Bones

TW: Implications of Suicide, Dark Imagery, Gore/Violence/Blood, Horror Themes, Mental Health

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When bones clatter, spirits sing. Bones rot into the earth, decomposing, worms wriggling in holes torn through marrow, ghosts dance and rejoice, their songs howling and wild. In Sanctum, the trees and bushes harmonize with the singing of ghosts and specters; I know they do, I hear them. I hear them in the morn echoing the cries of mourning doves, and in the afternoon when the sun blazes, burning, boiling bright in the pale blue of what I’ve been told is the sky. I hear their songs and their melodies when dusk is warm and golden when amber coats the skin of our hands and glistens off leaves that never dry. Always dewy, wet, and dripping, and in those songs, I hear the wails of the nighttime and the cackles of coyotes and crows. I hear the snakes in the grass, slithering, winding, and curling over their bodies, black eyes all-knowing, and I hear the thrum of my blood when my eyes close and in the shuddering dark, I can see them. 

I see them in their drawn skin, the gaps where teeth were long ago before worms and the bacteria of the dirt ate flesh and gum, and I see the sunken holes where eyes once lived, secured, bright. Alive. I hear them wail their songs and the wind wails back, knocking wood against stone, and the glass of windows creaks, ready to burst. Skeleton hands reach for me, polished knucklebones bright against the rot of their faces, and the specters dance in the night, laughing and shouting. I hear them. I know them well in the beating of my heart and in the shadows of my room, I see the corners shrink, moving inward, and the darkness groans around me, growing deeper, louder. Louder. 

The rats within these walls skitter and scurry, teeth gnawing on crumbling wood, tearing it, shredding it, and I feel the flesh of my bones torn with every splinter caught in between my fingers and toes. The crickets shriek, disrupting songs, until the croaks of frogs embody the souls of insects that wanted to sing too, in a pitch all of their own. I can hear them. I can hear all of them. I hear them in the pounding of my head, of a pulse slamming against my skull, cracking and chipping away at nighttime’s resolve. In dreams, I hear them, and I see them, and in dreams, their skeleton hands clasp into mine, burning cold, white-hot, and the scalding of my palms blinds me from the static in my head. I know them as they know me, specters and ghosts, of the dead and the living. Bones rattle, trembling and dancing, piling around my ankles, shattering with every step among femurs and collarbones. They are bleached, stark, and brittle. They call to me, beckoning, shaking in their roots, as the songs of ghosts and spirits grow wilder and frantic, and the cliffside looms before me. Sharp rocks cut my feet, and the wind rips past. The rushing of waterfalls blocks out the noise of the night, of the woodland, the forest, and the drop below me, I know would be more than enough. 

Over the anger of river water rushing to its doom, the chirping of birds breaks the noise, the vibrations in my body. A robin, red-chested, and proud, hovers before me, wings flapping, legs tucked beneath its body. My fingers extend for the bird, reaching, wanting. The robin chirps, and then screams as its body is torn apart, a raven appearing where the little bird once hovered. The raven squawks and shouts, its beak pecks at my eyes, listless and broken. In the careening feeling of falling from a cliffside, the rush of wind chills my shattered bones, the frost sewing them back together, blood congealing, thickening. Choking, I am choking; the wind suffocates me, and the red in my veins burns from the inside out, boiling like lava. I hear the language of the mountainside, of its roaring and its power, not bothering to brace nor pray to whatever Gods might survive me.

My eyes open in the light of dawn. The songs are muffled now, like cotton stuffed into the ears of the skulls littered about the woodland. Fox jaws, coyote teeth, and the skulls of fallen birds of prey crumbled into dust and shards, fragments pushed into the mud and dirt, blanketed by lichen and moss. Muffled, fuzzy, like sludge in my ears. I can see them, yet I cannot hear. The specters laugh, and they continue to dance, mouths agape in raucous joy, empty bottles of wine poured down their throats and into the chasms of their chests. This cycle never ends, of dancing and singing, of wailing and laughing. I close my eyes to the rays of the sun, blotting shadows through the trees and into my face. I can taste it, the warmth, the heat, and I can smell renewal through the decomposition of bones and blood. 

The dirt between my toes is warm, and soft, once my body has moved beyond the door locking me away, and my eyes glisten. The thrum of my heart never stops and the blood rushes in my ears. The ghosts and spirits dance, the foxes and the owls joining in, as badgers feast upon the fallen, and rabbits garden their woes away. I can see them. I can hear them through the muffled haze in my head. I can reach, and I will touch them, calloused hands through rough-edged fur, and I will join their celebrations of blood and bone.

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Thank you for reading this short story! Its interpretation can be ambiguous based on how the reader feels, but I really tried to amp up the imagery of this piece. I'm happy with it, and I hope you are too. I happily accept constructive feedback on my work and look forward to the comments, questions, and suggestions I may receive! Please take a look at my other works if you enjoyed this one. Happy reading!