The Day Before Christmas

I tried to paint a portrait of sorrow for a writing contest a few months back. It earned first place, but the competition was small, and I am not satisfied with it. Enjoyment be to all who read it.

The sky was dark and dripping like the tail feathers of a wounded crow. Streaks of marginally lighter grey were drowned in places where one might otherwise expect the playful frolicking of clouds. The world was not bright nor some visionless shade, but of a color much akin to bittersweet in its spitefulness and intermediacy, as if the sun lay omnipresent yet always out of reach. Torrents of white snow wailed ghost-like as they plummeted to the ground below. The air itself felt stiff, brisk, and frozen.

            Next to a large, chilled-over lake were two dozen stone shacks with wooden roofs and stagnant chimneys, centered about a pier and silent marketplace. Run-down cobblestone streets muffled by sheets of ice made walking on them a perilous venture. Corpses shambled to and fro without aim or life, for all hope had long since fled from whatever life within them remained. Others had ceased to shamble and could be seen strewn throughout the village, quivering and helpless. The cold numbed their bodies, keeping them from rot, and hunger often thawed them.

            The struggle and snap of a door pushing open stabbed through the stillness of the dawn. A man stumbled out into the day, any details of his appearance lost under layers of tattered clothing. Instantly, the elements blinded him, and he stood confused for several seconds before the instinct of survival shackled his feet; they began to bleed movement. As he walked, several other piercing noises filled the air around him. He stopped to count them off, and was one short. One door had not opened - someone had died. He started walking again, toward the market.

            With every step the man’s ribs, jutting prominently in his chest, cracked like a thin frost above water breaking underfoot. His arms and legs were stiff and bloody, but pain was not his. No entity of feeling took hold within him. From a faraway source he could hear his body screaming for a halt, for some portent of relief; but his stomach growled much louder, and so he kept walking. His limbs began to revolt against him and after a period of obstinacy he sat down on a bench of rotten cypress to rest.

            Across from the bench stood a lamp post made of wrought iron and tired glass, one pane of which had been freshly shattered. Its shaft was twisted and bent, and the light in its crown flirted weakly with death behind translucent walls. Several feet away an older man was limping toward the post. His coat was made of thick, insulant leather, and torn - probably by the wisps of a blizzard - from the shoulder to the stomach. It flapped loosely against the blackened and necrotic skin of his torso. He fumbled as he approached the lamp, wrapping his hands around the base of it as he fell, trying desperately to pull himself off of the ground. A shard of panic flashed and then subsided in the old man’s eyes as he stopped moving. The man on the bench watched as the flame in the lamp flickered and extinguished.

            The wood did not creak as he stood up from his seat. The man walked across the street without thinking, and fell to his knees beside the corpse. He tilted his eyes upward toward the head of the lamp post and gazed uncomprehending at its broken panel. He tried to roll the body away but the old man’s hands had already frozen to the bottom of the post. He smashed the fingers to unclench them; they broke, crackling like fat burning on a slaughtered lamb. A second attempt met with success. The man shoved the body against the ruins of a birch wood fence. A deep red slush where the corpse’s stomach had lain filled the man’s throat and nose with the pungent and drooling scent of flesh. He dug his hand into the receding warmth of the scarlet beneath him, begging to savor the fleeting feeling of comfort it gave him. In a few cruel seconds all warmth was gone and the blood was as cold as the snow it mixed with. He jerked his palm from the slush and saw the shards of glass that were hidden underneath. He looked over at the body against the fence. Two fragments were lodged in its abdomen, and a third protruded from the thigh. They glittered like the eyes in a boy’s mocking smile.

            The man’s astonishment was interrupted by a sharp stinging in his hand. The pain was welcome and baptismal as he had felt nothing else in days. He tilted his head toward the sensation and saw a stream of blood trickling from a glint in his finger. He pulled the glass out from his hand and the stream became a river of frailty that cascaded onto the white below. Hysteria gripped him at the sight of it and he lurched toward the dead man. Greedily he tore clothing from flesh, wrapping what he could around his wound. Once the bleeding had stopped, the man stood up and looked at the corpse, now bare above the waist. Bruises and scrapes covered the body. Its nails were cracked, chewed, and brittle; its skin dried and bonded to bone. The body’s chest, stained with blood and bruising, stuck several inches past the concave of its stomach. The ribs were outlined in flesh like the wings of an angel tentatively curled from the corpse’s spine. The man walked away, gripping the post with his departure.

            As the market grew nearer, the wind began to pick up the scent of ash and burning wood. It was the only place in the village that did not yet smell wholly of desiccation. The man’s feet livened and his steps grew in haste and longing. Soon he joined several others, all walking in the same direction; their movements were synchronized and well-rehearsed through months of no difference. One woman was carrying her child, whose legs the bitter chill had made defunct. The added burden was too much and her feet gave way beneath them. They both fell to the ground. The woman was silent - the child screamed, though not for long. They were alone in their halted movements, as the promise of warmth deterred sympathy, and the reality of the cold all but vanquished it. A small group had already formed around the flame. A stew was boiling in a cast iron pot hanging above the fireplace, and a moldy loaf of bread was on the floor beside it. When the stew was distributed, no one asked about the bits of meat that floated in its pale broth. All knew the answer, and no one asked who. No one wanted to know. A voice broke out after several minutes of hushed eating.

            “How many days?”

            It went unanswered.

            The bread was only split among those still strong enough to lift a hand to request it. The others’ lives were deemed hopeless. There were eight in total. The eighth piece was given to the unfilled frame of a once burly and towering man. A threadbare butcher’s apron hung about fleshless shoulders.  His eyes were black and bulging, with white irises that dashed about like those of a vulture. His arm trembled with effort as he reached up to receive the bread. Several minutes went by before he managed to tear the piece in two. He handed the half to a much older woman, bundled in the clothes of two people, but she would not eat it. He pleaded with her to take the bread; still, she refused. After some moments of arguing, he pushed the crusted bread into his mouth, and she waited for him to swallow. The woman - his mother -closed her eyes, and they did not open again. The man huddled against the warmth of the fire, his body shaking without sound.

            Time was not kept track of, and any vestment of its existence had either been burned for heat or frozen through. The hours passed in intervals defined only by the stoking of the flame. Over an indeterminate period of time it would die down to smoldering embers, and those that could spare the energy to move closer did so like rats toward a dying hound. A length of stick or scorched bone, splintered at the diaphysis and sharpened on its edge, was used to tend the fire, provoking it into a blaze when its warmth was no longer felt. When nature grew listless, it would blow out the flames entirely, and those seated closest would scramble to rekindle them.

Every three or four times the fire grew low, someone would fill the pot with water from a basin in the center of the market, and serve it, scalding, to whomever was still awake. Occasionally, a person would rise up to relieve themselves beyond the dilapidated walls of the building. Those who had not the energy to walk were left to fester in their own filth. Little was spoken as what needed to be said was often wordless. All the while gusts of wind whipped the townspeople with merciless tenacity; for many, their discomfort was the only barrier to death. 

Author's Note

I sometimes have a problem with over-description, with imagery experiencing a certain ebb and flow between comprehensive and nauseating. The woods I used for the benches, etc. have attached to them certain symbolism that I don't remember well enough to describe in detail here. Though each word was written by me, the work as a whole is not entirely my own, as I took a great deal of inspiration from the publications of the late Franz Kafka, most notable of which being raw themes of The Hunger Artist. Umm... As for the rest, that is up to you, if there indeed is a "you." Please be harsh and unforgiving; the judges of the contest had no writing advice for any of the contestants. Critique unyieldingly; many thanks. Word count, 1529.

Reviews

[bernice]

Don't get me wrong, I loved it, but you were right about being over-descriptive. Tone the details down a bit :)

[Kyline Freed]

I love this story! The amount of detail in this piece is crazy! Amazing Job

[Michael]

Thank you very uuch! I aim to please.

[Michael]

Oops... Much.

[Marie]

Longer than it needed to be; you could have said just as much with half the words.

You got the point across; the hunger and the cold--and pain being the only way to keep from dying.

Somewhat over written, but good anyway.

[Michael]

I agree. The contest I was writing for required a minimum of 1500 words, else I would have kept it much shorter. I was going to rewrite it into something more concise but I lost the motivation after a few weeks went by. Your thoughts may give me the requisite desire, however; I guess we shall see. Thank you for your perceptive comments, and for spending the time to look at my writings.

[Marie]

You're a very good writer. I hope to see more of your word.

[Michael]

Thank you very much.