All We Are Are Bones by Mic B.

I’ve been considered dead for longer than I can evoke. For more years than there are numbers to describe. Long enough to see the changes of the earth, the evolution and adaptation of all kinds. All I am, quite literally, is a pile of bones. I know no organs that one needs to stay alive. I know no brain to store knowledge that I retain. I have no blood to flow through veins and arteries that are not present within me. Yet I walk like the living, I learn and long like them. If the world were blind I would be one of them. But no, I am known as the Death Seeker. To them I long for death to come upon me and take away this misery I bear. But that is partially true and is a slight misconception. Yes I yearn for eternal darkness, Ill give them that. Yes I want life to be removed from my oppression because all I long for is love, and that’s a big enough burden alone. I have lived to see all the people I hold dear to me grow old, and I watched them lie on their deathbed wondering why it was their time to pass and not mine. Most of them loved me and I loved them back. But the love we shared was dull. It felt like an escape all except for one. Regardless, I want someone to be with. For better or for worst, in sickness and in health, in love and most of all in death.

God was never on my side. Never. I think of the whole worship as an obsession. I believe that He and his so called Christianity is to build up false hope. It shields our eyes from the truth and manipulates us to do what He wants of us. Plus the burden he grants me is unforgivable and could be the reason to my hostility. But when my mother died I would visit her tomb and say those cursed prayers just to ease her soul. As I watched time pass me by, my ageing lingered behind. I hid my true age to all, including myself so I could be accepted into the world. Soon I forgot my age all together and numbers meant nothing to me. I watched history change course, my loved ones die and my very own flesh rot of my bones. And not once was I blessed upon. Churches wouldn’t aid me, like they did with most cursed souls, because I was branded a heretic. It was foolish or me to seek help from them anyway. I was also ban from my community and forced to live reclusively in the mountains, on account of me being diseased. No one would alleviate my suffering. Many generations later I became what I appear to be now. I hide in shadows or under the ground. I’ve become a ghost, a myth, a fairytale. Some stories to have crossed my ears are that I walk the night in search of death, or in some flesh, I have even heard one of me in search of a heart. But all I want is the genuine love from another. Much like the love from Niveah, my last and forever will be.

I do admit she wasn’t all there; she performed witchcraft daily which was the reason for her execution. But aside from that she was beautiful. She loved nature and she loved to sing, she would start singing and the world would stop in its tracks. People envied her especially wives and the females of the town. But she was gentle and ever so sincere. Niveah changed my life forever, which is why I called upon her soul to bring her back to me once and for all.

I pulled myself up out of the ground carrying a burlap sack full of all the materials I needed for that special night. The earth was wet, making it easier for me to break free from its cold, harsh grasp. The moon was full and glaring, guiding me like a lantern. But I never use it, even in absolute darkness I could make my way to her grave.

I had buried her in a remote area underneath the large maple near the brook she was hanged at. I had paid the town to not burn her corpse so I could rescue her. Once they threw her in the water I retrieved her for her body burial.

Finally in the darkness I came to her. Her tomb stone corroded and engulfed in moss and earth making it difficult to make out the engraved name and date, but I knew it was hers. I felt the stone with my bony fingers as I always did. ‘Niveah G. Weston, 1743-1778’. I emptied my sack, setting up the lavender candles and incense, an old leather bound book of witchcraft and a lock of her long brown hair. I dipped the hair in the melted wax and recited the incantation “Reviving the Deceased”. As I sprinkled the strands of hair over the grave, there was a roar of thunder and a clap of lightning and rain started to fall from the sky. I chanted louder and louder trying to speak over the rain falling over my hollow skull. The earth trembled beneath me as the mound of dirt which covered Niveah grew. She was trying to break free. Faster I chanted. And finally, my love came back into this wretched world to be in it once more with me.

Her body was in no better condition than mine. The rain washed away the mud and the rest of whatever was decaying as we both embraced each other tightly. The memory of our previous lives came back to us and filled me up with feelings I can’t even describe with words. A feeling very few can even fathom. And to this very day, every moment with her is one that I wish to never end and I can say with confidence that it won’t.