The Leaving
A short story from LAND OF THE STORYTELLERS (2001), a post-modern reworking of the techniques and themes of ancient oral narrators, as seen in classic books like the Arabian Nights.
A mother saw her own son die, that day when the earthquake destroyed the city of Appa, but she could not accept his death and prayed to the gods for them to bring him back. The gods, in their compassion, did not grant leave for the child’s soul to enter the Other World and put it back into its body. But you know the gods: the body was still dead, their many wounds did not heal, and the mother’s heart went from the joy of having his son again, of not having lost him, to the pain of seeing him suffer, prisoner of his own hurting flesh. And then came the horror, yes, that’s what I said, for the child began to rot, and the worms covered him and entered him, and he cried for death but, as I say, he was already dead. The mother, in despair, stabbed him once, twice, thrice, many times; then she stoned him with heavy rocks, poisoned him, strangled him —but the child just cried. At last she took him in her arms, torn skin, broken bones, black blood, and threw him into a fire. And the wretch burned, and became smoke and ash, and the wind scattered him and mixed him with the air, and the mother comforted herself as well as she could. But she should not have even tried, for the child’s soul was still in those intangible remains, and that afflicted spirit is still in the world, everywhere, alive, and you will know it when you breathe, when you open your mouth and feel, suddenly, the sadness.