He threw another spadeful of dirt and looked at me. He was working slower than he had to, trying to buy time. He’d made it halfway. A motivated man could have reached her coffin by now. Let him buy his time. I was patient. I’d waited 10 years. They said it took 10 years to really be good at anything. Ten years of working during the day, 10 years of studying religion and the kinds of magic people call dark at night, 10 years of learning how to fight in between. That was all right. If you really wanted something, you worked for it, no matter how long it took. It might not seem like it then, but that moment you wanted would always come.
It’s the question that had haunted me for 10 years. Will it bring her back?
I kept the rifle pointed at him. I felt nothing, even as he gave me another pleading look. “I have a family,” he said weakly.
“So did she,” I said without hesitation. At last, he wanted to talk. Little did he know I’d already had this debate every day for the last 10 years.
“I’ve got a wife --”
“Her fault for choosing to love someone like you.”
He looked at me in horror. I did not shrink back. I would not be afraid to tell the truth. He wanted me to feel sorry for him. He wanted me to feel more sorrow for him than I did for the woman I loved. That would never happen.
“B-but my daughter... she didn’t choose...”
“She’ll be better off if she isn’t raised by you.”
He bit his lip. It was quivering. I could already see the beginnings of tears. “This is insane. Don’t you understand I was drunk!”
“Strangely, you still seem to think that’s an excuse.”
“It is an excuse!” He threw another spadeful to spend some of his anger. “I wasn’t in control of my actions!” Spittle flew everywhere. Very unbecoming.
“You started drinking full well knowing what would happen to you. Don’t pretend you aren’t responsible.”
“Fine. Fine. I’m responsible. But it’s been 10 years. I’m not the same person.”
“You aren’t the same person that killed her?”
“Well, yes, I am, I am, but... but I’ve changed.”
“Changed? You could change into a tree for all I care, you still killed her. Your actions define you, same as they’ve defined me and everyone else. You are a murderer. You were then and you are now.”
“Will killing me bring her back?”
That’s what I’d been waiting to hear. At last, I had an answer. “Yes. It will.”
He blubbered some more, and that kept him quiet for awhile. Little did he realize his anger and his fright actually made him work faster now. Eventually, he did break the silence again. “How?! How is all this going to bring her back?”
“It’s quite simple, really. To bring new life, there must be pain. For one to live, something else must die. It’s a constant in every religion, every philosophy, every mythology: sacrifice. From death, life. It’s not enough that you die for killing her. You must feel pain, you have to die so that she’ll live again.”
He struck wood just as I finished. He looked at me, and his face turned as pale as pale could be. “You ... you what?”
“It’s a simple ritual, really. A few cuts, a prayer, and it’s done. We’re on hallowed ground, so it’ll be all the easier.”
It took him a moment to process that, but a smile slowly came to his face. He actually laughed. “You won’t shoot me, then. Haha! You won’t shoot me because it’ll spoil your little ritual.”
“Oh, I’ll use the rifle,” I assured him.
He didn’t listen. With a mania driven, I suppose, by a desperate need to survive, he lunged at me. I brought the butt of the rifle around and under his chin to stop him. A quick figure ‘8’ put the barrel under my armpit and the butt crashing into his temple. The quick forward smash to the nose put him on the ground. As I pulled him up with the length of the gun at his carotid, his broken nose was already gushing blood.
“I told you I’d use the rifle,” I said as I dropped him hard against a statue of an angel. Now it was my turn to finish digging while he watched in a daze.
“That thing’s not even loaded,” he whimpered.
“Nope.” That was all the breath I would give him.
I found my calm again. I would not be angry. This was justice, not revenge -- like the samurai who spared his quarry after the man spat in his face.
He still wanted to talk, though. Maybe he actually thought it might save him. Maybe he knew it wouldn’t, but couldn’t bring himself to stop trying. Can’t blame a man for that. “Why won’t you understand? I’ve lived a good life for 10 years!”
“Because you won’t understand. You should have died in that crash. Not her. It was your fault. You should pay the price. Any time you’ve had since then has been borrowed. No. Not borrowed. Stolen. Taken from her.”
I felt a rush as I cleared the last of the dirt from the coffin. It wasn’t anger. No. It was exhilaration. At last, it had come. I would have her back with the only fitting sacrifice. It only took a few pulls with the crowbar to open it. I pulled him forward by the hair. He followed on his stomach like a worm. With a pull to open the coffin, I let him look at her remains. I pulled the knife slowly across his neck, so that he could spend his last moments seeing it, the true horror of what he had done.
Sean Vivier lives in central Connecticut, where he works at a Sudbury school.
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Speculative Flash Fiction - Text and Audio
