Day 23
Today we visit with the lovely Cindy Rhodes as she spins us a descriptive tale of death and revenge.
Morrigan’s Caw
Coos of mourning doves raised him from slumber. The ones that survived
the winter freeze had mated during spring’s season of heat and produced quite a
beautiful brood. They matured into a choir that would rival that of any
Methodist church. They sang to their hearts’ content as morning arrived. Red
eyes of night creatures surrendered to sleep, and furry, dirty carnivores
retreated into the deep cover of ferns and trees as happy winged creatures
filled the air with flutters and song.
Molsen picked out a booger and wiped it on his bed. Caked blood and
snot dotted the old floral flannel that covered the pillows handed down to him
by his grandmother. Had he spent his yesterday more thriftily, he would have
had time to draw the water from the outdoor pump in the warmth of the afternoon
sun, but here he lay, in the freezing cold room of this mossy hut, breath
hanging foggily in the air, and the wash basin as dry as a white Arizona stone.
He would have to decide whether to piss the bed again and put off the
water-pumping, or be a man, a real man, and finally do something responsible. The
burdens of decision-making and income-producing escaped him in his daily life;
intensely “pagano,” this “man of the land” operated on a carnal-need basis only.
Missing a responsible role model in his youth, he relieved himself then and
there. No one else would mind.
Under the large leaves of the vines covering the garden, life
flourished. Dermestid beetles marched from corpse to corpse, creating a parade
field rivaling that of any army base. Mature oak roots harbored moss,
Johnny-jump-ups, and skulls. From the eye socket of an old baby doll, a
palmetto bug peeked out into the brightening world and, preferring the moist
darkness, retreated back into the depths of the cracked plastic body as weevils
clung to the remaining fronds of horse hair springing from the doll’s dirty
scalp. Yesterday’s playthings became tombstones of youth as Mother Nature
covered them with Her spawn. It’s funny, the speed at which Mother Nature can
hide the crimes.
As the eastern sunbeam slid across the floor, its sheen painted the muddy
soles of the feet of the barely warm body in the corner. Cracked red polish
decorated the jagged nails and sunlight turned the unpainted parts into
glimpses of fake alabaster. Where a river of blood once flowed, there remained only
a deep Tuscan red marbling across the floor. Tuscan red, Copenhagen blue, deep
violet, and bone ivory were the colors of choice for a pencil artist to
reproduce the almost patriotic-colored scene in that corner, but no more
colored pencils planned to rest in the hands of the artist’s body that slumped
in that dirty corner.
Stomach cramps forced him from bed as he let his heavy dirt-caked feet
hit the fourteen-inch planks that floored the hut. His diet of warm blood and
raw flesh did not seem to agree with him today. The matches had run out months
ago, and lacking the strength and chutzpah to find two stones to strike
together, he surrendered the aroma of a medium rare steak to that of the sweet putrid
stench of flowing blood. He found that raw squirrel tasted rather nutty, as
“punny” as that sounds, and that raw crow did indeed taste like raw chicken,
but with an added “punch.” That “punch”
went straight to his gut, but it would not stop there. Never kill a crow.
Scratching his jaundiced hairy belly, he creaked open the green hut
door and surveyed the yard. Vividly green ferns, vines, shrubs and trees
liberally draped across the clearing inside Morrigan’s woods. But for the
occasional fart and belch, this secluded alcove would remain a secret from
prying ears, and no living bloodshot eyes except those of his own bloodline had
ever rested upon this scene. On the sun-dotted porch, hand-hewn rakes and
hunting implements glistened with dew and directed drips into tiny pools on the
moss-covered boards. Rivulets of moisture flowed lazily into long-worn furrows
down into the garden where lush vegetation awaited. Muscadines and scuppernongs
hung behind borders of irises and purple coneflowers. Salvia and sweet peas
worked together to cover the remainder of the earth, which also hid its own
share of booty.
Licking the dew from an elephant ear plant, Molsen livened up a little,
his dry eyes cracking open a little wider to survey his plot. Yesterday’s hole
still gaped open, awaiting a gift of flesh, and he intended to provide an
offering after depositing a shit into it. He bent down and sat over the hole,
grunting and straining to produce his labor of love, the crude remains of
yesterday’s corvidian feast.
As his cramps crept more deeply into his core, the right-handed idiot
clenched his fists around nearby tree roots and the moss underneath them. Staining
his hands green, the tiny leaves, flowers and spore pods of fruiting mosses
crumpled under his grasp and released their fecund seed upon his dirty,
crinkled skin. Finding deep pores of emptiness and dried sweat, fertilized seed
made their way into the depths of his flesh and lay in wait of their future, a
future to be generously fertilized upon his death.
He seemed frozen, a statue of the shitting man, there, squatting over
that gaping hole in that sun-dotted clearing, and time did, indeed, seem to
stand still as a creak of the door broke the silence. Still grasping the roots
and moss, he turned his oily head to the left to see his ivory prey standing on
the porch of the mossy hut. Her black hair hung in talons upon her pale
buttocks, and her lips flushed ruby red as she purposefully pouted her full
lips to utter a command to the murder of crows that lit upon the branched
rooftop.
Mourning doves halted their coos as a screech pierced the morning air. The
flapping of a hundred black wings drummed the airwaves and fifty hard yellow
beaks cawed and jack-hammered into the soft yellow flesh of the wretched Molsen.
Wracked with gut-wrenching pain, he released the roots and moss and fell into
the hole atop his own shit. Feces, mud, blood, sweat, and dew mingled to create
his own unique anointing death rub.
As he found his way to his feet, he scrounged at the walls of the pit
in attempt to escape, but the hundred flapping wings blackened the sky above
him as the walls came crashing down upon him. Writhing in the ever hardening
soil, the man inhaled moist soil into his lungs. Clumping in his lungs, the
rich soil finally strangled him and the moss seeds rejoiced as they realized
their future. Soil covered. Seeds lay in waiting. Tendrils eked their way toward the site. Dermestid
beetles formulated their parade route. It’s funny, the speed at which Mother
Nature can hide the crimes.
Never kill a crow.
****
****
Cindy Rhodes aka Mermaid
Morrigan is an artist and musician residing in beautiful North Carolina.
Mostly musical, she focuses upon her dulcimer, harp, and piano, but
also dabbles in drawing and writing. Heavily involved in her groups
"Sedna's Eternal Cove" and the "Full Moon Mafia," she hopes that you
will enjoy her story's references to Morrigan and acquire a deeper love
of corvids.
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