The Taste of Sorrow

When the world ends, there's no room for insanity.

This is a poem written by Waldo Williams, translated from the Welsh by Menna Elfyn. It goes like this:

 

“What is staying alive? To possess   

A great hall inside of a cell.

What is it to know? The same root

Underneath the branches.

 

What is it to believe? Being a carer   

Until relief takes over.

And to forgive? On fours through thorns

To keep company to an old enemy.

 

What is it to sing? To receive breath

From the genius of creation.

What's work but humming a song

From wood and wheat.

 

What are state affairs? A craft

That's still only crawling?

And armaments? Thrust a knife

In a baby's fist.

 

Being a nation? What can it be? A gift

In the swell of the heart.

And to love a country? Keeping house

In a cloud of witnesses.

 

What's the world to the all powerful?

A circle spinning.

And to the children of the earth?

A cradle rocking.”

 

The first time I read that poem was in ninth grade, in a book of translated poems my English teacher gave me. In a way, it moved me, and it still does, but in a much different way than it did then. What was it to be alive, when you had nothing?

I had nothing. Everything was taken from me. My home, my family, my earth, my love. But they still had everything, because they took mine. They took my everything. No, they didn’t take it. They tore him from existence, ripped his soul out of his body, the breath from his lungs. They stole the thoughts from his consciousness, the beat from his heart. And for what? A f*****g misunderstanding.

In return, I took their everything: life.

I was dead before I killed everyone. I was just a being who could move and breathe and think, but really, I was dead.

Everyone really wasn’t a lot. By then, it was about forty people, which is enough to give me a one-way ticket to hell, not that I gave a s**t. I used to believe in God.

When the world ended, there were the asses like me who just sat back and watched spitefully. I watched the sky explode, sitting next to the only man who had ever loved me, the only man who I had ever loved. Fingers intertwined, we watched the world burn, ready to burn together with it.

It never happened. All the people who accepted death, like us, lived. Irony sure is a funny thing.

We all found each other, the survivors. There had been over two hundred of us, all curious and wondering why the hell we weren’t all dead. We settled in the U.S., in what used to be Rhode Island. Why there, I had no f*****g idea. I was from Michigan, but what the hell ever. The state wasn’t as affected as some of the others, plus the weather was temperate, so everyone was happy at least once a year. I guess those were pretty good factors. We were all living in random, wrecked places. When we finally found a permanent settlement, there were less than seventy people left. Lots of suicides. Irony sure is a funny thing.

The place was an antique shop; the building had survived extremely well through the ending of the world. However, sleeping next to the shelf full of rusty work tools did not help me feel safe, or at home, but Dimitri did. He would hold me close and tell me that we were gonna be okay. For awhile, I believed him.

Groups of five or six were sent to find food every now and then, and we would just pick out what they found, which I noticed was less and less every time. We couldn’t be normal people and die from cancer or just plain old age, nope, we decided killing each other was the best solution.

Well, that was a little exaggerative. One person, I don’t f*****g remember his name, he didn’t deserve to be remembered anyway, went bat s**t crazy on us. He was screaming and swearing, holding a seriously rusty saw that could give someone tetanus with a scratch, vaccine in the last ten years or not. Everyone tried to calm him down, but when he literally started foaming at the mouth, we all got a little more than scared.

Dimitri had told me to go hide, so I did, behind a little shelf with old teacups on it. I put my back to it, looking for something to defend myself with because hey, this guy had snapped and no one f*****g knew what was going to happen.

The only thing remotely dangerous in the small room was the glass on the picture frames.

Or so I thought until I saw the two really big scythes leaning against the wall.

I grabbed one carefully and as quietly as I could, not wanting to stab myself on accident or something or cause anything attention to myself. I mean I’m hiding, aren’t I? Damn, that thing was heavy. And it wasn’t even sharp"it was duller than a spoon and as rusty as all hell. It would do, I guess, if a crazed man charged at me with a rusty saw. I had more distance on my weapon that he did, but the curve of it made it kind of awkward.

Turns out I used that scythe to kill everybody. Very Grim Reaper, I know, but instead I’m stealing life instead of souls, or whatever the hell he does.

I was sitting there for literally an hour. There was a clock across from where I was sitting. It was way too quiet, so I crept out of my space, leaning the scythe against the shelf because it was too damn heavy to carry without breaking something. I entered the main room, seeing the people standing in a semi-circle. Dimitri was included, and I ran over to him. I looked down and saw the guy who had gone insane on the floor, unconscious.

“We can’t just kill him,” one woman said.

A balding man with a heavy Southern accent by the name of Justin spoke up, “Why not? He’s crazy, and obviously poses as a threat.”

“Would you want to be killed just because you lost your mind?” she retorted.

He was quiet for a moment, “For the safety of mankind, yes, I would.”

There was a very long silence as everyone stared at the man on the ground, drool rolling down his cheek. It was very unnerving.

Dimitri spoke up, “We shouldn’t kill him. What would that make us?”

The Justin shot him a look, “What are you sayin’, boy?”

Dimitri gave a cold look back, “All I mean is that it would be inhumane if we killed him. I’m sure there’s something to bind him with. Maybe this is temporary.”

“I think you’re insulting me, kid. You’re disagreein’ with my opinions and I think there’s a subliminal message in your words. I think you’re calling me inhumane ‘cause I think we should take care of this guy,” he said, leaning forward and clenching his fists.

Dimitri put his hands up defensively, “Whoah, I never said that. Just calm down. I think we all just need to relax.”

“Relax!” he cried, “Relax so you can tie us all up when we least expect it? Huh? Is that what you wanna do, son? Maybe we should tie you up!” He rose his fist, and a few of the other people were nodding their heads, some mumbling their agreement.

Dimitri creased his eyebrows, “Guys, guys, no, I didn’t say that, I don’t mean that, just calm down, I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I don’t want anybody hurting anybody else. Let’s just talk about this guy some more, he’s the initial problem.”

The Southern man pointed his finger in Dimitri’s face, and I watched as his dark brown eyes clouded with fear. “Don’t you use that tone with me. You can’t boss me around, you’re younger than me! I am the superior here! Ya’ll listen to me!” That time he indicated both me and Dimitri. Dimitri stepped in front of me, his hands outstretched slightly and protectively.

I narrowed my eyes, not needing to be protected, but allowing it only because I knew it was the thing to do. This guy, Justin, was stressing out big time, and was become more paranoid with every word that came out of Dimitri’s mouth. Fear began to creep into me, wrapping around my blood vessels like vines, poisoned with a red hot terror, but not for me. Every molecule that drank in the bittersweet poison screamed for Dimitri, to do something, to protect him as he was protecting me. But the poison was paralyzing, Dimitri’s demise was because of me.

Justin pulled out a switchblade, the four inches of metal flashing at me as brightly as a streetlight on a mirror. Gasps echoed around the room, the people were staring wide-eyed at us, their mouths agape. My fingers impulsively drove forward and grabbed Dimitri’s shirt, pressing against him, sending my fear for him through my fingertips. I felt how tense the muscles in his back were, and I knew he was scared, too. He was poisoned.

“Go, Lil,” he said softly.

I began to protest, “No, Dimitri, I’m"”

“Lilly,” he cut me off, “Go. I’ll be fine.” He knew he was lying, and he knew I knew it, too. We all did. Every single one of us in that room knew that he would not be fine. Not at all.

I reluctantly went back to my little room, turning around every few seconds to watch what was happening until I couldn’t anymore.

The wood of the shelf dug into my back, and I squeezed my eyes shut, clutching the heavy scythe and slightly rocking back and forth. I kept whispering please over and over, not sure who I was talking to. If there was a god, he was one big a*****e for letting all this happen to us. My hands tightened around the scythe. Voices from the other room were muffled, I could only hear the tones, the words were lost to me. The anger that I heard from both Dimitri and the balding man made me worried, their dispute was obviously growing more and more intense, and something bad was going to happen. Some dark part of me kept telling me it was going to happen to Dimitri, and slowly, I began to believe it. My forehead broke out in a sweat, the beads rolling down my face, a few over my lips, the salt heavy on my taste buds. I involuntarily shivered, the poison was spreading.

There was silence, and then a scream.

My eyes shot open, I could feel their sky blue irises constricting my pupil as a fresh stab of agonizing terror shot through me. I looked to see my hands were shaking and red, slick and shiny with sweat. My teeth bit down on my lower lip, and any harder I would draw blood. I knew I had to go see, I had to go make sure everything was okay"my everything.

Nervously, I rose to my feet, almost falling into the shelf from the extreme light-headed feeling that was coursing through my brain.

There really is no need to tell you. You know what happens. I don’t even have to summarize it.

But the reality of seeing it was just so terrible and horrifying that I nearly fainted. The blood. Oh, the blood. It was everywhere, on everything. The room’s shocked components looked at me, standing in the doorway, clutching a scythe as if my life depended on it. I knew I looked quite a sight, with the sweat rolling down my filthy cheeks and the horror that I knew was plastered on my features.

My eyes found him.

He was on the ground, on his back and spread-eagled. He was motionless; his chest was not rising and falling with the labor of breathing, his russet eyes wide and staring up, the lids never blinking. Thought I could not see, I knew that his veins and arteries and capillaries were still, the blood wasn’t moving in them. I knew his heart was not beating the blood, I could see that. It was pouring out of the enormous gash in his neck.

His chestnut hair was soaked to a red-brown, and I almost vomited the contents in my stomach then. I heaved, but nothing came up. Dimitri’s unblinking stare was filled with a permanent horror and angst. His outstretched palm was face up, fingers slightly curling. Pointing at me.

Then there was hatred.

It was hatred so intense; it was like a fire had burned through me in a split second. I let go of the scythe with one hand, letting the blade swing to hover above the floor. I stared at him, my body tense and burning, burning, burning . . .

My eyes shot up, landing on who was responsible for the destruction of everything I loved. There was not one part of me that didn’t feel that burning, that burning that held all that hatred. It was like those flames licked at my heart, the anger and vengeance that it contained rushed through my arteries, away and through my entire body. It just wouldn’t die"it wouldn’t smother to all my other feelings. This was everlasting, this hatred.

My teeth slammed together and my lips curled back. An animalistic snarl rose in my throat. I took several steps forward, only about three feet away from Justin. Many of the other people backed away"all too aware of my anger and the scythe I was carrying.

“Just put it down, no one has to get hurt,” Justin said, his voice trying to be soothing, but the shakiness overpowering it.

A fresh blaze of rage flared, “No one has to get hurt?! He’s dead! HE’S DEAD!” I was screaming at the top of my lungs, the shrillness echoing throughout the room. I lifted the scythe into both hands again, stepping towards the man menacingly.

His switchblade was on the ground, every inch of its silver coated with crimson. He took a step back, raising his hands defensively. I saw his eyes glance down at the switchblade, and I let out another snarl. My arms rose, holding the scythe over my head.

Justin’s eyes widened in terror, but I didn’t care. I would slaughter every last one of them. My only regret was that I had left Dimitri, when I knew I should’ve stayed with him, because I also knew that something would happen if I didn’t. I could’ve led him away from the argument, or something like that. Anything like that. As long as he was safe and alive. But now he was dead. Dead and never, ever coming back. We were supposed to die together, under the burning sky, holding each other close and feeling the heat of the flames around us, with tears in our eyes and smiles on our lips. But he . . . his life had been taken from him by a blade, by the man standing in front of me. We hadn’t died by the fire, and this was what had happened. Now, the flames that were supposed to take him were burning in me, alive and full of the hate that I was exerted so fiercely. Licking in my veins, through my heart, through the arteries and into every corner of my body. It burned, burned, burned . . .

The rest was a blur. My vision had gone red, the searing, hot red that was in my body. I was swinging the scythe in every direction, sometimes colliding with flesh, sometimes with the wood that was holding antique items, sometimes with air, with nothing. The first swing hit Justin right in the neck, nearly slicing his head off. I pulled it out, covered in splattered blood, and heard the satisfying thump of Justin’s body hitting the floor. After that, I let out a yell and swung again, hitting someone else. I didn’t know who, I didn’t know where, but I just kept on swinging.

There were more thuds of bodies hitting the ground. I thought my arms were going to rip off from swinging so much. I felt the hot splash of blood hitting everywhere on me, and I just kept screaming. Screaming and swinging the f*****g scythe. The rest of the room was filled with screams as well, and I chased them all down. Every single scream was returned with a dying gurgle of blood or a gasp of pain, always following with a thud. Always.

Very slowly, the red blur faded, and I could see.

Instead of the red that I had been accustomed to seeing, the red that had seared through my sight and left me blind with rage, I saw liquid red.

There was blood everywhere. There was not one spot in the room that didn’t hold a splatter of blood, the crimson dots and lines covering virtually everything. Everyone was dead, laying maimed and bloody on the floor. The floor itself was just a pool of the ruby colored liquid, dripping from the step in the middle of the room, the sound barely audible as the pounding rage in my ears decreased. I was breathing heavily, my shoulders rising and falling quickly and dramatically.

The scythe fell from my hands, landing on the blood-soaked floor with a sickening splash. I looked down at my hands, and then sank to my knees. The dark red stains on my hands met with the ones on my face, covering my dyed black hair. Tears came out in sobs, and my whole body suddenly ached. There was a taste, heavy in my mouth"the taste of sorrow. He was gone, my everything was gone. There was nothing left. I was dead.

As good as dead.