Grief; a short story

I like to write short stories to help me hone my own voice and get intentional practice in. This was written as I processed the loss of a loved one. I have done minimal editing but I may come back to it. I have another decent short story on addiction and I may end up with a collection at some point. Until then, I thought some others could relate. It’s a little lengthy, so don’t be afraid to take it chunks if you need to. And if you’ve experienced loss lately, you may want to come back later or read with caution and tissues.

Grief

A Short Story

The thudding sound of other Petrans’ footsteps starting their day wakes me. The dusk is still too bright for me; I force my eyes shut again. Apparently my children haven’t come to the same conclusion because one by one they tumble down from their lofty bed as the top of our rock mound, the standard Petran family sleeping arrangement, and land in the main area of our cave. The twins begin to play loudly with their stone doll house. I’m not sure what’s more shrill, their squeaky voices playing pretend or the banging of the tiny rock people on the single flagstone that serves as the floor of the doll house. I rub my eye cleft and smile at them. My wife Ignaea and I unfold ourselves, join them and slowly begin our day.

“Could you at least wait until the moon is all the way out before you get up? Maybe just once a week?” I chuckle and lovingly pat my son’s head, who smiles but doesn’t look up from his story etched on curled edge bark. “Almost done, Carrick?”

“No, but it’s really tense and I can’t stop until I at least know what happens after this mudslide!”

“Oh, absolutely.” I shiver. “I’m surprised you climbed up to sleep at all last night.”

We all get moving slowly, while we let the cool night air loosen our joints. Iggy grabs several tufts of lichen and stands at the wash basin, just a boulder’s breadth (bb) away from the north wall of our cave where there’s a slow, steady drip of spring water. Everyone gathers around and she hands us each a clump of lichen. 

Plunk. Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Plunk. Scrub, scrub. 

“Brush between your tummy and your knee boulders Jolie, otherwise the sand will rub and you won’t grow big and strong.” My wife chides the twins to get all of the in-between places. 

You see Petrans have only two enemies, sand and water. Over time, in the safety of our cave and other resting spots we venture to, we grow larger with layers of densely packed mineral. But constant contact, however small, with water or loose sand wear us away, grinding at fragile layers of freshly pressed stone. In large quantities they decimate anything in their way, whether plant, animal or mineral.

“Where are we collecting today, Papa?” Etta asks.

I can’t help but let a little smile leak out. “Well, I was thinking of heading to the Mica shores.” I say as casually as possible. Iggy looks at me in surprise.

“I thought we were only going on a three day collecting trip this week.” She says.

“Well, life is too short to make too many trips to regular beaches and mountainside camp sites. If we’re going to curl up together and grow for a few nights, we might as well make it a glittering beach with crisp cold water to wash in!” 

Even Carrick looks up from his book and smiles. Everyone spins into motion, a slow steady kind of spin like earths and suns. Within a few minutes we are ready to make the all day journey west to the Shimmering Lake. You’d think with a name like that, all rock families would be dying to spend their days there. But boulders aren’t made of glitter. And rocks who spend too much time in places like Mica shores are fragile and certainly not strong enough to have a family. 

That was the perfect end to the perfect last night with my family in our home sweet solace. Here is our story. 

The journey was a long one for the twins so they spent most of the uphill portions on our backs. Iggy and I sometimes joined arms and carried all three kids between us. Petrans call this congregate traveling and each parent functions like a single leg, taking large alternating bounds. During these times we traveled like one enormous cliff side moving along the ridges. It was wonderful! Petran family members are very interconnected. As couples begin their lives together, we collect our layers together. Before long we become essentially two halves of the same boulder. Our children are literally grown and hewn from the same stone, from us. And we continue to live many parts of our lives integrated.

We wove down & up through ravines and mountain sides like a shuttle along the warp and weft of the chain of mountains. As the moon was setting and the dark was losing its grip, we arrived at the first Mica shore. We finished our walk at the third glittering beach along the southwestern edge of Shimmering Lake. It didn’t take much meandering to find a place just above the high water mark large enough for us to rock pile and sleep. Carrick sat up part of the night until he finished his book. We were so deep in the mountains that he was in no danger of being seen, except by curious deer and squirrels, so I didn’t protest. I was so exhausted that I hardly heard him join us. It wasn’t until weeks later that I remembered him saying as he ca-thumped down on top of my left leg and his mother’s arms, “It all turned out okay.” Yaaaawn “They all end up together in the end.”

We spent the week splashing and rolling in the glistening sands all day. Every evening as the sun rose, we slept on the shores in the scorching sun while the layers of mineral baked into our surfaces. Every once in a while someone got uncomfortable and we all rejumbled into a new configuration, allowing the weight of our bodies to apply pressure to our fresh sparkling coats. After five days of this it was time to go home. 

Our last night was spent happily cuddling each other’s glorious sharp edges, now decorated as splendorous as the starry day sky we watched reflected in the lake the day before.Of course we knew the real beauty comes when you add layers of mountain dirt, shale gray and mineral red, on top. The shining stripes here and there become like jewels, cherished memories amongst the rhythm of life as part of this earth. But that didn’t stop us from basking in our current radiance. We sighed contentedly knowing that even though we would return to our regular mountain cave, a life that ebbs and flows from the everyday to the extraordinary is one that is both strong and beautiful.

We awoke as the sun sank behind the mountains and its last rays were swallowed by the black turquoise of day. No one said much. The twins jabbered unintelligibly as twins do. We washed the remaining loose grit off, especially scrubbing joints in preparation for the long day’s walk. As if directed by the same silent conductor we gathered on the shore and set off in quiet unison. More and more stars joined us on our walk around the lake and we passed some families rising for a day of playful collecting and others like us making themselves ready for return journeys to their own rock shelters. 

We merged onto our path along the river flowing east and smallish chit-chat grew slowly. All refreshed from our time at Shimmering Lake, we followed a ravine that continued east and left the river to its northward track, walking on our own legs and only joining hands or arms with the person next to us. I didn’t know it then, but that was the perfectly beautiful scene that often comes before the climax of a story. 

Jolie and Etta each held one of my legs as we walked three wide in the front. Carrick and Iggy sauntered behind us discussing centuries old Petran literature they’d read on frayed bark pieces. The girls and I snickered at our beloved nerds and threw pine cones as far as we could across the ravine. Without warning, we felt a rumble deep beneath our feet; the kind that makes you feel sick before your mind has even processed it. The enormous voices of Petrans on the Shimmering mountain travelled across the lake and down the river to the ravine we were tracing. “The Neck is broken! The Neck of the Mountains has given way!” 

When the unthinkable happens, it takes a moment for your brain to rewire itself for this new, previously unimaginable reality. The Neck of the Mountains, which had held back the Shimmering Lake for ages had weakened. One piece of earth made way for another until the narrow mouth burst open and the banks of the Shimmering River were now erupting with all the contents of the lake. I looked at the frightened faces of my family and then to the northern hill rising twice as high across from us and burst into action.

“Help me get everyone across the ravine!” I had to raise my voice for Carrick to hear me.

“Iggy! You first! We’ll toss the girls to you next.”

Carrick, who was still a juvenile Petran, grasped his mother’s arm with an intention that only urgency can give. I placed my right hand in hers and my left on her back so I could throw most of her weight for Carrick.

“I love you.” We both said simultaneously. 

“I know.” In chorus again. 

Those four words contained everything written about what they call “true love” from the beginning of time. True love doesn’t need a translator when it’s saying good-bye.

We only swung once and tossed her. The vibration in our feet had grown to a massive roar in our ears as well, getting loader by the second. The girls were easily slung, one by each of us in turn, to their mother who plopped them on her shoulders and began heading up hill. I pivoted to Carrick, “Your turn!” I had to shout above the bellowing water.

“How will you get across?!”

“I will!” 

I took his arm and gave him that look that says “I’m proud of you” and “I love you” which are nearly the same thing for a young man his age. I wound up to swing him over and looked toward the river bed to see the wall of water battering first one side and then the other of that same valley we’d followed to this ravine. At that moment, I realized two things. First, I imagined the trajectory of that river as it would swing back forth through the riverbed down this ravine. It would break on the opposite side of the gully. The second was that I was about to consign my son to the same terrible end I had already sent my wife and daughters to. I retracted my swing just as we both let go. Instead of soaring across the gully, he fell just out of arm’s reach below me. 

My eyes returned westward to the water. Hours ago, that same water was our companion in collecting a shining ribbon and lovely memories and now it had turned our enemy. The bulk of it turned northward with the main riverbed, but another massive wall coursed toward us. I looked urgently at my girls and my wife. In her literary eyes I saw the words from her ancient texts, “When I am afraid, I will trust. I will not be afraid.” I never understood how it all fit together until that moment when I looked in her eyes and saw every part of it merged together. Afraid and not afraid. And trusting all the while. She held the girls close as the torrent struck them and they crumbled beneath its force. My eyes immediately turned away to no relief for their wound. 

Carrick hung on to the crag below me but his legs were being torn away by the rushing flood. I lowered myself down to him as quickly as I could but the water had risen and he was being battered from head to toe. I grabbed his arm and hauled him up above the water line. I paused only to take one gasping breath and carried him to the top of the hill. I held him in my arms and glanced across where I had last seen Iggy, Jolie and Etta. Just writing their names brings back that picture of the hillside being torn away like a piece of potter’s clay out of the soft lump. The hill on that side rose almost twice as high as this one. My only thought had been to get everyone to the highest ground. I never considered for a moment that this lower wall to the ravine would be safe enough if we had gotten to the top. Now because of me, over half my family was gone and the rest of it was crumbling in my arms. I stared down the coulee, desperate for a sign that I was mistaken. I imagined I saw movement in the newly etched walls of the gorge. Over and over I hoped. But it was all for naught. 

We remained there for several days, over which I slowly realized they weren’t coming back. Of course I only realized this with the crust of me. It would take much longer to set in beneath my shell and reach my core. During those days on the hill next to the gully, which filled with murky, debris-filled water, I functioned much like a granite womb. I curled around Carrick trying to hold him together. I watched the constellations chase each other through the day sky, angry that they could go about their ‘business as usual’ while my world had come to a screeching halt. The birds still sang and the leaves still danced in the breeze. What reason or right did they have to make joyful sounds? The deer and rabbits moved about solemnly, searching for new homes and safe paths to meadows. 

I don’t actually know how many days we lay there. I only know that it was more than a couple. One night under the sun’s heat, Carrick stirred a little. He moved only slightly, each time I realized how much of him was no longer in tact. Without moving his eyes, his mouth twitched. I drew him close and he whispered raspy words toward me. “It’s going to be okay. We all end up together in the end.” 

I silently cursed his and his mother’s books, always holding the answer. I didn’t want an answer. I didn’t want any ancient wisdom to get me through. I wanted my family. What was left of Carrick could sustain him no longer. He slipped away and we stayed curled up there for the rest of the night. In the morning when the moon had fully risen behind the clouds and the sky was black and starless, I carried him eastward and laid him to rest where I thought he would be close to his mother and sisters. 

I stayed two nights and one day there, fulfilling the traditional burial rest alone and leaving with the second moonrise. It’s an odd feeling, the leaving. You know that no matter how long you stay, nothing will change. But it doesn’t make it any easier to do. 

I meandered toward our abode, turning a day’s journey into two. I tromped along wondering how I was supposed to traverse such a great distance without my other leg. I curled up on a ridge and wondered how one is even supposed to sleep alone. I must have fallen asleep eventually because I awoke after the moon was well into the sky to find that it wasn’t a nightmare and that I was indeed returning home alone - if “home” it could be called anymore. Without four other voices in the dialogue, my mind just wandered to all the things that could’ve been. I wondered what would have happened if Iggy and I had tried to leap the ravine with the kids all at once and headed up. Would we have made it? What if I had thought just another moment before I decided on a course of action? Would I have realized the folly of my plan? 

I arrived to our cave, my “home sweet solace”, around moonset of the second day. Local Petrans had brought small stones of remembrance and placed them by the entrance. They had already heard and walked the hillsides looking for small, inanimate rocks that reminded them of my lost family members. I could see why they chose them, some by their shape and some for their coloring. Others had a sort of personality that reminded me of my smart beautiful wife, my bookish sturdy son, and my active girls who stitched together sporty and girly just-so. At the time, I wasn’t sure whether this comforted me or hurt me all the more. Now I know it did both; both are required of you when some of your pieces have been ripped from you suddenly. 

I stayed in my (mine not ours, painfully true, but true none the less) cave for months. Autumn passed and snow came. I rose from the back of the cave and stood at the wash basin. I sloppily wiped some accumulated sand off with a wet bunch of lichen. I went to the doorway and stood at the opening. I thought I might have been ready to take a walk, but I realized the Longest Day Celebration was eminent and I wasn’t ready to face it. How could I watch the congregate dance when I was literally missing most of me? How could I stroll on the mountain path alone? I realized I was going to have to relearn every bit of my life and I just couldn’t cope with that right then, during the holiday. As I turned to sulk back to the depths of my solace, I glanced down at the stones of remembrance that had accumulated several boulders breadths thick from the side of the cave and as I did I noticed that the painful places where Iggy used to grab my arm were beginning to smooth out. Sand and time in the solace without them were beginning to change my shape. 

I slept fitfully and unwillingly woke intermittently for a few more weeks. One day I heard the muffled thump of footsteps hesitantly approach and then lowered voices. I’m not going to the door. The voices stopped and I was just letting out a sigh of relief when they began.

Carolers. 

I instantly recoiled at the thought of participating in any of the celebrating. I covered my ear crevices. But the low reverberating melodies of the same old Petran songs did something. Without thinking, I uncurled and after a moment stood up. Something about the music, even though I had sung them with my family a hundred times, chipped away at my jagged wounds. I walked to the door and listened to them finish and then mustered something like a smile and a thank you. I stayed long enough to watch them leave before I walked back in here. And now I’m sitting against the wall writing this story down on this reddish sheet of bark. 

I’m writing it because Iggy would have wanted me to,
because I think I need to
and because it’s time to go outside.