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Here is a story that we call FAN FICTION. It is YOUR story. Those of you who read this and see yourself within the syllables and between the lines, I thank you for your inspiration and the difficult battles fought for your freedom.
All photographs belong to MALU GOMIDE and are her property. She is allowing me to use them. I am forever grateful for this, since these photos were the push I needed to tell this story.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO MALU GOMIDE ON PHOTOGRAPHY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO M TERESA CLAYTON FOR STORY.
I can hear the laughter as if the memories were fresh, as if it were yesterday, as if you were still here with me laughing over something silly we did or something that was said that was misspoken or was a thought that became a sentence that never should have left the recesses of the mind.
O, how silly we could be together. Me, without a filter and you always translating what “I really meant to say”. Truth is, I meant to say it. Most thoughts aren’t meant to remain thoughts. Say it!
I could hear you shushing me, as you always did. I relied on you to undo any damage my words would cause. You were so dear to me, love. I saw your death before me as if it were taking place all over again. Visions of you waking in the fright, screaming names, screaming my name, as I would try to pull you back to me and hold you until the terror had passed.
You, shaking in my arms that held you so tight… me whispering to you that all would be okay. But, it wouldn’t be okay, would it? You knew. I didn’t want to know.
In the minds of many, we were anarchists, members of the devil’s oligarchy, most importantly, we were sinners by choice. People feared us and our disease. O, yes, we had a disease and it could be “caught” by youngsters and turn them into sinners as well. We lived inside of a self-made prison to keep the haters out and stay whole and healthy. Most importantly, alive.
If we went out, it had to be in groups so that we might be safer amongst the community of religious overlords who felt we needed to die if we would not allow them to beat it out of us. I had even been taken against my will, from my parent’s home and into the street by our Parish Priest. There, I was met with “hand’s-on healings” and an actual exorcism to rid me of my demons and return me to God.
This is nothing compared to the gun shots that grazed by my head from some hidden area along the road I walked each day, to and from our local outdoor market.
Funny, if I touched an apple, no one else would. Once, in a fit of rage, I stood there and touched every piece of fruit and most of the vegetables until the mob chased me away with threats of skinning me and hanging me from a tree to warn others like me what could happen to them if they did not repent and embrace God’s will.
I met you at a remote camping site for our kind. We were camping near a cool running tributary that was no deeper than our shoulders. The water was soothing on a hot summer’s day and we would frolic with the others there, as if we were little children. We were free to be who and what we were.
At night, with no one to see, we would strip from our clothing and skinny-dip, feeling the freedom of being human – just human. I fell in love with you at first glance and you later told me, you took one look at me and knew that we would be together forever.
We moved to another town, where no one knew us, and rented a two- bedroom apartment pretending to be sisters. We were always careful in public not to do anything that might be interpreted as flirtatious and bring suspicion or questions.
Ah, but in the privacy of our apartment, we were free to love, be loved, and make love. All was well with the world until that night when one of us left the shade up enough that a neighbor saw what monsters we were. It only took one night for that news to make it to every ear of every God-fearing resident. We were immediately put out of our apartment, our things put in a pile and burned, which felt like a threat. We feared if we stayed any longer, we’d be put to the stake like the demon worshipping sinners they judged us to be.
It was only a kiss. I kissed you. A kiss I would remember when I closed my eyes and saw that faded photograph in my mind’s eye. I touch my lips each time to feel something more than a memory. I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you; needed you. It was just a fucking kiss! What is wrong with people? A kiss! I would hear my mind scream out, followed by a surrendered reality, a loss, a sadness so deep… a kiss.
We traveled as far as our car would carry us and ended up renting a farm far from the eyes of neighbors. Our agreement included putting the seeds in the ground and the upkeep until it was time to sow. With no experience, we managed to stay healthy and alive, despite the dangerous combinations of fuels we had no understanding about and no experience with. We learned quickly and became bonafide farm women.
It was getting close to the anniversary of our meeting and you had managed to sneak away from our secluded little farm to go into town and pick up flowers for me. I had no idea you were gone until I came into the house and found it hauntingly empty. I felt something shift in time, a terrible sense of doom, a knowing that something was very wrong.
I ran from room to room, first calling your name, then screaming your name. I stood outside knowing I could not call attention to our sanctuary by acting too concerned or fearful. Fear. That was what I felt pulsing through me.
I began to walk down the long gravel road that once gave us a feeling of safety by hearing approaching cars, then we’d hide between the walls in a small space we created for our safety, from outsiders. We only used it once. The intruder never attempted to open the door and enter. He left after knocking a few times and seeing there was no one home. We never knew what he wanted and we didn’t want to know. It took us weeks to sleep through the night without those horrible nightmares of what could have been.
I walked and walked, kicking the gravel to give you a hint of my whereabouts in case you were hidden in the brush next to the road. With each step, the fear grew stronger.
I finally made it to the main road and decided to walk toward town. I could not imagine why you would walk further into oblivion going the other direction.
I had walked approximately a mile when I saw a stemmed daisy and carnation lying at the side of the road. As I knelt to pick them up, I saw a card caught on the barbed wire fence. My hands were shaking as I gently lifted it off one of the barbs.
“For you, my love and my life. I love you more today and with each new day, even more. I fear someday, the love will overflow and drown us both. To die in this way would be fine with me. To die from love overflowing… Happy Anniversary. Love, me.” (You always signed your notes and cards as “me” because there simply was no one else… for me. I would always sign my cards and notes with “yours”. It made for the tiniest yet sweetest testament to our love.)
Up the road I saw another flower and then further, another flower. You were leaving me bread-crumbs of flowers to find you, and the note was your last attempt to get me attention. I knew I was walking the wrong way and turned, picking up each flower as I ran by it and adding it to my limp bouquet.
I was crying now. I knew something bad had happened and only prayed that I’d find you alive. The road, leading in this direction, would take you directly to the creek and the land-mines of marshes and bogs along the way. I did not want to yell out to you in case you were still being held against your will. I did not want to put you in more danger and it was my plan to sneak in and take out each usurper one by one until we were safe to get home, pack up and go on the run again. This had become our normal, so packing up was quick and we carried our things on our backs.
It was about this time that I saw something strange near the tree line where an abandoned lake shore lie on its other side. The shoreline was nothing but mud and loam. I stopped and looked again. My eyes were telling me what my mind simply could not believe. There was a freshly dug out area with something in it that looked like… I couldn’t allow myself to think it, but my legs pushed off and I was at a fierce run to what I knew would be you.
I stopped with such a force that it sent me reeling. It was you. You were partially buried, as if someone had done this in a rush and had to get the deed done and leave before someone saw them.
I crawled toward you, your hand was visible and part of your face. The rest of your beauty was buried beneath the silt, the sand, the dirt and loam and something else. What was this?
I unburied you hoping I could bring you back to me. The tears were blinding me and with every other handful I would try to wipe them away. I had uncovered your face, dirt filled your mouth and nostrils, I knew you were gone. Someone had taken you away from me.
The tears were now covering my face and mixing with the combination of soil and loam, and… salt. I tasted the white substance that surrounded you and covered you along with the dirt and it was salt. Table salt?
Someone had gone to quite a lot of trouble and planning to do this horrible thing. There you lay before me beneath the ground, beneath the salted ground, as if you were evil, a witch, not human.
I remembered your note and your reference to our love drowning us and how blissful this would be to end a life this way, beneath the deluge of love. I knew what I had to do. It was the only thing I could do. I was not going to leave you and I certainly did not want to go on in this hateful world without you by my side.
I struggled to lift you out of this shallow hell of a grave. I held you and rocked you to and fro, weeping uncontrollably. I brushed the dirt away from your beautiful skin that was once pink and warm with life and now held no color, grey – a deathly grey, and no warmth. I checked to see if there was a hint as to how you may have died. No bruises or evidence of brutality, I knew then that you were alive when you were buried, suffocating beneath the weight of the ground that covered you and filled your mouth and nostrils. The final insult – the salt. You. The most loving soul I had ever known treated with such insult. But, who did this?
I knew what I had to do. I placed you back into that shallow grave and covered you hoping it looked as if no one had found you.
I walked along the road, amidst the bramble and brush that pulled and bit at my legs. I made it home and went directly to the barn. There, I made several attempts to start the old car we bought years ago. Any other time, it would not have submitted to my supplications, but this day was different. On this day, her motor turned over and continued to run. No one would expect to see me in a car.
I filled the back seat, and the seat next to me, with as many bags filled with ammonium nitrate that I could fit. I then loaded the trunk of the car with containers of diesel. I only prayed that I had enough to do the job and that I would survive the drive to town.
I turned onto the outermost street that would make a nice square to release my revenge. I stopped the car in a hidden area and cut long gashes in the bags beside me first. I opened the side door, kicked out the interior light, and began to leave a heavy-laden path of the powder through the outer streets. Right turn and another right turn, stopping long enough to reload the front seat with more of the bags and then continue, another right turn and another and I was back where I began. I had two more bags. I carried them to the church door a block away and left them there unopened.
Returning to the car, I grabbed the liquid that would set it all off. I placed them from the church door to the outer part of the road where my car was barely choking with life. I decided to see if I could still hotwire a car and, to my delight and relief, I could. I high-jacked a car parked facing out of town and back toward home. However, I pushed the old car full of liquid toward the church and ran to the safety of my borrowed chariot.
The explosion was deafening and I could see the fire chasing the car I was in as I drove up the road. I floored the pedal and sped off safely from the Armageddon behind me. There would be no survivors.
I slept in the car that night, pulled off the road and hidden well within the wooded area between our home and the lake.
After checking to see if there were any signs of life from last night’s attack and hearing nothing – a deathly silence - I was sure I had completed the job with great precision.
Now, I needed to return on foot to my beloved. Again, I unburied her and carried her to the water’s edge. I walked out into the water keeping her afloat for as long as I could. Then I kissed her one last time and pushed her under. I held her there until I was sure she would remain beneath the waves that gently lapped at the shore with the gentlest of breezes.
I stood for a moment looking out onto the surface of the lake for any signs she would resurface. I collapsed onto the ground littered with filth and debris from those who used this area for a place to party, or for a rape, or a murder… I could barely breathe. Each sob seemed to steel a breath and another and another, until I was sure I would suffocate before joining her beneath the swill.
Lying on the ground, I managed to strip out of my dress and lay there with my eyes closed, praying I could do this. I had to do this. I wanted to do this.
What little breath left in me was released in an eerie mist and as I stood up and turned towards the water’s break, I suddenly felt her hands stroking my face and my pushing my hair out of my eyes. It felt so real that I had to stop and get my bearings before continuing. I knew she waited for me out there.
I stepped into the water, then took another step, each taking me deeper and further from the shore. I finally found the place where she now lay sleeping. I said to her, “I’m coming with you, my love and my life. Our ‘someday’ has arrived. Our love now overflows and to die in this way is fine with me. I will be with you soon.
I dropped beneath the water and inhaled once. I choked and fought the feeling that I needed to get back to the surface and the air. I tried to exhale and inhaled once more. That was enough. That was all it took. It was quicker and so much easier than I could have ever imagines. But, I didn’t have to imagine. We were together again. We were together forever.
Happy anniversary my love and my life…
M Teresa Clayton
