented the ideas that were fogging up my mind... put it in a drawer, and forgot about it for a few months. I came across it later on and thought, "It isn't quite there, but for a first try, perhaps I can compare with the 'masters'..." And that is what really got me to start writing short stories in earnest. This piece is definitely close to my heart, since it was more emotional and self-discovering than many other things I had written. There is always that special place in the heart for your 'first' of something.

[Mister_Sir]

Son of a b***h, Esse. You never cease to amaze me. I love the allegorical nature of the story. Seriously, I'm so freaking jealous of your talent, man. The little girl archtype made the story especially fascinating for me, especially when her darker gaze was introduced. That kind of thing always pulls me in. An the fact that the story ends in a kind of tragedy also appeals to me greatly. It's an overall masterpiece.

Neurotically yours,
Mister Splitbrain

[For Who I Am]

This is an awe struck poem to me! I love the suspense and darkness behind each and every word. They speak for themselves leaving a trace of sadness. You have great creativity! Keep up the great work!!

[Raymond Federle]

Ahhh my kind of story... wonderful! :)

[Pax]

“Always walking, always alone.”

Ahh, the story goes really well. I find this piece have come close to my soul. Maybe because I had written something like this, the concept and the emptiness are quite relatable.

In realization of the relatable concept, I have come to retrace my steps back into my old pieces, two of them to be exact. All of which are self-reflective, and quite personal. And this piece does feels like to me, yet imagery and the mystery it sounds fictional. Maybe because the mysterious man who had wronged this woman in this piece seems so vague, like the reason was not fully reveal. It only focus on the reason why without a full realization. Perhaps that’s the point of this piece, having vague reasons of the emptiness that is felt but to me, in my opinion that is also the reason why this piece lack something.

You have done a very nice job on creating the feelings and relaying it to the readers. It leaves us in questions, leaving us in the darkness of loneliness, like there is no single flicker of hope near the end of the story, and I guess that is you point, job done well. I really felt the emotional emptiness on this piece, on that matter you did really well too… thanks for sharing such wonderful story.

[roarke]

Quite an interesting journey of self discovery, a painfully emerging realization. Yet half way through I got an alternate thought of it being the emergence of an Adam and Eve archetype that were looking for their sense of belief. You build intriguing worlds and populate them with very cerebral characters. Add in a touch of tangible reality and relevance here and there so the reader can keep up. Nice work.