The Damned be Damned?

Before I explain why I stopped the story in what I saw as the rising action, I am presenting the opportunity for it to be read and explored as an unfinished piece of work with no promises of completing it. 

“At the strike of midnight I was ready and listening to the watery ways and the turning of the boat engine. The movement of the boat sounds and feels like it has been pulled through this tunnel a million times towards the jagged rocky cave with stalactites coming down like messy teeth. The sign had fallen off yet a slight fade showed through when some letters still remained while others were holding on. The letter N and L had clearly rested at a titled angle on a rock. The E had fallen below its original spot by half a foot. The first L at an odd angle yet the O, V, E had remained in the proper place. The T and U also remained in place with N hanging on loosely to the edge of its place as a newly falling letter.

I took a breath in before feeling the boat lurch haphazardly forward while bracing myself for what would be next. There was something familiar like I had been here before but I know this isn’t true for me. I would remember what has been alluded to through the whispers and the rumors that one day I would be screaming. 

Maybe I have felt the ones who had been here in my bones and soul. It’s unclear and I hold onto the ropes inside of the small boat. The walls have a smell of blood and appear to be dripping in various shades of red from lighter to darker, possibly representing the anemia to the iron filled bodies. If I didn’t know better I would liken the place to the arteries of a beast, and the variations of color told me otherwise. It smelled like droppings from various people, maybe even animals. 

My morbid curiosity was getting the best of me and it was challenging to be below the cave's bottom. It put me at eye level to the cave floor. At the start there was nothing on the floors so I looked up to see if there was anything around me. The first sign of a clear human was two dismembered arms with a little bit of shoulder that were put at angles to make the shape of a heart and the hands. There were some arms and shoulders that were smaller and others that seemed to have fallen to what was eye level for me. I saw small parts like hearts some from newborns and others from adults to toddlers. 

My brain circled to how as a midwife I hated burying the babies. I couldn’t stomach watching  the doctors break them apart to learn what had gone wrong. Or even the way they made the aftermath of it all into medicine for other ailments. Although I wanted to be a shaman, I couldn’t get past the midwife stage. Yet here I am looking at body parts rearranged almost like a tableau of passion. 

The deeper I went the more things became recognizable like body parts in positions of care but the skin ripped away and red fleshy parts showing what is underneath. And I wanna look away but the compulsion to continue is stronger. Then a scream breaks the air. I hear the villagers running but I can’t tell the direction. I cannot move at all; it is like I am held to the ground. I breathe deeply and the images wisp away. I am in a straw hut gathering my composure. 

In my panic, I missed the sound of the villagers running to the hut. The door is open and the crowd is a bunch of eyes darting around with anxiety as they look at me and then each other. The shaman creates a parting of people as he steps through and shoos everyone away. He looks me deeply in the eyes before he takes away my blanket and unlaces my gown. I am horrified and I grab the blanket. He raises one finger which silences my desire to scream at him. Suddenly he removes the blanket. Despite the fact that what he is doing unacceptable, he still exposes me. A simple wave of his hand was all he needed as a signal that he had to examine my body. His gasp tells me a wordless story that I cannot decipher. 

Brown eyes burrow into my soul. And I feel a surge of energy pulse through my soul. A demanding and commanding experience compels me to put on my gown and grab my blanket to leave home. I am the first one to have left. Prior to me, there had been other screams in the night but no one left. The parents comforted them until they were well enough to rejoin the tribe. 

I am the first to leave and to be honest this was my first scream. All of those images were familiar sights. Every time I felt more unprepared for the following time. It was haunting and I knew the ghost had stuck around for eons. Yet the secrets of the dreams were never told. No one who had one dream, or possibly more, spoke of it. Those who screamed looked at each other differently but never said a word. 

They told me one day someone would solve the problem and I am guessing it's me because I am the first one to looked at it. The first one to pick up and go away.  It must have been late into the night because on my walk I can hear and see the signs of dawn peaking through. The mountain to my left is still blocking the sun but the birds of day time are speaking up. 

I head towards the sounds of a river. I set aside my gown and find my body has new markings that seem to represent a map. This is why the shaman sent me away. I am marked but I don’t know if it's as one of the damned or the savior of my place. 

When I see where the sun is positioned, I know that I have several miles to go and reach the jagged rocks. It appears I am heading towards a cave, likely the one I saw. I have a knot in my stomach because the only logical explanation is I am heading towards my end. I cannot see anything but blood and broken parts in my dreams. Maybe I will be the next life lost?

Every night the images of death and dying surround my dreams. I am enclosed and encapsulated into tales of the dead. Some of them are touching intimately and others are kissing with reckless abandon, but all of them represent the dead with skin torn away. I sometimes see bones moving but not as frequently. I head towards the cave with speed because the grotesque nature of my dreams need to stop. And I suspect something will change upon arrival. Death seems like a sweet release from these dreams. 

I am losing sight of reality and getting closer to the edge of insanity. After three days, I am within eyesight of the cave. I watch the sun light up the sky like a flare and I go down and head towards the entrance of the cave. Inside everything towards the foot of the cave is moving slowly like they are slowly rotting away. And I hear a voice saying come my child the voice is ancient and grandmotherly in a way that almost stills my fast beating heart. 

“Come closer to me. I am sorry they called you and I hope you understand that you're needed here now.” I pause and notice the blackness has engulfed me and I am gently being moved by what I am guessing is a giant hand. “Where am I now?” 

“It is the cave of lustful sinners. The ones who wanted too much and loved too many people and sometimes the wrong people.”

“Why me?” 

“You are too compassionate for your tribe. You are unable to take care of the medical needs and perform the rituals of death. You have been summoned to oversee the dead instead.”

“I don’t understand. They are dead. What is there to do?”

“The spirits are restless and they haunt the living. You are here to ensure that they stay here and find rest one day. I have been the guardian for too long and it is time to pass on the torch onward.” 

Maybe someone else would have continued and wrote an epic ending like she has fun or enjoys it or finds someone who deserves it. There could have been an explanation deeper of why she had to manage the souls of this kind of hell. It could have gotten into the backstory of being a coming of age with rebellion or some kind of deus ex machina that worked. 

Instead, I stopped at what I thought was the height of action because I could not get over the fact that I picture her between the ages of 13-16. She is at the cusp of training and growing into an adult job. And the job offer is to watch the damned. 

If she rebels, it still leaves the place unguarded or unwatched. Unless the one who needs retirement gets roped in or some other hapless soul that matches the criteria of this world. The whole piece felt too dark to have a happy ending like she releases all the souls. And it would have felt positively flippant and very cliched to make it a dream inside of a dream.

So I scrapped the whole thing despite seeing an opportunity for some kind of moral exploration or deeper cathartic moment. Because I loved that she cared so much she couldn’t do her job properly even though it was after the fact. And whatever time period the piece is intended to be there was not enough understanding to prevent the number of stillbirths.

The piece was vivid for me and I scrapped parts of it long before this draft. It would be a missing to share this without sharing my favorite part I threw out. 

“There was a dream that I considered my own that was a retelling of a tale that just wouldn’t die. At night the spirits would come out and show me their restlessness.”

At the end of the day maybe one day she will get her ending. Yet that isn’t today and I am doubtful it will be tomorrow too.