As an experiment, once a week I will be posting a short work of fiction in this space. Let me know what you think of the idea. More specific to todays tale, this is a rather dark one incidentally, I would be interested in finding what context this would best suit. Eg – the flight of a refugee, the plight of the unfortunate, the path of a killer, etc. This is asked for a particular reason, as opposed to one of general interest; the rationale will be revealed later.

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editor@therebemonstershere.com

 

I should like to see the Abbott now.

♠

At first light we made our farewells to the village and turned east. A sleeting rain was blowing hard from the north, drenching, chilling, man and beast to the bone. Overcast skies, teasing the sun above, taunting it through the slightest of gaps between blue black anvils, only to allow passage of meagre slivers of light; only after a hard won fight.

 

A shadow, grotesque by sight and nature, covered the broad tract of land and misery as it moved at a pace slightly slower than our own.  Catching us only in the wee hours as we slept, or at least as we dozed on the damp and rotting straw of stables; behind a pub, endeavouring to avoid the stale beery vomit, and piss of the old men too tired to walk any distance from their spot at the bar, yet just far enough to save the embarrassment of a wet seat; stone church and chapel floors when luck held with us; milking sheds or ditches. Our beds were shared with two, four, six, and eight legged beasts; although the two and four legged had become noticeably less abundant the further east we progress.

 

We washed when we had water to spare.

 

The reeking stench of death surrounded us always. Such was its manner as not to offend beyond that of mild shock, shutting down our sense of smell immediate upon exposure to it. A stench, perplexing enough in itself; however, even more so considering those dumb, cowering, belligerent, domiciles as are to be found in any rural setting.  All with a fear of learning, formal or not; words and numbers trapped on pages far beyond the reach of humanity and` comprehension, something more of curse and witchery.  For those anomalies that did read, they were only did so with the aid of a forefinger upon a page, with tongue extended from the corner of a mouth. Not one with any desire to wander more than a handful of miles from the place of their birth.  Ignorance their boundary. They are the scum that are of no use or benefit to the greater surrounding society. Their deaths more an advantage than their lives.

 

There is no need to feed the dead.

 

Crops failed. Young mothers died in childbirth. Old mothers died through chill. Babies and toddlers died with stomachs all too often brimming with an abundance of nothing and hunger; milk dried in every udder. Cow, horse, goat and sheep were the first to go. Those wretches then turned their attentions to working dogs.  The family cat that would have otherwise condemned an old mother to a witch hunter’s wrath.  Lastly, rats and mice and stoat and frog. Entire families with nothing more than a handful of worthless copper, broken dreams, and starvation made pilgrimages to far off, and long attempting to remain lost relatives, hidden away in far flung places and foreign lands. All no more than twenty miles from home.

 

Starvation breeds starvation.  People will eat anything if push comes to shove. The ‘push’ and ‘shove’ oft being the poker beside the fire place and an unwary guest; a sickly child’s pillow.

 

Starvation!  

 

Oh glorious starvation!  

 

Tempting fate and starting war.  War between husband and wife.  War between brothers when the refugee family finally eats them out of house, then the cause of exodus from home.  The numbers of the toast rack chested swelling, as only a malnourished belly can achieve. Villages encountered, ransacked, laid to waste. Factions created, tribes formed, their flocks swelling to thousands.

 

Filth accompanies any and every army. Disease carried on the back of the flea. The hair of a child, moving of its own accord. Louse leaving the love bite of the grubby multitude as red and swollen weals on chest and face. The bites bring illness, the illness brings death. Beautiful, beautiful death.

 

As we move east, the shadow remains as our constant rear guard.

 

Winter comes to all eventually. Bitter, cold, and stinking. Frost freezes the ground and who those fall before it.  Man could not piss on his boots in this place.  Ice will bounce from them instead.

 

We camp, scrounge and move.

 

The death of nations’ moving in concert with us.  More the ‘Danse Macabre’ than a concert, possibly an analogy better suited to those that fall as we pass.

 

We camp, scrounge and move.

 

The blood on our lip; never enough to sate; never enough to quench; never enough to fill our hollow bellies.

 

We camp, scrounge and move.

 

We reach the crumbling ruins of prayer to which ever form the area’s local God happened to be.

 

I dine on what I find. The flesh is young, and the struggle as feeble sound that accompanies.

 

A young woman screams at the mask of horror I must be.

She is close, appearing from somewhere nearby. The heady aroma of blood and the tin taste it brings thrills me.

 

“Who are you?” a question, thin and quavering.

 

The ves door is bolted behind her.

 

“I am Pestilence” the pained sounds form.

“I am War” an elicitation of rage

“I am Famine” the words of a confederate.

“I am Death.” I reply finally.

 

Her last breath, so beautiful, yet so tragic, wasted on such fear filled, pathetically human, words.

 

Hades shadow falls across her.

 

“I should like to see the abbot, please.” is all the small voice manages.

 

“Do not fear child.  God knows us, and he is about to know you all the better.”

 

♠

 

 

Fin

 

Best to all, click on the picture above for music. Ukeleles and Valkyries follow.

 

N.

 

 

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