MaddalenaA Story by Rick Egin A young soldier returns home to find that the love of his life has passed away, presumed dead by his fellow villagers. Following her funeral, he becomes haunted by apparitions, causing him to unravel. In unison, we
chant. “Sow the land with her seed at this hour eleven. May the Lord reap her
rewards in heaven.” The sound of
ruffling noises as the congregation rises from their knees and finds their
footing on the damp, uneven hillside. Then, all at once, the surrounding air is
filled only with the sound of the gentle tide to the left. March 20th, 1780 to August 24th,
1799. So few years had meant so much. The tombstone,
like all others, faces the sunrise. It is placed in such a fashion so that the
name of the deceased may shine in morning, may shadow at dusk, and disappear by
nightfall. A ritual of life in the course of a day. It is also faced in such a
fashion so the stone may sit parallel to the village. In so doing, whenever we
look north, past our settlement to the sea, we do not immediately associate the
wondrous gift of the ocean with the names of our deceased loved ones, to many
of whose deaths the waters were an accomplice. No enemy ever arrived on our
island by flight. I, however, am
no longer diverted. The name on the stone is visible no matter where I look.
Standing in a row composed of matronly caretakers, seasoned toilers, and their
fidgeting children, I am indistinct from the crowd and seem to bear no more
remorse than the next. Like marionettes strung by line and limb, we unfold our
cragged hands and straighten from our devout poses just as the bell begins to
toll. It was Voldieri
in the tower, pulling the dirtied rope and clanging the listless metal together
to signal the celestial light beyond the overcast, kept at bay and waiting to
bear down on the burial mound and the forlorn grievers. The last to see the
deceased would help to ease their transition. It was tradition in the village,
even in strange circumstances as these. Voldieri had
only been collecting kelp for soup, washed inland from the previous night’s
tide, his child Celia at arm’s length, when they saw the tattered article from
the dress that morning. A moment’s discovery negated the seven hour efforts of
the search party the previous evening. The strip they found matched the
rose-red and coal-black garment she often wore, billowing about and moving in
tandem with her as though it were an extension of her body. Madrita’s eyes were
the last to witness her living, as she wandered round Gabriel’s Garden near
Petru’s farm late afternoon the day previous. She was said to have been looking
out to shore as if restlessly waiting for someone’s arrival. I knew deep inside
that it was not an arrival, but my uncertain return that perturbed her so. This
fact did little to ease the guilt I felt. Voldieri,
however, was chosen over Madrita, as what one possesses is as much a part of
them in our village as the skin they are bound by. An item that once bore
weight to one person can often still be felt in the hands of another. The cloth
bore no blood stain. It was torn so cleanly as to imply deliberate effort.
Pitiable closure. Father Josef
retrieved the bible from his robes. His hands trembled slightly as he fumbled
with the pages, warped from many years of age. As he speaks, Clemente drops her
handkerchief in the muck, and retrieves it quickly so as not to call the
father’s attention. He spoke with his usual vitriol, spittle
and snarled lips intact, making the moral content more digestible to the enclave. Once I had passed the point of enduring the borderline
scolding of scriptural last rites, I led myself away from the proceedings at a
fairly rapid clip. Short moments and shorter breaths later I found myself at
the promontory, looking to the Mediterranean. The sun began to set, the horizon
line unbroken save for Corsica surging up in its mountainous glory. Each
overhanging precipice on the shoreline looked long-eroded, seemingly held
intact by a divine vise. A hundred or so
odd years ago the man known as Gamaliel was savagely murdered here. He was not
a native here, they say, but rather an émigré Italian who inherited his late father’s estate. The soil was fertile, the space plentiful, and the
solace an attractive proposition for his potential retirement, and thus
Gamaliel settled here, pregnant wife in tow. The quay was
often a port for many trade ships, though this bothered him little and he often
provided lodging and sustenance for them. Having been a well-travelled man, he
knew the value of a considerate offering of provisions, especially when life at
sea required very conscientious rationing. One day, some
visitors arrived in a smaller vessel. Father would often emphasize that these
men roamed the seas caked in a layer of dirt, clothes tattered and rotting in
places due to neglect, and using discarded fishnets to tie loose ends.
Nonetheless Gamaliel furnished them, like he had done with others, and in
friendly fashion invited them to see his large estate inland. While he was
introducing them to his livelihood, one of the visitors reached into his
clothes for a filleting knife they had kept handy. No sooner than when they
forced him to the ground by surprise did Gamaliel see them as the violent
pillagers they were (Franco-Genoese, by the beliefs of many here). They coerced him
to offer up his precious valuables in exchange for the lives of his wife and
child, who watched helpless as they stripped him of any chattels their vessel
could carry. When they were finished, they set him kneeling in the plains while
they worked on him, his wife forced upright whenever she buckled at the sight.
Eventually they lacerated him deep enough along the abdomen that he was seen
fit to suffer at length without any rebellion. His house was left a skeleton. His wife stooped
over him, stroking the hairs of his head, kissing his wounds, shrieking hysterics.
She was a young thing, I was told. For a while, no vigor could be breathed into
him beyond his vitals. Then his eyes widened, his hands laid flat, and
struggling he rose in a sudden final burst of strength. Unlike most men of the
village here who run to their families after long absence, or the few that run
past them to embrace their land, Gamaliel ran elsewhere. He ran, hobbling and
pained, to this very Cliffside. The men had long gone and he had only life left
to accomplish one final task. His eyes gazed
upward, his knees gave way with his arms outstretched, expecting the hands of
the almighty to cradle him. When nothing of the sort occurred, he stood once
more, spoke some final unheard words, and stepped into the sea. His wife
beckoned and cried with child in arms but to no avail. Slowly, but without
struggle, he left his land behind and crossed the watery threshold as if
bearing no burdens and being accountable to no one. Many say his wife left the
isle for Venice, often to counter those who say she followed him right in. The
story has many permutations. In any case, Gamaliel remains in Maddalena.
Villagers here see his person walk the fields at night, often staring at a
vacant stretch of land for hours at a time. Several years
after those events, a milkmaid beheaded a goat she claimed ate her rations from
the harvest that day. Later that night, she was woken from her slumber by a
clamoring in her kitchen. By her eyes, the head of the goat was there again,
eating the collard greens from a washbasin. For these and many reasons,
Maddalena has become known as the Isle of Entities. When the
ceremony ended, our family invited the mourners to share company over wine. I
drank little, mainly to keep a social appearance, and eventually retreated
outside to the veranda. To little surprise, I found Cesari standing there
alone, disinterested in the gathering of people who wanted only to offer their
condolences. As if aware of my approach, he stiffened his posture and continued
to look outward at the coast, a bottle of wine in hand. This was unsurprising,
given our last few encounters before I set sail for Corsica. “Here comes the patriot. Should I
salute you?” “You are a guest here. Any comforts
of home are available if you need them.” I began to step back, sensing I was
unwanted. Cesari turned his head slightly, as
if to view me out of the corner of his eye. “Feel free to retreat. I hear you
have a talent for that now.” The words dug
deeper than I could have imagined. I stood idly, hoping to hide the shame his
words brought me. Not willing to leave the conversation at such an impasse, he
pressed me on why I had even bothered joining the outfit, which in his eyes
consisted of “chest-pumping young fools” and their “zealot generals.” I merely
responded that such matters were never simple, and young men learning from
mistaken judgment could never truly be fools. He nodded along imperceptibly. That was surely
not the end of it though, and a very familiar lecture on the purpose of
rebuilding over retaliation was dealt to me. In familiar fashion, his hands
shook as he directed them at me, dropping his bottle in the fury and causing
the wine to pool out. His face contorted, his eyes reddened, and he sobbed into
the sleeve of his waistcoat. I did not dare defend myself, though I had no
cause to. I sunk my head
and eyed the buckles of my shoes, as that austere expression of his would
pierce me fatally had I not done so. Perhaps Cesari
feared bringing attention from the rest of the guests, as he subdued himself as
quickly as he had become vehement. He returned to his corner of the veranda,
standing in the red liquid as if he belonged in no other area, and drew his
attention to some birds near the shore. “Ay, a man can
be womanless, he muttered. A man can seed a field, find fish in the stream,
tend his goats, mind his cattle, and maintain a home all by his labouring hand
and without so much as tear of his breeches, is it not so?” “How would a man have threaded a
needle and woven breeches with the hands of a labourer?” I replied. He chuckled his
usual drunken chuckle, though it was muted now, which was to be expected. We
spoke more of the harvest, of Maoli tripping in the walkway and rambling about
her ankle for weeks, of Petru accusing children of trampling his property, of
Rosetta singing loudly in the mornings, and my brother’s fabrications
concerning his voyages to Nice and the world over. We talked of mothers who
attempted to discipline their noisy children by declaiming them publicly in
raised tones and quickened speech. I remarked how it sounded like incantations
for exorcisms. He told me he
wished to be blessed with male heirs, but never had the good fortune my father
clearly did. I hid my disgust and tolerated the drunken comment. At some point he
placed his arm around my shoulders and told me he had spoken little in my
absence. I was sheepish about questioning it further, and he simply rested his
arm by his side not long after. When he’d sufficiently collected himself, he
abruptly bid farewell and started back home. He grumbled an apology for the
mess, and though I offered to accompany him he assured me he would arrive
soundly. I watched him
walk off clutching his forearms and hunching forward in slow, measured steps,
holding his limbs as if fearing he may at any moment cease to be one singular
piece. At some point in
the hour afterward, the moon rose to its highest peak, and the remaining guests
who still maintained their balance and composure set out for their homes. The
remainder were helped out of whatever slump they were in and given fixture for
the night. Only two beds remained in the house, one of which was a cot in my
brother Antoine’s room, who would no doubt regale me with dreams to join a band
of buccaneers and plunder Sicily till even the fire in the lamp felt it
overstayed its welcome. The other was hardly a bed (more an oversized wool
blanket with a sack of chicken feathers to rest one’s head on), and it resided
in an attic cluttered with brass from farming equipment, old cloth, and about
three layers of dust smothered on every surface. Without hesitation, I opted for the
attic. While in the
dark, I moved several smaller chunks of wood and cloth from the area, and
decided to take one of the spokes from an old wheel and place it outside. Upon
exiting the loggia, I felt stillness around me. My pulse began to rise
irrationally before I sensed a certain disorder. Without so much as a short
glance to my right, I saw what ailed me, hovering fifteen feet in the air
outside of Cesari’s house. The dark outline
of a woman’s figure, and in the moonlight that was all it appeared to be. The
silhouette, dangling limp from her broken neck, bore no features beyond the outlines
of her dress and her curled, barefooted feet. I would have cried aloud for help
that very moment if not for the suffocation by the very air I breathed. My
lungs laboured and my eyes widened the longer I stared at the shadow, and I
felt it returning my gaze in the darkness. Not a sound could be heard for what
seemed like hours. No persons strayed from their abodes. Nary had a cricket so
much as chirped. The darkness encapsulated me as I stood, watched intently by a
figure without eyes, swaying to and fro where not a breeze could be felt, and
hanging in the air though no rope was visible. Often in those
earlier years, she was lucky enough to sneak by my family in the mornings and
jostle me from my sleep. It became less and less of a disturbance as it
happened more frequently, and it was a continuous excuse to avoid the morning
errands. We would sprint as quickly as we could to the straits before a search
could be started on account of my absence. Despite the smaller legs and flat feet she was
admittedly a more nimble runner than I was. I often vowed to avenge my losses
in future contests, but I never could match her speed and agility. She would
often have her fortress built well in advance of my arrival. The structure was
a surprisingly robust labyrinth of small river rocks, sticks, and two goldenrod
flowers perched atop the castle for superficial concerns. It was as impressive
as one could accomplish without the use of granite. Mine would be
hastily built from the inferior pebbles cast aside by the faster architect, and
mud would often be used as a last resort to mold a formidable structure. On
completion, we would cup our hands to our mouths and spout our formation calls
with our ghastly mouth horns. The first wave of cannon fire did little to harm
the structure. We’d been used to using any smaller debris to knock out the
castles, but by my own calamity I once missed my target and bruised the enemy
queen with a pang to the shin. It reddened within minutes and pitched itself
directly next to another similar mark which she refused to explain, though she
assured me I had not caused it. Regardless, I had injured her, and vowed to
only use the wet soil. The bombardment lasted a half hour before armistice was
declared in order to lay ourselves flat, recover breath, and admire the
firmament. The moon was
still in plain sight, though the sun crept into view amidst the broad clouds at
this early hour. I watched her pull a small, crystalline blue pendant affixed
to a chain from beneath her shift. She held it above her eyes as if inspecting
the purity. “Who gave that to you?” “My papa.” “I have never seen you wear it
before.” “I often keep it under my gown. I
always wear it.” “It looks expensive. Must be a sapphire.” “An amethyst, actually. It just
looks valuable. Papa makes me wear it.” “He makes you?” “I hide it from most people.” I turn to lie on my side. “What
does it mean? Is it an heirloom?” Silence. “Why are you holding it up like
that?” “The stone looks empty and hollow,
but when you shine light through it, it adds color to the grass. We need some
color here. Everyone wears dark brown and grey and walks slowly, like they live
in dirty water.” Once she asked
me if I thought we lived on the isle because we were too evil for Italy. Not
understanding, I inquired as to what she meant. Maddalena, she told me, did not
belong to a larger landmass, and consequently drifted off to where it settled
now. It is possible, she continued, that the people here were much the same.
They never talked about the world besides ours, and simply dismissed it as
‘dangerous’ whenever we raised the idea of a journey northward. She thought
that they were once residents of Italy before they were evicted by divine will,
and to this day continue to repent. I suggested that she had thought too much
about the Garden of Eden story. One could say that Maddalena protected us from
evil with just about as much proof. I believed I was
consoling her, not knowing she tensed with every word I spoke. She accused me
of thinking her stupid and juvenile, folding her arms when I looked over. Her
father had told her this story, she claimed. Surely he could not be wrong.
Sensing the trouble I was in, my mind and tongue frenzied for something to bring
the conversation back to neutral standing. I told her why the isle was my home.
I loved the dewy smell of the fields, though I could never pinpoint its origin.
I loved the stars, curious as I was as to how they got up there. I loved the
sun, whose light I could only appreciate as long as I never met its gaze. This
Isle, like any gift of nature, earned my devotion even for a lack of
understanding it fully. I told her I loved her much the same way. It was the
first time I had ever done so. In all my life,
I had never been so theatrical, and promptly took a deep breath before abated
silence as to her reaction. I heard a brief scrape, and turned my head
partially only to see one of my castle towers crumble before my eyes, before
finally glaring at her to see an outthrust arm and a knowing smile. Somehow I awoke
in my makeshift bed that morning; though for the life of me I could not recall
how I wound up there. I looked around for any sign of the specter. Nothing
around me had been disturbed, and there were no marks or telling signs on my
body that I had drifted out of consciousness outside and was carried in. The
conclusion seemed to be that of a vivid dream, more so than I experienced in
all my days. When I was comfortable with this explanation, I descended the
stairs and listened for any voices to confirm that I had not missed the morning
meal. Sure enough, the sound of my brother’s colourful ruminations began to
carry through the halls, and I knew I had missed nothing of import. After I had
cleared my plate, I wished my family off and started for the market to restore
what my brother depleted, and there I saw him looking ghastly as death. Cesari,
pale as snow, hobbling as though weighed down by buckets of water, continued
along the path and made no eye contact with anyone. I motioned to him and uttered
a brief, quiet greeting in case he had a headache, but he merely turned his
head slightly sideways and garbled a tired response. He had been rather
intoxicated the night before and there was no doubt that it played at least a
small role in his current appearance. But the dishevelment, the paleness; his
steps bore the weight of something onerous. He emanated death. I specifically
remembered the cackle from that blistering summer day amidst the arbutus trees.
She sat with her knees buckled up to her chin, fiddling with sticks and soil as
per her inability to pay full attention, and I had provoked it. I told her our marriage
would be ministered by none other than Pius VI, even if I had to swashbuckle my
way through French legions and free him from captivity with little more than my
wits. I had a vision of myself as a dashing hero. She did not share the
illusion. The days and
months following were indistinguishable from one another, marked only by a
fresh scrape from another misadventure. No sense of equinox was ever present.
The nights remained short and spare and the days thankfully long and fruitful.
Yet, for all our time together, I continued to feel a sense of inadequacy next
to her. Despite her youth she was uncommonly graceful and forthright in her
actions. I often believed her to be some creature of myth, a suspicion
heightened only by the fact that she rarely shared her past. Petru, not my kin
or hers, was the one who enlightened me. Much like any
story passed through hearsay in our village, he assured me that much of what he
was about to tell me may or may not have been an affront to our lord though it
might or might not have been a miracle by his hand which we should not assume
was true but should respect if such were the case. He always had an intensely
legal slant in his storytelling. It was a fact,
he proceeded, that Cesari and his wife (a name I had long forgotten), were
incapable of conception, through no factor of age or any perceptible
disability. When this was first discovered, they had long since barred
themselves from the other villagers out of shame. Malcontents, the both of
them, the farmers would often say. Few were
receptive or caring enough to inquire about the circumstances, and preconceived
notions won the day for many years they resided here. Reserved though she was,
the wife would often walk the shore and bathe her feet when others nearby were
picking kelp, though they never once engaged her in pleasantries or
conversation. She went further down the shore than usual one autumn day, and
that was how she heard the whimper near the base of the cliff. The baby could
not have been lodged there long, as she looked healthy and unscathed despite
resting on a rock bed. The jagged edges around her seemed to have been smoothed
down around her, almost like marble. The wife cradled her and smiled and she
supposedly smiled back. She gripped her small hands on the wife’s frock and the
whimpering ceased. The strongest wind in the world couldn’t have separated the
two in that moment. The wife, from
what I understood, had never inquired as to whom the child belonged to. On the
contrary, she kept it sheltered and isolated for the first few years of its
life, for fear the true parents would be plagued by guilt and seek to reclaim
their precious daughter. The wife had hoped to reveal her one day to the
townspeople, around the time she’d take her first steps and itch for
exploration, but this was only part of her intentions. From what I gathered,
she had wanted to prove her normalcy to the villagers and lay guilt upon them
for doubting her, which I had always seen as being spiteful, no matter how much
they deserved it. The wife adored the girl, and cared for her every day until
her unfortunate passing due to an aggressive bout of pneumonia. Before her
death, she bestowed the child with the name of our isle. The reminder of that
beautiful mystery that lay by the Cliffside helped to ease her suffering. Cesari, however, had never ceased
to be bitter with the child’s arrival. The other
villagers often told each other they heard screams and cries of a little girl
as they passed by Cesari’s house, though they had never seen her. He did not
allow her to leave. The
confusion among the village wasn’t alleviated for the better part of a year.
Questions continued, rumours spread further, and the social exile persisted for
Cesari and the child. That is, until the child wandered from that home one day,
and I saw her for myself. I met her on the footpath, and immediately picked two
stalks of wheat from the field and handed one to her. I believe we whipped each
other with them. Those later
years passed much like lightning; rapid, visceral, full of wonder, occasionally
catastrophic, and never less than intimidating. We often kept our feet perched
unsteadily on the beach rock, and once or twice we tottered over on the
dampened sand at tide and ‘miscalculated’ our landings so she might often land
favourably on my chest. Another
afternoon meant as much a revelation as non-biblically possible, wherein I
might have stumbled into a moment of pure impetus and chose to take her hand to
help her into the barn loft. I enjoyed the softness of the palm and the
tenderness of the grip so long as the moment allowed no suspicion to arise.
Even within the musk of the barn I could still discern her fragrance in close
proximity. One day I walked
alongside her in the ‘walk of solace,’ a scenic footpath which led to the
western Cliffside. She turned towards me in conversation and I saw the bruises
then. With great trepidation I was allowed to examine them despite her protests
not to worry. My concern was partial, as my alarm over the dark long patches
was overcome by the sensuality of feeling the nape of her neck. We would often
walk the fields of dense reeds and come to the cliff face where we would
practice our special tradition. We would light candles with the beeswax we
harvested and watch over the sea from a vantage point, as if trying to signal a
passing vessel to take us on a real adventure. Concerns of being taken by whom
and for what motivations were secondary to the naiveté of it all. Ignorance is
bliss, and we were blissful. Then there was
the rude awakening. It was late dusk, the sky turning a hue of velvet. Tending
to the stock one evening, I was beckoned by my father to follow him and be
hasty. My father had been a spare man, not one to waste his words on anything
disposable. He led me to an encampment, crudely assembled from broken chairs
and old tarp, populated by disheveled strangers who appeared less than
welcoming. Only one of them made eye contact at first. A young man, near my
age, seated in a hunched position and whittling a flute out of a small segment
of wood. He lifted his head and glanced curiously at me, though the interest
quickly subsided and he returned to his task. The others bore no mind, and they
continued to chop wood and reinforce their makeshift barracks. I stopped my
father as we walked, grasping him by the shoulders and pleading that he tell me
what the men were doing. He freed himself from the hold and shoved me aside.
Knowing in his mind what had to be done, he grabbed a pile of wood and set
about assisting the unknown men. As I began to walk, another young soul walking
past, much fresher-faced than the others, laid his hand on my shoulder. “There will be a campfire tonight.
We will tell you everything.” He spoke softly,
and in an accent not unlike my own, though perhaps more musical. Listening to
the banter of the men more closely, I began to place it more carefully. The men
had sailed from Italy. Sure to his
word, the young man helped stoke a fire later that night. I had joined in with
the construction that day, not knowing its purpose or reason. This was mainly
to lighten the load on my father. My efforts were rewarded with explanation,
courtesy of an older gentleman with a prominent moustache. He introduced
himself as General Carobizio. Gathered round the fire, our attentions
heightened as he took to his feet. He spoke of “Puppeteer Paoli,” and the
forces amassed to claim the island of Maddalena for Corsican revolutionaries.
Word had spread over wind and water that a French expedition was imminent. The
intent was to make the island a military stronghold for opposing naval forces.
The men had sailed to our home as volunteers, willing to lay their lives down
to protect our home against an overwhelming invasion. The pit of my
stomach lurched and I felt the full capacity of fear in my body. My paradise
faced obsoletion. Any destiny I craved became instantly tenuous, and I shivered
in my cot that night wondering if it would ever realign. Life
on the campsite was an altogether different animal. I accepted the grooves of
the sand as my resting place. The cots were hastily cobbled together from
burlap and sacks of soybeans and laid out in asymmetrical rows behind the
wooden barracks. The mission had obviously come at a sensitive point in the
conflict and there had been little time granted to prepare carefully. We ate
sparsely, mainly lentils and bread, and slept unsoundly in our group. I befriended a
few of the soldiers closely. There was Matiu, a fisherman’s apprentice that had
been with the ship since its docking in Sicily. There was Dito, the first young
man to speak to me when I arrived, who was a tailor’s son from Rome. Finally,
Carlo, a former Spaniard whose family had fled to Corsica when his mother was
declared a heretic during the auto-da"fé under Philip II. He would often shift
to an argumentative tone when questioned about this, though I doubt he meant it
perniciously. All in all there
were about sixty men in total, but I only spoke to them in passing. As in any
large gathering, social circles often knit themselves tightly. Another regimen
was positioned on the opposite beachhead, though I never had any personal
contact with them. The village felt deserted, the houses and churches were
eerily quiet. Keeping watch over the distant waters, it became apparent that no
ambush was imminent. In retrospect, I was quite glad about this. Though we were
hardy famished, we had all been fatigued from the work on the battlements. We
built at a steady clip, but were careless in our movements. Eager and patriotic
though we were, none of us could have reasonably summoned our wits to kill
coldly, tactically, and efficiently. Had an ambush awaited us, our lives may
have been ended there. Although I was
only an afternoon’s walk away from my home, I had not yet gone to visit her. I
had heard that much of the village were not straying far from shelter for
safety concerns. I, of course, had a newfound responsibility to the militia,
who were ever vigilant in guarding an island many had never even visited
before. Often I found myself taking short strolls along the bay, pivoting and
sidestepping as I walked so as to create the illusion of another pair of
footprints by my side. I was certainly not itching for another sandcastle war
anymore. A loud crash. I
had been staring intently at the campfire, half assuming that it was an
especially forceful crack of a burning log. Then I saw them running. The
militia were gathering their rifles. Carobizio was shouting from behind me. As
he yelled, their paces quickened. I saw my father running towards me, and
without stopping he crouched and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and
dragged me into a running start. I had just enough time to grab my musket by
the handle with three fingers and fling it up to grab the barrel with my other
hand. Barefoot across the rocky hill, I felt my feet beginning to sting but did
not dare to stop amidst the herd on all sides of me. Carobizio continued to
shout, but his words seemed unintelligible in the chaos. I was only able to
discern one phrase: enemy flotilla. To my right, the
crack of a rifle and the panging noise of it hitting something solid. I could
only vaguely make out the shape of the vessel and could not see a single soul
around it. The sprinting stopped and the men around me steadied their firearms
and aimed in various directions. To the east, I could hear crashing sounds
reverberating and shaking the land around us. Dirt and dust and smoke covered
various parts of the village. They were hitting us with artillery. Looking back
to the scene in front of me, the men around me were spouting threats of opening
fire if the unseen enemy were to close in any further. Carobizio was especially
animated. A great salesman for surrender. A momentary
pause in the verbosity, then one of our militia opened fire. It was my father.
The shot was met by an orchestra of gunfire by the opaque darkness. Several of
us fell, and he was one of them. As a group, we
charged the flotilla, firing as we did. When we were within distance, it
appeared that several of our group were struggling with the darkness itself.
They bludgeoned the viscous blackness with the end of their rifles and with
filleting knives they kept on their person. Cries of pain and mercy coalesced
with shouting and cursing, and it seemed that the battle against evil was
hopeless. I hopelessly fired my rifle, unsure of what to target and hoping only
for the intervention of the divine. I felt a piercing sensation in my arm, and
I slumped and lay on my side. I could avail the darkness no more. Small droplets
of water crept in through my eyelids and caused me to blink vigorously. The
morning sun was especially bright, and the outline of a strong, giant hand
holding a cloth was visible even as it distorted my vision and pressed my
facial features in various directions. My resistance was futile. I lifted my
hand and tried to signal to my caretaker that I was as clean as could be, but
he merely gripped and rested it on my chest without too much of a fight. My
speech was slurred. Clearly I had arisen from unconsciousness rather recently.
The only sense in relative working order was my hearing. I could hear the medic
assess my wound and relay his thoughts to Carobizio. There seemed to be no degree of
concern from the two of them, yet Carobizio seemed especially inquisitive as to
when I would be in full health again. He claimed that
the men wanted to celebrate my accomplishment. Even if my speech had been
restored, I doubt I would have been able to muster much of a response. Was my
accomplishment the most dramatic faint in the history of battle? Some of the
discussion made mention of a straggler group of French oppressors that had
apparently fled following the failed invasion of the island. Carobizio mentioned
that two small boats were routed to the eastern front of Corsica. The medic
inquired as to whether or not they were being pursued. I heard only a faint
grunt of recognition. The mood lightened abruptly when Carobizio announced that
I was a newly minted ‘chain-breaker,’ a distinction given to any individual who
could cripple an enemy formation by breaking the chain of command. Apparently,
the sole bullet that I had fired had managed to mortally wound a French
general, causing enough disarray to allow our militia to thin their ranks. This
allowed some inklings of pride to trickle through my fugue state. I turned my head
and looked at the state of my right arm. There was stitching over the tricep,
near the elbow. I had been shot in the skirmish. Strangely, I felt a sense of relief.
I had some proof to demonstrate that I had not simply cowered during the
defense of my homeland. Then I
remembered my father. I had never respected a man so much in my life.
Forthright in his every action and a paragon for positive work ethic and the
value of self-improvement. A hard man, but one who believed in his causes more
certainly than most believed in gravity. I envisioned his burial. He would lie
by the cliffside, leagues away from the home he helped to build. The eulogies
would be depressingly standard. His accomplishments were known mostly to his
family, the firsthand benefactors of his rigorous efforts to build a
comfortable lifestyle; all while remaining wholly ascetic to satisfy the needs
of his religious credo. I began to
tremble in anger. My father was a decorous man. A wholesome, devoted soul. To
be so discourteously removed without the benefit of a full and happy existence
seemed meritless. Moreover, the enemy was still mobilized, like some dormant
plague seeking a host from which to unleash a further pandemic. It had to be
quashed. In the days
following I remained distant from the congratulations and the condolences
alike. I thought only of vengeance and how to exact it. There could be no true
sanctity until I did. My mother was distraught at the loss of our family’s
rock, and I struggled with her feelings in every moment I shared with her. I
could tell that she blamed me for not keeping a closer eye on him. I could not
have stopped him if I tried, and I knew this. Still, the guilt was
overwhelming. The only comfort
I felt was in my reunion with Maddalena. The battle had damaged her, as had my
absence. She gripped me tenderly and in those moments I felt as though I had
something to offer her, like the bee to a flower. Feelings of empowerment and
import swirled through me. I longed to enjoy her embrace and comfort her
through the healing process. Yet the battle was not over, and once again I left
her abruptly. I was able to
secure a small boat, enough for a few to travel. Dito, Matiu, and Carlo were
the first and only to volunteer, out of a loyal bond of friendship and more
than a little adventurous spirit. After gathering supplies, I visited my home
to tell my mother and brother about my departure. Despite my reassurances that
I would not be leaving them, they were enraged. My mother, already
disconsolate, could not bear another loss so soon. My brother wanted to tag
along at first, but I denied his request because of his age. He would hardly
even look at me before I departed. Strangely,
Maddalena was calmer about the idea. Perhaps the shock of recent events had not
yet worn off. She had laid aside a candle she was crafting, distracted by the
prospect of my departure. She spoke little and only nodded when I pleaded for
her understanding. Our separation
was far colder than our reunion. I felt uncertain in leaving her the way I did.
That night, when we pushed the boat off the beach front and began to row
towards Corsica, I felt crestfallen to see that the isle was cloaked in pure darkness. We landed in
Corsica in the early morning, with each of our group alternating on the rowing
duties in order to get proper sleep. The surrounding area seemed desolate, with
only the calls of birds being audible. We set out, designating Dito to carry
the brunt of our supplies. He was the most muscular of the group. Making our
way along the coast led us to Sperono, similarly eerie, though much less
deserted. It seemed to be an excellent setting for an enemy to hunker down and
wait, so we were wary in approaching. There seemed to be no signs of life, so
we proceeded further. We’d searched
the initial rows of houses, though that was a generous term. They were more
akin to ‘dwellings;’ places for animals. Perusing the interiors, they seemed to
have been inhabited not too long ago. Very little dust had collected on much of
anything. I heard a sound, almost like a shuffle, coming from a crawl space
inside one of the dwellings. When I inched my way over to the hole, I peered
inside only to find an overturned bassinette. It was illuminated by a small ray
of light from a fissure. Inside it lay a tomcat, playing with a brush head, its
bristles on the granite floor. Relieved that it was nothing more serious, I
reached to stroke it. Mistakenly, I rapped the wicker handle on the bassinette
in such a way that it rolled towards a nearby rack, upsetting it enough to send
the rest of a supply of wooden grooming products to the ground. In my village,
it wouldn’t have been heard beyond a half acre radius. In this town, with the
sea so calm and the air so still, I may as well have fired a cannon blast. I heard the
crack of a rifle sound off to the east of me, so I had sincerely hoped it had
been one of my militia and not theirs. Alas, my hopes were placed unduly high.
The pang of musket balls above me bore a hole into a nearby wall. Crouching
low, I exited the house making sure to avoid any windows. The assault
lasted mere moments before I, Dito, Matiu, and Carlo scampered across the
shoreline in any direction that quieted the screams at our backs. We hid in
alcoves, kept a slow pace, and walked through marshlands until our boots were
torn at the soles, yet not a moment felt remotely safe. After a half days
retreat we found an old logger’s cabin in the densest part of a forest. The
spruce trees on all sides had few leaves and the soil was dry and dusty despite
the rainfall from the day previous. We lay our rifles down and tore the dirty,
damp, leathery mess from our feet and laid crossways in the main cabin area and
called each corner our own. We talked for
much of the night, mostly about the plan of escape, which brought us closer
together. Our nerves were very clearly showing, as we argued the logistics for
hours on end. In the later part of the evening, after we had all settled, the
topic of marriage arose. Carlo had built a life for himself on the island of
Montecristo, where his wife resided by what he referred to as hollow hill, a
large foggy precipice believed to be a dormant volcano. She bore two children,
one not more than a half-year and some days of age, and he doubted the babe
would recognize him when he returned. Dito had travelled to Maddalena in a
fishing boat from the island of Pianosa, where the curved, sprawling landmass
cradled a small Christian hamlet where his wife worked as a schoolteacher. He
admitted to no children, and I never thought to ask. He seemed diffident on the
whole manner, much like I. Matiu, in almost divine coincidence, lived alongside
the other two on the island of Capraia, in a developing township providing
textiles in tandem with a Sicilian company. His wife worked in the basement of
one of the workhouses, caring for workers who had been injured on the flying
shuttle looms. The men were only a year or two older than I was, and I had nothing
to show in terms of adulthood. I had not settled, made an independent living,
or left the homestead to build my own family unit. The group warned
me that if I remained sedentary, that I would develop syphilitic conditions and
degrade in such rapid fashion that there may be nothing left before the
building of my coffin. I debated the truthfulness of this claim, and they asked
me if I had ever seen what had happened to a man who never married. I shook my
head. I had never seen an unmarried man in my life. When the lights turned out
later that night, I lifted my shirt and looked for any rotting flesh. After much of
the morning feeding, I noticed an open window in Cesari’s house. He’d finally
decided to get some air inside that sarcophagus of his. I had half the mind to
knock and inquire as to his behaviour the past few days, though the other half
knew I’d more likely be shunted the second the door cracked open. After washing
up, mother had approached me and remarked that I had begun to look sickly and
pale. She questioned if I had slept well, and that it might be better to bunk
with my brother from now on. I told her that I doubted my corpse would rest
well if she buried him next to me. She took a rag and lightly whipped my chest
with it, urging me not to take death so lightly. Sharing the
village’s values and ethics was part and parcel of existence. You were orthodox
or you were cretin. I told my mother just as much in more strategic words, so
as to avoid a true scolding. I believe I told her that somewhere along the line
God preached optimism as well. Ay, she told me, but he created us to feel grief
when necessary. Grief, after all, facilitated the transition to healing. Often she
wondered why I’d grieved so little in times of mourning, she continued, and
often assumed that it was handled in my own special fashion. Not so, her lower
lip now trembling slightly and her eyes accusatory, as the thing that stood
before her did not grieve in any natural fashion, and walked the earth blank as
marble and just as cold. Any misunderstanding in my speech would likely lead to
histrionics. I remained silent. Outstretching my hands, she clung to their
grasp and began to sob in my shoulder. The process of sorrow, for her and most
others here, often left her passive-aggressive before the vulnerability finally
shone through. She couldn’t
have been more right though. I felt mechanized, merely assisting her in going
through the motions and sliding her off me as if I’d been untouched by the
entire thing. I felt distant during the day and restless at night. A living
phantom. After mother’s
face had dried, I led her inside to let her rest. When I looked back at his
house, I saw the window to Cesari’s house had been closed again. The next morning
after our (admittedly little) sleep in the cabin, the four of us reached the
consensus to keep moving along the tree line of the coast until we could find a
small settlement with some provisions. Not the best plan in the world, but
since none of us were familiar with the island save for some knowledge of the
occupied areas, we opted for it on the basis of simpler navigation. Dito had
the most formal education of the group, yet Carlo possessed the keenest sense
of direction. He studied the movement of the wind, the placement of the sun,
and more or less led us by pure intuition. We placed an overly large amount of
good faith in his abilities, though we had to restrain him from climbing a tree
to survey the land, as this would have made him a fairly easy target for any
scout party. Dito proved to be the most effective hunter, greeting us earlier
that morning with the corpse of a hare that he laid on top of each of our heads
as we slept. When he tried to emit a hearty laugh, Matiu knocked him upside the
head to reaffirm the context of our situation. Nonetheless, we were happy to
see food. Dito had been
using his rifle and bayonet as a spear of sorts, apparently. We cooked the
creature over a small fire that we built some distance from the cabin, and the
meat proved to be much more stringy and gristly than I’d initially thought. I
now understood why it had never been cooked for me on Maddalena. Not long after
eating, we left the cabin and worked our way north. About seven miles up, Dito
excitedly pointed out what appeared to be a tiny fishing hut with a small
wooden dinghy. Naturally, this put a stride in our step and gave us hope that
we could reconvene with the militia. The journey had been a mostly steady one,
save for one or two pesky insects that seemed to know exactly which holes I
breathed through and could not resist getting sucked in. Occasionally we
glanced behind us, fearful of any soldiers that may have caught our trail from
the smoke. For the longest time we saw none of them. It was only a mile ahead,
however, that we began to hear a commotion. Moving lightly and briskly amongst
the brush, we pulled aside the branches and caught view of the scene. A small group of
armed men, young and old, were sitting round consuming provisions. Most of the
twenty-odd men sat relaxed on small logs while two men engaged in a heated
argument. I had difficulty following due to the change in dialect, but Carlo,
whose grandmother was Corsican, managed to understand the bulk of it. They were
in disagreement about a supposed trail. A trail of three or four men who fled
from a skirmish on Sperono. A trail that should have theoretically led them to
the area they presently stood. I was shocked they did not hear our collective
gulps only thirty yards away. Despite my
greatest attempts to fall asleep later that evening, I found myself drifting
back into consciousness. My dreams over the few days since the funeral had been
flooded with memories of the past. I relaxed my shoulders, face pressed against
the sack, deeply sighing. I felt the change in the air on the following inhale.
The room had grown frigid, a still sort of coldness without a feeling of
draftiness. When I rotated my body to pull the covers closer to my neck, I saw
it. I ceased to move, much like I had caught the gaze of some dangerous
predator, but as I looked more and more I felt the scream inside me stifled and
my body taking on a state of paralysis. The monster that stood before me bore
little resemblance to something that once lived and breathed in this world,
save for the tattered garments that I recognized all too well. The floral
pattern had grown discolored and faded. In areas where the fabric had torn, it
revealed the decaying flesh along her side and bosom. The face looked hewn,
likely torn by bedrock, though skin remained around the cheeks and chin. The
eyes and many of the foremost teeth were missing, the chipped skull protruding
in most places. The body appeared to be soaking still, and some smaller blades
of kelp still remained on the skirt. For the longest time the featureless face
and I were locked in stare, the creature making no motions to harm me or
approach me. It simply stood hunched and pallid even as droplets of water began
to form a small puddle around the figure. Then it moved its lips, mouthing
words ever so slowly although no voice ululated from it. I sincerely hoped that
I would not understand, but it could not have been clearer. By my silence I
registered tacit understanding. Eventually I gathered my bearings and stood,
retrieving a doublet draped over a basket and cloaking it around her to cover
the exposed areas. As I smoothed out the shirt over her right shoulder, the arm
bent upwards and lightly grasped my hand. It then began to caress it. The hand
was cold as ice, the skin weathered, but it was unmistakably her touch. I
buried my face in the soaking hair and hugged the withered body close. The
tears began to well. I belonged in the bell tower all along. There are many
nuances to perfecting a beeswax candle, she often told me. My awkward, overly
aggressive grip prevented me from crafting anything less than a stunted, warped
monstrosity, one certainly not fit for a wick. In her hands, she could mould
the Statue of David, the Ponte Vecchio, the Roman Coliseum. I’d almost be sad
to watch them reduced to globs and puddles. First, she would wrap one end of a
branch in some discarded cloth and secure it with twine. After dousing the end
with some oil, she would light it and create a makeshift torch. She would grab
another, larger piece of cloth, though she simply carried it with her, leaving
me confused by its purpose. The first time
she did all this, I marveled at her ingenuity, especially considering neither
of us had passed our seventh year of age. Not one to take compliments or let a
fresh flame die out from disposable banter, she curtly led me to the largest
beehive nearby where she set about her true magic. Positioning the torch nearby
the branch where the hive dangled, she used that larger piece of cloth to fan
the thick smoke from the flame and draw out the bees inside. I trembled, of
course, fearing an onslaught of righteously angry insects, but she took hold of
my arm and halted my movements. The bees scattered, blindly seeking refuge from
the poison air, and opted to fly downwind away from the torch. Once the hive
had been sufficiently emptied, she knocked it from the branch and collected the
remnants. Holding them out over the fire, she reached her hand inside and
scraped out the honey from the chunky comb remnants. By now it had formed a
liquid state due to the heat, and she told me to cup my hands as if to receive
communion. She held the flaky, crinkled mess that a bee once called home over
my hands and poured the sweet, viscous amber into my palm. The heat startled
me, though it subsided rapidly. At that moment, and I swear on my life that
this occurred, I watched her turn her body back to the torch, and her hands
were momentarily engulfed by the flame. She neither winced nor noticed, and not
a single movement or action of hers lost its patient grace. As I mentioned
previously, I was hopeless at moulding the honey into anything sustainable. Perhaps I
treated it as a race to finish first, as we were always very competitive in
those days. She, however, crafted the elegant, gently curved sticks as though
it were second nature, or even first. I often wondered why she placed so much
importance on these candles. The process to me seemed extraneous and more than
a little risky. At the same
time, she possessed an almost preternatural understanding of her surroundings.
A common six-year old stumbles clumsily around, overwhelmed by their various
impulses and enduring the consequences of them as a means of learning right
from wrong. She never stumbled. She never learned. She simply knew. On days when the
sun shines brighter than usual on Maddalena, the villagers often took note of
the thick patches of moss growing on previously bare rock foundations around
the island. I was a young boy, uncertain of my hopes, dreams, or soon-to-arise
impulses, and yet I clung to her, feeling the permanence she would represent in
my life. I tilted my head, resting it sideways on her shoulder, and she reached
her clean hand up and stroked my forehead, rocking her shoulders to and fro as
if to lull me to standing slumber. My eyes were closed only for so long though.
I swore the sun rose early that day. Once again, I
drifted into consciousness not knowing when I had first slipped out of it. Most
dreams flit from our heads upon waking, being insubstantial visions bearing
little resonance to present knowledge or earthly logic. That horrific,
sorrowful creature, however, existed beyond the fantastic notions of a dreary
mind. The vision was no mere arrival. It was trespass. I lay in the room, my
guard down, unaware of how to avail myself of the dreaded memories that bore
their way into lucid experience. Perhaps I was being drugged on a nightly
basis, or lapsing into insanity. When I bent my legs to slip on my loafers, I
noticed that they were black with dust and dirt, as though I had been traipsing
about in my sleep. Daylight was still faint, and I crept
downstairs to wash my heels and find some distance away from that dreaded
attic. While waiting for my feet to dry on the rims of the water bucket over a
gentle morning breeze, I rested my head against the wall of my home, hoping to
nod off for a few moments. The climate was comforting, the view soothing, and
after peering around to admire the scope of my former paradise I closed my eyes
and began to breathe softly. Then a thought
came into my head, followed by a sharp feeling of anxiety that dropped from my
spine to my stomach like an icicle from an overhang. I opened my eyes once more
and looked at the thing that I had hoped was not what it was. A body, garbed in
nightclothes, lay crumpled on a large flat rock protruding from the ground, the
hands clasping each other and securing the shins like a grown foetus. I got to my
feet, gliding over the rocky road and finally sliding to stop myself before
crouching to investigate. This was no mere man. It was Cesari, looking gloomier
than when I’d last seen him. I felt for a pulse, and thankfully was able to
find one. His skin was pale to the point
of translucent, his beard unkempt, and his eyes open and reddened. He had
clearly slept without closing them. Jostling him a few moments, I was able to
wake him. Clearly disoriented, he garbled a few words and swatted about as if
fighting off an invisible attacker. I stepped away while he gathered his
bearings. When he did stop his tantrum, he looked over, noticing me, then gazed
around slowly, and then finally hoisted himself onto his elbow and glared long
and hard in the direction of the village as if they had carted him to the rock
in the middle of the night as a jest. I asked him if he felt ill, and whether I
should return him to his house while I contacted a doctor. He forcibly cleared his
throat and forced himself to speak. “I am a man of
no house, no legacy, and no merit. I have built a stronghold with no strength
to hold it. The stone is hardened ashes, the water is soot. The gates are small
and flimsy and held aloft by muddied soil. The shadow it casts, likely, will be
gone by morn.” He stood, shaking at first, shambling weakly
back to his homestead. I outstretched my arm to console him but it missed his
shoulder. He walked on without notice. A broken tree branch has no purchase in
life once it has fallen from the limb. Unable to move,
we waited under the cover of the brush until the group decided amongst
themselves to disband. They gathered their arms and belongings and began to
discuss their next steps. As they did so, we whispered back and forth. Carlo
transcribed while we strategized, which proved quite difficult. We could wait
for their garrison to cross an effacing tree-line, but we could not guarantee
that they would not continue in our direction instead. Any noise we made would
instantly give away our position, and we could not throw a rock at a far enough
range to sneak past. We simply bided our time, cursing ourselves for our
delusions of grandeur. Sure enough,
they decided to continue southwest. Straight towards us. Looking over at each
other and taking the longest breaths of our lives, we aimed our muskets at the
men and fired, catching them off guard. Two were caught in the shoulder and
arm, the other two shots missing by mere inches. Rising to our feet, we felt
weightless. The wind was
behind us. The way was clear. We dashed to the fishing hut without any regard
for the world any more. My life did not flash before my eyes, though the day
seemed brighter and the sun seemed to reflect off the sandy beach as though it
were clear water. I heard the crack of rifles. We did not have time to reload
so they must have been from the Corsicans. All I could do was duck
instinctually, hoping that none would tear through me at the cusp of my escape.
Before I knew it I was within jumping distance of the dinghy. I slid briefly
before the fin of the boat and took flight, landing firmly in the centre and
steadying my feet on the sides. I took a second extended breath in what seemed
like only seconds. My hearing had caught up to me, I began to hear the shouting
and the cries of pain. Another crack of
the rifle and the air fell dead silent. I took the oars and rowed silently away
from the isle. I was not pursued any further than the beach. Returning to
Maddalena, I felt the renewed sense of grave misfortune. My family greeted me
with an embrace. They did not call me a deserter. Instead, they offered solemn
condolence. The blow of cowardice was softened by the fact that I had fled for
no real benefit. The resident fort-builder, the expert honey gatherer, the
enemy of sleep, the love of my life, had apparently gone for a walk by the Cliffside
during a windy storm. No one had seen her return. A few days after
finding Cesari in that state of his, I was tending the fields with my mother.
While removing some weeds from the ground, Maoli called to me from the road and
urged me to come quickly. She seemed shaken, visible even amongst her hard
features. Filthy from the soil, I patted the loose dirt from my breeches and
followed. She led me to the source of the trouble. A small crowd of villagers,
young and old alike, had gathered outside of Cesari’s home. I inquired as to
what had happened, but she gestured for me to pass through and see for myself.
Gently pushing my way through the onlookers, I saw that Cesari’s door had been
left ajar. Maoli informed me that it was all the way she found it. I pressed
on. Inside, the quarters appeared to be a mess. Plates and cutlery were in
various spots. A bucket had been left in the middle of the floor, and the floor
was still damp from the water that it held. Dirty garments were tossed
indifferently to one side of the room. Still, despite the sight that lay on the
bed which brought revulsion and horror to my senses, it did not appear as
though a struggle had taken place. For all his faults and indiscretions, I had
never wished such a fate on poor Cesari. Most of his body lay flat, his hands
contorted and blue, his veins clearly defined. His eyes bulged from their
sockets, leaving the lids wrinkled and thin. The neck, however, was craned
unnaturally, stretching beyond the limits of the vertebrae, commonplace in
violent jerking movements. A medical professional would surely attribute his death
to a violent bout of choking. Perhaps he had
been sleeping with the gem in his hand, holding onto it for comfort or
security. At some point in the night, he may very well have reached his hand up
to scratch his face in an unconscious state. The string may have caught on his
hand, and the gem would slowly have been lowered into his throat cavity and
become lodged there while he continued to slumber. He may not have come to in
time, being at once too drowsy and disoriented to convey the reality of the situation.
After a brief period of swatting about, unable to clear his windpipe, he may
have drifted once more, weakly lowering his arms and allowing himself to slip
away into ceaseless nothingness. Another ceremony would take place, darkening
the mood of the whole isle once more and sending it into mourning. Over time,
the skies would brighten, and the memory of the loss would be relegated to mere
anecdote. This course of action would be accepted as fact by the entire
community. That is, except for me. All my life I
had been unsure of how to act around Cesari. I knew he abused her, as much as I
knew he raised her to be the beautiful soul she was. How could I intervene? Her
future was never in my hands. She galloped while I trotted, and I could only
ever imagine myself meeting her stride before she finally passed out of reach. I alone know
that Cesari was not alone in his room that night. The spirit had become as much
a part of his life as it had been mine. Cesari had not been offered a chance to
repent. His death was one of strangulation; that is, if the ice cold fear had
not done him in first. Such reasoning would never be accepted or even
elaborated in anyone’s presence, and the burden would be mine to shoulder. I
would walk once more as a free man. A member of the community. A man left to
his own devices. The
Mediterranean has a certain allure that can hardly be explained by words
written or spoken. Gamaliel had stood in the very spot my feet were planted in.
As he looked out to the sea, he saw dusk advance over the sky and paint the
waters in darkened tones; the ethereal lights below the waters only barely
visible, giving the slightest hint of afterlife below. I could see those lights
now. They rested in shallow waters and slowly coasted back towards the deep, as
if daring me to follow. I thought only of the comforting desire of a haven
untouched by vile obligation. I wanted only to hold her again and embrace her,
floating in still waters while basking in warm white light. To the sea and its
inhabitants, we would be a mere vagary, departed from the cycle of life and
left to experience creation in exultant harmony. Without knowing my own
actions, I found my feet at the shoreline, prepared to walk forward. At that moment, I hesitated. I have not earned
the right to distance myself from the hardships of life. I have much to atone
for, and more than enough to compensate as well. I curled my toes so I could no
longer feel the chill of the sea, and then I turned my back on fate once more. I commandeered a
small boat, deciding to inform the three wives of my fellow soldiers of their
fate on Corsica. I sincerely hoped my family and friends would not be too
distressed, for I loved them dearly and hoped only that I conveyed this to them
properly throughout the years. I had been a singularly difficult person to live
with and I wished them peace in my absence. I felt more reassured leaving the
isle in that state than the one I was in when I departed for Corsica. As I was
loosening the tie to the boat on the dock, I looked back and saw the solitary
glow of a beeswax candle on the ridge. © 2015 Rick EginAuthor's Note
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