LAZARUS

The moon hid behind a cloud the night I buried you.

Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

The moon hid behind a cloud the night I buried you. Blackness hid my face from those who would not understand, those who might condemn my actions. You lay at my feet, wrapped in a bloody sheet from the bed we shared, while I scrabbled at the hard earth with my bare hands and the autumn wind froze my naked body.

Clods tore the fingernails from my fingers, and my blood mixed with the dark soil. I cried a little then, despite the sureness of the ritual. It was not easy to look upon your poor face, so still and serious in death as you were not in life. You were always quick to smile, quick with a witty word that never failed to make me laugh.

The grave I dug was not deep, but it sufficed. As I rolled your limp body into the hole, one of your hands slipped free of the wrapping and brushed my bare foot. Kneeling down, I gently brought it to my dry lips. Soon, I murmured, kissing your cold skin, soon we will be together again.

When you were covered with dirt, I raised my arms to the night sky and spoke the forbidden words, the words that would raise you from the dead, as Lazarus was raised so long ago. By rights I should have allowed your kin to bury you, to care for your body as family did. But I could not bear the thought of you lying in the cold ground forever.

Your father and mother called me witch, and rightly so. I saw the distaste and contempt on their pudgy faces when you brought me home, so proud someone as beautiful as I could love you.

How could I not love you? You with your shiny black hair, your laughing blue eyes, your hard body that made me tremble. We will wed, you told me, no matter what my father and mother say. How well I remember that day beneath the apple trees! You were so earnest, so sure the obstacles were not unsurpassable. Our love would conquer all. And I believed you.

So we came together, despite your family, despite the townsfolk who hated me. They grew to hate you as well, for you dared call them fools, and worse, for their superstition. You did not believe me a witch, and I did nothing to prove you wrong. You made sure they saw us together, saw how much I needed you, how much you needed me.

When they brought your lifeless body and dumped you on the ground at my feet, I did not cry. Not even when they told me those wretched lies, lies that I knew were not true. An accident, they called it. Never mind that your best friend pulled the trigger that took your life, the same best friend who swore revenge against me when I shunned him. How much the betrayal must have hurt you, for you were ever a trusting soul. Trust me now, my husband. What I do, I do for love of you.

I did not cry as I cursed those men. I cursed their foul man parts, their children, even their fat wives who sneered at me in the marketplace. The earth seemed to shake, and the murderous cowards fled, and I was left with you, my dead husband.


How the tears fell as I stripped the red stained clothes from your beautiful, broken body. I brushed your silky hair, washed the blood off your bruised face, kissed your chilled lips.

My knife was sharp; it did not pain me too much to draw the blade across my leg. Dipping my fingers in the crimson flow, I wrote the sacred symbols on your body and chanted the unholy words. And then I wound your body in the sheet, and dragged you to the burying ground behind our house.

I slipped my dress over my head and that is when I saw the lights. The townspeople came carrying torches, coming for me. I did not run, only waited beside your grave.

There she is, the men shouted, and the torchlight gave their faces an inhuman quality. Burn the witch, burn the witch, they chanted, and I smiled. They could not hurt me. I knew you would save me.

I did not struggle when they grabbed my arms and tied me to the willow tree that grew outside our bedroom window. The kindling they stacked around my feet did not frighten me and I stood defiant and proud.

The cold wind howled, and the fools looked around nervously. They did not realize that nothing could save them now. You had awakened.

I watched you emerge, watched you rip the grave clothes from your body. I rejoiced as you destroyed those who had tried to destroy our love. Blood spattered on my face, on my dress. Finally you dropped what used to be a man and turned to me.

You shuffled slowly to me, and I strained against the cords that bound me. You reached behind me and broke the ropes and I fell into your arms.

The smell of the grave filled my nostrils, but still I kissed you, thrusting my tongue into your cold mouth. Even death could not keep us apart.

I felt your arms on my waist and pressed against you. I looked into your face and saw your dull, sunken eyes, and I was afraid. You did not smile and opened your mouth to speak.

Why have you brought me back from the grave? Your hands gripped my arms painfully. I am in hell, and you put me here.

I tried to speak, but I could not. You grabbed my face, pinching my skin.

There is no love, you told me. Only hatred and loathing and death.

Tears leaked from my eyes and wet your soiled hands, the same hands that once touched me with love. I begged you to think of our unborn child, the babe I carried within me. Even that did not stop you, did not make you remember the love we once shared.

Your fingers tightened around my throat, and I tried to scream. As my vision darkened, you began to smile.