I Think I Feel God (Or, At Least, His Hands Around My Neck)

The grip tightens around my throat as I break the wax seal of the letter addressed to Kaya. That isn’t my name, nor is this my letter. It was delivered early this morning, I think, and I had fixated on it since its arrival. The alluring violet envelope, the onyx seal, Kaya written in a beautiful cursive hand. No return address. “Open me! Open me!” it screamed. I just couldn’t resist it. Who could? Kaya was long dead so the letter would never be opened. Not without an interloper, a hunter, someone who takes what they want. A mystery can’t remain unsolved, right? So the hunter I became… But now my throat feels constricted and I’m starting to regret my decision.

Regret? A cut will always become a scar, even if you stitch it. A crumpled piece of paper will always be creased, even if you straighten it. A muddied cloth will always be stained, even if you clean it. So then what is regret but proof of action? It is a desire to return something to the way it once was. I don’t wish to go back to the mystery hanging over my head. Regret isn’t a tangible thing, and desire can be denied. It has no power or substance. No, I don’t regret what I did. I don’t regret what I’m doing. Does the hawk regret capturing the hare? Of course not! It’ll devour the corpse now and rid itself of the bones later. And so, I throw my regret away.

My hands tremble with excitement as I pull the innards from out my prey. The letter struggles against my force, and I have to break every sinew to get the case to release its contents. I can feel it struggle against me. I feel it falter. A smile spreads across my face as that gorgeous purple carcass, ruined and useless, falls to the floor. I imagine the letter bloody and dripping in my hands, a heart wrestled from out a ribcage. I want to take a bite of my prize as if I’m a starved animal, a rabid beast blood-drunk and mean. There it is, clean and crisp in my stained hands, my prize, my precious, my very own letter.

I hear something wheezing. I look around the dark living room with alarm. It is cramped and dreary. The rain scraping against the window glass is a demon waiting to get in. The candle flickers and shifts the light from one wall to another in a sickening caricature of a metronome. The breath once rapid is now slowing. My mouth is dry from fear and excitement. The pale walls around me reveal no intruder. My eyes scan the room until I see Kaya’s portrait sitting on the shelf opposite me. The wheezing stops. A trick of my mind. It’s that thing, that regret. It always tries to assert itself. I won’t let it.

The letter feels old and stiff, but it’s porcelain white and looks freshly folded. It smells of lilac and rosemary and it catches my nose as if I’m a withering coyote catching hint of carrion for the first time in weeks. It is intoxicating and I sit for a while breathing it in before moving on with my impropriety. I pull it open slowly and it crackles in complaint like an old woman trying to get out of bed. A shadow shifts beneath my feet but I brush it off without concern. I’m too invested. In faded brown ink, the same beautiful lettering from the envelope reads:

Kaya,

You’re dead because of Samuel. He could have done more but he chose not to. It’s true, you weren’t yourself those days. The curse took so much from you. It made you a child. It made you spiteful, that can’t be denied. You could say awful things, sure, but I think you were in there. It showed in delicate shades of clarity. You’d look at me and I could see the curse was gone. You’d see me and all those times you forgot me, all the times you yelled at me, would melt away. The curse always came back, but that’s okay. Those moments were all I needed. They were never enough for him.

But are you really dead? The very walls seem to say otherwise. That grave is empty and you’re out there somewhere, I know it. If this letter finds you, I hope you’re doing well. I hope that curse left you, and I hope it found him. Yeah, I’m sure it found him. That’ll be his punishment.

I’m sorry I couldn’t write more. I don’t have much time. He keeps me away. I hope you’re well. I hope He’s holding you. Maybe we’ll see each other soon.

With tender love,

Sammy

My heart beats frantically as I finish reading the letter. Why did I read it? I hear the wheezing, I think. I’m fine. It’s all a joke. The letter falls from my grasp and descends to the floor. She's dead. I know that. She's dead. She's dead. SHE IS DEAD. I know, I know. There is no curse. I’m alive, she’s dead.

What if she isn’t?

Sweat drips down my face. It falls off like tears, grief smashing into the letter at my feet. Why did I read it? I pick up the letter and stare at the newly formed stains. I can never take that back. I need to check, I need to know.

The rain dribbles over my neck like ice scraping skin and creeps down the back of my shirt, sending a chill clear down to the tips of my fingers. There was no time to put on a jacket or a hat or anything like that. Shovel in hand, I walk down the narrow path from the back of the house down to the family cemetery. The trees on the periphery of the court are dead and withered, their gnarled roots pushing into gravestones. The moon is full but buried beneath the clouds, so the light is dim and the path difficult to see. I scramble through the overgrown weeds and cracking stone like a wounded hare in search of its burrow. I find it quickly enough. Her gravestone is made of granite and her name is already beginning to fade. It wasn’t that long ago, was it?

I dig and I dig and I dig until my shovel makes contact. I hear the wheezing again. I clasp the lid and pull hard. The coffin opens with a sickening pop and I look down at the twisted skeleton. She’s dead. I watched her die. She’s dead. She’s dead! A sob quickly escapes me and my tears fall down to caress her skull. Twenty years gone and this is all that’s left. What the fuck am I doing?

I wipe my eyes and close the lid tight. I’ll lay her down, just as I did twenty years ago. I was the only one she had left. The moon is exhumed and glows bright now, shining a light on my shame. I cover her desecrated casket in dirt and refill the hole I tore open. The soil is fresh over her grave and I feel a new wave of sorrow, a new wave of guilt. I watched her die, I did. I do.

Kaya was spiteful, Kaya was mean. It wasn’t always that way, but it was at the end. That thing changed her. When I was young she was sweet, caring. She’d let things go. She smelled of lilac and rosemary... But then she was 'cursed.' She was afraid, I know that. One eye looking for demons, the other searching for slights. I tried to take care of her. I did, I really did. I guess I failed. I see the fear fade from her eyes. The wheezing stops. She’s dead. A skeleton in a box.

The door slams shut behind me as I kick off my boots. I cautiously amble into the living room to find the letter. The envelope lies on the ground where I left it, and I grab it with a shaking hand. My eyes are afraid and they won’t focus on what I know is there. Right there, where it always was, in the middle of the envelope: Samuel. It falls from my hand again as I walk to the side table I left the letter on.

I’m wrong, it isn't a letter. It’s a card.

A great black wolf is on the cover; its piercing orange eyes stare off camera into a great snowy wilderness. When I was a kid, she always sent cards with kittens or puppies on them. When I got older, they changed to big cats and wolves. “A man needs something strong and I can’t think of anything stronger than a ferocious hunter!” she said in the tiger card I received on my thirteenth birthday, shortly after Mom passed. Her writing was beautiful, but I always had trouble reading it. I smiled in agreement when I pieced it together, the first smile in months. Where did that memory go? How could I have forgotten that? I open the card.

Sammy,

Happy birthday, darling! Remember God is always with you. His hands hold us up when we can't stand on our own. I love you, Sammy. Be good.

With tender love,

Grandma Kaya

I can feel it now. The pressure. A lump caught in my throat.

Grandma couldn’t write after the curse, and she never spoke of God. All she knew was people were out to get her and she wouldn’t act prey. I hated her. I wished she’d go. I wished she’d die. Every lie she spoke, every insult she gave, chipped at my memory of her. I blamed her for not remembering me. Eventually I stopped calling her 'grandma' altogether. Didn’t feel right. She was Kaya from then on.

I watched Kaya die. She wheezed in front of me until she couldn’t anymore. They said I did everything I could, but I never believed it. She was nothing more than child stuck in an old decaying body. Kaya might have deserved that indignity, but Grandma didn’t. I should have done more. I can’t breathe. I feel something blocking my throat. 

Grandma was wrong all those years ago; I’m no hunter. I never was and I never could be. I’m Samuel now, not Sammy. The tears sting as they travel down my face and I hate that I can't bury it anymore.

Regret? It is evidence of a life lived, a life wasted. The blood wishes to return to the wound, the mud the earth. How could I not regret watching you die? I said I hated you. I said I wanted you to die, and now you’re dead. Why wasn’t He with you? I feel my mind is fracturing, cracking, crumbling away from me. My hands are still covered in mud and dirt. Did I really do that? What the hell is wrong with me? The lump in my throat isn’t going away.

...always with you...

I feel it, I think. Yeah, Grandma was right. He does hold us up, some more gently than others. I feel it... That lump, His hands. They aren't gentle with me, and I know I deserve it. I'm cursed now, too. Cursed to live. Cursed to stand. Cursed to forget. Yeah, I feel Him. His hands tight around my neck, forcing me to stand.