The boy stands with the shovel in hand, his face marred with soot from the mine. He is cold, as am I, but the glint of the shilling in his palm under the moonlight makes the chill a little less so.
I graze the frozen dirt with the shovel. The winter had not been kind, and the frost locked you further away from me. My love was trying to reach you, but the cold, the merciless cold, was unrelenting and laughed at my struggle.
The night sky a black canvass of scattered diamonds. The forest, barren and dead, echoed with the howls of wolves that would soon draw in. I didn’t have much time.
The lad was still, patient, ne’er making a noise as I went at the ground. The shovel snapped. In a rage, I tossed the instrument to the tree line, where I could see hellish eyes peering through the black.
A lesser man would have forsaken his task, gone back to the inn to drown his shattered heart in whisky and ale. But not me. I made you a promise. The Lord had long forsaken me and the Devil was calling me to Dante’s Seventh Circle.
So with bloodied hands I clawed and dragged for every inch, past every root and every stone. Digging deeper, dirt and sweat stinging my eyes.
My fingers, broken and twisted, graced the lid of your tomb, and I fought the urge to dive onto my knees and claw, pull and pound that wood that kept you from me. But I refrain. With your fire in my soul I pressed on, carefully clearing the last remnants of soil from your casket, making it beautiful, pristine, like a blank slate for our new beginning.
I lay on the cold hard top, listening, trying to feel your breath, trying to hear your whispers. At first, only the wind sniggered in my ear, calling me A Fool, that love cannot penetrate death. But the love from a fool is like passing brass as gold. It is weak, fickle. Our love is Chronos: eternal and divine. The wind bleeds into my ear, but as it hushes, I hear you -
Come to me…
I wrap my hands around the frozen lid and heave with all my might, until the cold relinquishes you and the grave yearns an icy breath.
There, laying in suspended time, you greet me with a toothy smile.
I feel the spiders scurrying along my numbed skin, and the worms, swollen and wet, writhe and fall through my fingers as I take you into my arms.
I turn to the lad.
“Fill the hole,” I say, as I lay down next to you, holding your vacant gaze. I pull the lid closed and hear the sounds of dirt thumping above me.
“I love you,” I whisper. You pull in closer, your dead hands touching my face. As the air grows thin, and I drift away in your embrace.
“I love you too.”