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November 11, 2019
Honey || Short Story
by valorous
     I found you, bruised and battered under an oak tree, your fingers stained with honey. Your eyes were shut, and you were sleeping, and you had given up on trying to open them. I knelt in the dirt beside you, and I tried to shake you awake, but you didn't move, not even to breathe. So I shook you harder, and where I took my hands away, there were bruises in the shape of hand prints. I drew away, and I saw the hand prints across your lips, the bruises over your eyes, the hands around your throat.
     I stood, and I left you there, alone. There was no use in trying, in breaking myself just to wake you. Winter came, and the earth frosted over with my heart, and I forgot you. Just another body left in the mud to rot. Spring came with the rain, and it ran rivers through the mud, and I followed the rivers back to you, half buried in the mud, your fingers stained with honey.
     I knelt beside you, and I used my calloused hands to wipe you clean. Fresh bruises wound around your throat, and a hand print covered your stomach. I tried harder this time. Grabbing your wrists, I hauled you out of the earth, and I held you in the rain until you were clean again, until I was filthy. And yet, your chest didn't rise. So I laid you in the river gouged in the earth, and the water flowed over you, and I left you underwater.
     Summer came, and the sun bore holes through my skin and seared my bones. I reached inside, through the gap between my ribs, and I tried to pull out the sun, but it was cold and empty. Through my ribs fell the frost of the winter before, and a hand reached inside to clutch my heart. The hand was warm, or my heart was cold.
     It was hard to return to you, dragging the weight of the man who held my heart. I collapsed beside you in the river, and the water washed over me, and I lifted you, and I held you close to me. Your eyes were empty. I reached inside myself, searching for a heartbeat to give to you, but I felt nothing. The hand released my heart and reached into your throat, and there he lived. I was rid of him if only I could be rid of you.
     With bare hands, I grabbed your throat, and I dug my nails into your flesh, and you bled like you were alive. And through your throat, I saw you disintegrating, the mold consuming you. You were gone, and I had lost. At least I would be alone. I left you in the hollow of the tree, and I intended not to return.
     The autumn came, and the leaves turned to fire with my soul, and I was angry. That was something. You were something to fight for. And for the last time, for now or never, I found you, laying inside a rotting oak tree, bruises on your skin, mold in your throat, and honey on your fingers. With nothing left to do, I screamed, and I sang, and I set the forest on fire, and I didn't realise you were breathing until you choked on the ashes in the air. I looked at you, and your chest was on fire, and you looked at me with embers in your eyes. Your skin was covered in bruises, but you were breathing, and you were angry.
      I knelt beside you, and together we were angry at nothing at all, and we screamed until the weight on our hearts dissolved. And when the sun was setting and our voices were hoarse, I took your hand, and I held you, and I knew that I was home again.