DANCING IN THE GRAVEYARD

I sleep in a graveyard.

And as per norm, it reeks of death. But not the kind that smells like manure, rain and overgrown grass fiercely kissing tombstones. My graveyard is built of a floral perfume sprayed twice a day, sheets washed in the same detergent of fruity scents and a girl with burnt hair.

Or more like a ghost of too-dark dark hair, with a plump body that loved to loll around the always-clean rugs and with a laughter that echoes in my nightm- dreams.

My fingers gloss over the smooth expanse of an all too familiar glass surface in hopes of remembering a face with all its broken ridges and freckles that span like dust over the carpets now. The girl behind the glass surface isn’t smiling, taken unaware in her white leotard and tights on the eve of the performance of ‘Hyacinth’s Massacre’. Her face is largely focused on, her eyes closed and face taut with a dancer’s grace and fear. However, her freckles are what I yearn to see. Her plump squared face with freckles spread like sand on a beach, perhaps a bit too much for a girl but nonetheless I always told her that she looked like the sky we saw in Scotland.

The first time I told her that, it was the eve of ‘Hyacinth’s Massacre’, her doubts on their prime.

“We could go back to Scotland. Our sweet honeymoon to be continued in Glasgow again, on the terraces of Buchanan Street. Heh?”

She shook her head timidly, always shy in movement.

“I don’t mean that. It’s just I’ll be alone for most of the time and-”

“-isn’t that what’s the best part of it? An individual performance?”

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she picked on the lace of her tutu. Once again, her fingers hesitant over the crisp material as if she didn’t even own the dress she was touching.

“Everyone will be seeing me. That’s all.”

A sigh still somehow managed to escape my mouth, regardless of my reluctance to show my annoyance towards her behaviour.

And I told her then, that her face reminded me of the night sky we made love under. She cried and asked if she could get powder to cover them up. I told her that her tears were like the rainy skies of Scotland.

The frame had been a gift from her Nan who had a passion for photography. Her Nan would be at peace knowing that she wouldn’t have to frame cadavers on her wall. She’ll always live on her Nan’s walls. A wall in her own little Scottish cottage, painted with her granddaughter’s polaroids and framed with frozen forms. On which she’ll sleep, laugh, marry, eat, drink and smile a thousand more sunsets. Maybe more so. Each as hesitant and dainty as before. Like a shivering sun clambering above our wet Cornish cottage.

I grasp the frame and kiss her plump lips that would’ve been warm, constantly bit on with the taste of overripe berries in the morning. But these are cold, smooth as glass and uninviting. And they taste like dust and dirt.

I position the glass structure back to its position that she had labelled. Her Nan gifted her it on a fateful day that she was to be found here and not somewhere snapping at less shy and unnatural carvings. My legs automatically make their way across the uncannily squeaky floorboard with more stains than my sticky beard, which smells like a rotten mouth that has swallowed too much cheap vodka.  As I arrive at the dressing table laden with a few glass bottles and two more of Nan’s gifts, I pick up the square-shaped bottle with an oval stone the colour of a bleeding lip.

It comes undone with a graceful sound of glass sliding against metal and I sniff at the opening that smells like a mixture of florets, the base of her plump neck and the inside of her thighs.

I spray it around as I turn, three pushes in succession like she did. But the unforgettable and wretched stink of Vodka clings to me like dust does to the ceilings. In a moment of sudden revulsion I push the opening twice against my beard. It feels a little ticklish and cold as it diffuses through the curly strands. Though it doesn’t ward off the smell of vodka, it blends and dances with it enough to be bearable.

A weak laugh escapes my lips which hurt a little to open but my spittle glosses over them like a balm in the greying and nippy weather.

Bloody winters. They reek of death too.

Her tombstone is gathering dust again. I notice that the bottles and the mirror in their dusty glory, also have brown sticky stains of a drink spilled over or thrown at.

Winter with its drying habits. Some stains ought to be wet.

I scratch my beard and finger the crusty tresses. The stains must be like them, hence I decide to clean them after breakfast. Maybe I’ll wash off the tea with the vodka on my beard too.

Bare feet scramble along the wooden floor like the sound of bones crackling. Like a knuckle buckling beneath pressure.

The door is ajar, wide open with no light streaming through. As I exit the room, I realise it’s because the copper shades are pulled down. I aim for the kitchen, which is dimly lit with a shivering bulb over the table that seats four. Someone is seated on the chair facing me. Her smile- no it’s not a smile, her lips are downturned in a disturbing and perhaps angry manner. I’d be mad too if I’d stumble like this out of our bedroom.

Her eyes are silent like the house but they glare at me like the perturbing sounds of the squeaking floorboard as I come nearer to the kitchen.

Her body is slumped, her eyes accusing and her usually hesitant frame certain about some gloomy thing. I’m really confused as to whether it’s trying to portray anger or sadness. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. But it distresses me. It does. Still I fight to be cheery regardless of our circumstances. Like I’ve always been with her on the eve of every performance.

“You should smile more often.”

Her silence is so loud and it’s deafening as it has been for the past few days. It feels like walking across a silent ocean. I want to press my palms hard against my ears to not hear such an excruciating howl of hers. Even more bitter than her stifling sobs I am accustomed to hear every eve of her performance.

However, I quietly settle down on the chair beside her. The sound of the whimpering wooden chair the only wailing echo now. Amidst the stink of desperation, even her cries would be welcome.

But she’s no more.

Her smell is no more like floral perfumes or her skin not so bright with promised freckles. Her form only a temple for a dancer that cried and danced. Her face not a sweet memory of Scotland either.

I cradle her stiff neck (reluctance or hesitation, I wonder?) and turn her towards my face. I bend low and kiss her lips. Lips that are cold, cracked and uninviting.

Nan might not be able to adorn her walls with cadavers. But I can dress my kitchen with her sweet corpse.

She is my corpse that is buried in this graveyard. A myth herself much like Hyacinth and Apollo’s fable of lethal love.

 

 

About the author – Harmain A. is a passionate writer from Karachi, Pakistan.