Behind your back and beyond the fence

The late afternoon sun was hot and lusty, and he sat and screamed and hollered from his chaise longue atop the curdling sky. His arms were spread and he let himself molest the golden tree tops and shimmering waters; his sweltering pulse beating in all he touched. The Wife sat resigned beside her old house, its white paint walls muted even in the rays of summer; yonder lay the vast fields, aching and simmering as eggs do in hot pans, their dirt and mud and muck rumbling and chafing. Pushing back a lock of hair behind her ear, she looked across the dry land; the crops dusty and begging for relief; she did not soothe them, busy feeling the last of the daylight on her face. Year by year she had felt her eyes see shorter, her body hold itself less and her voice croak more; but the sun always kept on and on and on, beating, glaring, for better or for worse. She lifted her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees. The porch would be desolate if it wasn't for the little white chair and littler woman atop it, in a loose brown dress and shiny black clogs. A drop of sweat built upon her brow and ran down her face, drop, drop dropping down to the ground.  

‘Dinner? Watch it - sun won't be out much longer. Come in.’  

She turned to face a gruff figure between the door frame, tall and sturdy. His face looked tired. His dim eyes trailed across her body.  

She looked up to the sky and breathed. 

 ‘In a moment, please.’.  

As the door closed, and the sun shuffled down the clouds, blinding and blending into a pink, lavender, fleshy display, a faint brush of air murmered about her ears. She spun her head around but saw nothing, just the white panelled walls of the house. Sometimes she'd get these little tickling swirls about her, something always just behind her head or under her feet - didn't matter much if she was quick as a cat or slow as the moving clouds, it always just alluded her vision. Seeing and looking never did much for her anyhow, always some new worse way of viewing things, some fresh realisation she knew she'd have to avoid. She knew sometimes people looked at her but they didn't really see; it was better that way. The little people in the little town would look and she would look back but she knew it was better having both parties squint a little. Looking too hard at a pretty face or a soft hand, or having someone look to hard at her looking at it, or having someone look how she looked too little at the Husband didn't seem worth the little treat for her eyes.

Having lapped up what remained of the day, she entered the house; she felt its bare, dry walls glower and glare, adored with naught but a selection of crosses; wooden, metal and plastic. The kitchen was small and had barely enough space for her and the Husband to shift around in, trying not to get in each other's way or touch each other or clash with the others dead eyes or talk for too long; the fear of knowing had ingrained its way into their minds and flesh with parasitic care; like the brown worms and cracking bones that danced below the houses foundation, it wriggled its way through veins and capillaries day after day, night after night.  

The Wife made macaroni cheese, salty and sticky. They ate in arid silence, occasionally stopping to glance across to each other and up to the wall of crosses that sat patiently looking upon the small wooden table. Not wanting to use up oil or energy on the frivolous expenditure of admiring one another by candlelight, as the grey night air crept in, they ate in gloom, seeing only as far as their busy hands and emptying bowls. The Husband retreated first, as he often did, walking across to the creaky stairs and bundling himself into the bedroom, hoping to fall asleep before the weight of one beside him could appear. The Wife liked it that way too. She liked that small moment in the house when she could roam about the kitchen and the dining room all peaceful and all calm. It was nice to wash the dishes in the evening cool and feel the soapy warm water lap about her wrists and splash on her chest.

The Wife took both plates to the kitchen and laid them in the sink. She felt the water but she couldn't help seeing herself swimming about in it. She clutched at its sides and stared desperately at her rounded and silvery reflection in the metal tap. It made her eyes large and bulbous, and they stared back, indignantly. A minute passed of this contest, her and her alien twin fighting in the lime-scaled metal tap world; only broken by another brush of cool whipping air. A strange burst of low and hazy energy seemed to spin and grasp around her, tickling at the blind spots of her frozen body, whispering its existence not quite loud enough to be understood. She shook her head, furrowing her brow and shot out a quick breath. She looked out the kitchen window to the night sky, the moon now ensconcing herself delicately in the grey shadowy clouds. In the little house in the little town, not much of anything came or went, nor was anything much there, but every summer night the sky would clear, and the stars would faithfully return and with the moon they would sing and waltz and wink down at the Wife. She closed the curtains.

 As her feet pattered across to join the Husband the tiptoeing tender whisper of a pulse returned, wrapping across her pale wrists and neck; it lapped across her body and ran itself under her dress, tickling and kissing her shoulders; it began to speak louder and louder and louder and turned its whispered suggestions to broken begs and it pulled her harder and harder and harder away from the stairs, humming and groaning. She tried to pull or fight but the beating force had made its way around her bones and only her mind and panicked eyes could hold any resistance; her feet dragged her out and out and out, the cold air flying past faster and faster and faster all the while the voices and the moans built and grew and yelled. When, finally, it loosened its hold she found herself stood alone in the vast fields, surrounded by the blue wine haze of night and the chattering corn. Her hair was a mess, blown out before her face like a veil and her dress hung cut and tattered. The stars seemed to twinkle faster, pulsing and clapping as if to alert her; she could not tell if it was a warning or a calling. Around her skin she felt the ghostly Zen return, only now it was calmer, holding her hand softly and hushing soothingly. Out in the dark she spotted a muted glow, it lay beyond the fields out in the wild forest. The presence began to push her, and she went with no fight, her eyes were focused and her heart aware. Her feet sped up and her legs chased; her joints were no longer constrained by the glue of mankind, for her body flew toward the light, the whispering force beside her.  

In the forest the light was gone, with no hint or suggestion it had ever been there to begin with. She cried out, hurriedly spinning around and searching for it, tears beginning to form in her eyes; she had grown hopeful, of something. Under logs, in bushes, behind curling preening old oaks and twisting dark branches, nothing appeared to her. The woods were old and had seen many before her walk through; weary doe eyed maidens from boats and islands far away, torch wielding masses and trails of bodies in order. Looking upon her it knew this strange new generation, bundle of bodies, was no more found than any before them; dressing it up with machines or dress or marriage did nothing to deceive their watchful eyes. 

The Wife gave up her search, a feeling of vast emptiness drawing upon her.  

‘Oh, Lord, Oh Lord I have gone mad I have strayed oh lo- oh God!’, she gasped, grasping her dress and crouching on her wearied feet; the cold, hard ground gazing up at her turmoiled body. She felt a shame and a guilt boil inside her, a nausea threatening to release itself; to have her resolve that she had carved in stone, the promise she had made and the little, little life she had created blown out behind her all for the fancy of some light, some made up touch. She began to sob in earnest, hitting the leaves upon the ground and lying like a fetus on the earth, until she felt her shuddering figure lie still. 

Trickling delicately like the smoke from a solitary candle, the ghostly haze returned from the corners of the forest and the darkest edges of vision. As it held her once again, she peered from where her dirt covered hands had covered her face and saw the thin mirage of a woman; when she blinked the figure would merge once again into a puzzle of glimmering light but for brief moments she was certain she could see soft hands, softer eyes and a cloak of long hair. Sitting up and allowing the forces to surround her she felt what was now a beautiful and near opaque women lift her up and grasp her cold face, pressing their foreheads together. The Wife ran her own hands along the curves and contours of the woman's body, feeling out the reality of the situation. Half her mind felt she had left this realm of either sanity or reality, the other half acutely aware of the bursting screaming truth she felt; up, up, up to the creaking trees and smiling stars they rose, the moon taking note of the sight before her and smiling. Looking down, the Wife saw the little town and her old house amongst the fields; how odd, how unimportant it appeared to her now. The wooden box church, the large haughtily imposed houses of the wealthy, the town saloon and sleeping automobiles lay below her like trinkets in a dolls house.  

Down, down, down in the small, old house, the Husband slept, quiet and unbothered all through the night; his body locked away in silence as the moon made her rounds; he did not notice the missing head beside him nor the lack of a warm weight. When the sun again came in blearing ferocity to wake him, his arms outstretched, and he felt nothing but the sweet lull of peace from the other side.