Epiphyte

 

Kia – I have taken your advice, and now my bones are filled with an aching light.

One after the other I swallowed the wrinkled fruit hearts, pruned and ancient and full of a sharp, growing scent without the hum of the beating heart of all things. For some time they sat in my stomach: I digested them.

Later, I found a bucket in the basement of the dead house and stared deep into the red and pink bile that had torn its steaming way up my throat. I hadn’t thought I’d eaten that much food since the house died, but time has been passing strangely, in great wet chunks detached from form and substance.

Perhaps I was too late. It seems that my current body has rejected the sun joy of existence, the simplicity of survival and satiation. My blood is incompatible with redemption – too much was shed without ever touching my hands. Or perhaps I am simply sickened by old cans of beans and the everpresent rustle of my ghosts.

I lay on the ground breathing damp earth and learned what must be done to step to one side of pain. I still feel… rather worse for the wear than I was before your last letter. Physically. I have spent endless chunks of time asking myself what I will do if I am the last living thing here, if I have finally passed beyond the doors. I suppose that if nothing awful happens to me I will live until I die, alone with the swish of pine trees.

( If the food stores in the house give out and I cannot find more it might not even be long. )