Three Deaths, One Grave

0. Grief

In your absence, my world has become empty.

The rooms are too big, our bed too cold. The koel visits every morning but its call comes from oceans away. Food turns to dust on my tongue. Every second stretches longer than the last as life spins around me, a monochrome mockery of what it should have been.

My skin aches for you. My eyes seek you in every corner. My mouth misses the shape of your smile. 

I miss you, my love. We had so little time together.

†

Here is the spell I have devised:

1. A piece of you.

Beginning is always the most difficult step. The inertia of not-doing is as bad as a habit, and equally as difficult to overcome—but the thought of you spurs me forward, inch by inch. 

And so I crawl towards the earth behind our home. Just beneath the rambutan tree, the ground still brown where it was recently disturbed, a stark contrast against the grass around it.

Did you know the earth abandoned me? 35 years I lived with her whispering along to my every thought, and yet, in losing you, I lost her as well. And what use is a death witch who cannot hear her magic?

In one grave, I buried three deaths. 

Now, it is time to desecrate all three of us.

I kneel by the mound of your final resting place, and the ground is hard and cold against my fingers. This last bed I moulded for you, I now unmake.

When I find your skull deep in the earth, I cradle it close and kiss it. Soon, I will kiss you again.

2. Blood, a gift.

Having begun, it is easier to keep going. Like a rock tipped over the cliff, I, too, gain fervour with motion.

It is a jarring sight, but the village is as lively as it has always been. An injustice. All the world should mourn you as I have, but these people have the audacity to carry on with their lives, blissed and blessed. 

No matter.

For you, I choose a young diver, the eldest of a family of orphans. The knife glints, moonlight catching along its smooth edge, and she bleeds red against the white of your cheeks, the ivory of your still-perfect teeth.

Where one life ends, another will resume.

3. A piece of me.

During my time with you, I grew negligent. The earth is a jealous master, and she marked me as one of hers from the moment I drew my first breath.

But you, my love, claimed me as well. 

When our eyes met, you claimed me. Every laugh you drew from me, every smile you gifted me—every moment we spent together, you staked your claim to me. You made me your wife, and you, mine.

My devotion to you far outweighed what I gave the earth. It is shameful to pretend I do not know why she abandoned me. Perhaps that is why she abandoned me.

I must make amends. The same knife I used to bleed that girl, I now turn onto myself.

More than anything, I wish to see you again.

And so to the earth, my eternal master, I gift my eyes.

The pain is like a vacuum; all at once, everything recedes, as if what little is left in my life is drawing back like the ocean before a tsunami, except that final wave never comes. If I had thought it too quiet before, this new, deeper silence is all-consuming.

But then, there she is, waiting, ready to share once more her secrets. When I reach out, the earth meets me halfway, wrapping itself around my mind, tightening against my heart and throat. The earth holds everything—the skittering ants, the crawling worms. The whispered cries of the unjustly dead, the whimpers of the tortured. Everything is familiar—yet not, and a sense of unease begins to spread beneath my skin even as I smile, even as I weep because most importantly,

It holds you.

4. Longing.

In this new silence, everything waits. The koel watches from nearby, perched on a tree by the house.

Half-buried in the earth and in you, I am empty-eyed and open-mouthed. I wait.

Half-buried in the earth, you are inching your way out, slowly, soundlessly, bit by agonizing bit.

The earth has me frozen in her grip, but I am not going anywhere. Oh, to witness this moment I have longed for, even by proxy—nothing could possibly compare to the joy of being here as the earth embraces you for me, wrapping around your bare bones like a second skin, nestling close between ribs and neck and teeth. My heart soars and my lungs swell as it opens your mouth to say:

"My love, 

I've missed you."

© 2024 Hanna A. Nirav

About the Author

Hanna A. Nirav is a writer who has been telling stories all her life. She is an avid reader, hardcore casual gamer and loves food. As a Malay-Indian Malaysian, she is no longer interested in toeing the line between intersecting circles. You can find her on Twitter @hanstilltweets or on Bluesky @hanstillhere. Her short fiction has been published in collections by Neon Hemlock Press and Speculatively Queer, and you can check out her other work at hanmuses.wordpress.com.