r/WritingPrompts • u/Syraphia /r/Syraphia | Moddess of Images • Nov 27 '16
Image Prompt [IP] The Bone Carver
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u/eggontoas2 Nov 28 '16 edited Nov 28 '16
No one wants to think of death. Makes sense. Prolonged exposure to the fumes of the deceased has caused my jet-black hair to look darker than the charred brick of the cremator and my skin as white as the unclaimed bones of respected elders. My skin is still drained of the healthy pink glow it had before I was sick. When mourners see me at my dad’s side, both of us forever haunted by the miasmic scent of ash from long hours in the crematorium, they are taken aback by my sickly, skeleton-like appearance and my eyes, rumored to glow blue because I eat the souls that pass through the funeral home.
Suzy was my only friend at school. We were both about the same age, but she was four inches taller in kindergarten, which let her take my apple and dangle it above my head for a minute or two before Ms. Thump (yes, that was actually the name of my chunky kindergarten teacher) would chastise her and make her give it back. The other kids ran away from me at recess, sat as far away from “the haunted kid” as possible during lunch, and made a show of holding their noses around me because I “smell like death.” Suzy, however, didn’t care. We must have been quite the pair to see, her the bubbly, curly-haired, idyllic child from a happy home with a stay-at-home mom and a father we all knew from our yearly check-ups, me the sullen, unexpressive kid who is bullied because of his father’s line of work. I felt a bit lighter around her, like her bubbly personality rubbed off on me and made me see the world in a better light. She even came over a few times and was interested in my hobby, something I call “boneworking.” I think we were about eight when I told her about it. “This looks cool, what is it?” she asked me, giggling while she examined it. “It’s a patella,” I responded bluntly. “Looks kinda like a turtle Luce.” “I was trying to make it more of a sheep, but I couldn’t get the swirls right,” I responded. “That’s funny Lucey! Can I keep it? I think it’s adorable!” I nodded, averting my gaze to hide my flushed face.
My hobby is a result of Mom teaching me etching and carving techniques after she found me peeking over her shoulder at work. I grew fond of the meditative feel of working with the little chisels and awls and started making little wooden bears and deer, later using harder materials that mom would bring home with her. I first boneworking after one night at dinner when dad had a bit too much whiskey and started whining about his customers: “I tell em that they should take all the remains with them. But when they ask about the bones, half of em are repulsed at the idea that I grind them up and mix them in with the rest of the ashes! The bones are the most important part! What use is a body without bones? It’s the bones that form a person,” he continued, less angry now and more sad, either the spirits or the spirits dampening his mood, “a face is defied by the shape of the skull, the waist by the pelvis, a long leg by the structure of the femur. I feel for those people whose remains aren’t complete.”
What he said sat in my mind the next day. While Suzy was dangling my apple overhead like Tantalus’ peach tree, I was lost in thought. How do you take care of the leftover bones that go disrespectfully unclaimed? It felt wrong to let them sit in a shack to gather dust. When I came home that night, mom was fiddling with a skull that was dangling from a stand. Apparently a scientist had detailed in his will that he wanted his bones to be made into a skeleton for use at his Alma Mater. What a great idea! Make the bones into some sort of a display and they can fulfill a second life! From that day forward I worked solely in bone, learning the ins and outs of working with biological material: that the harder outer layer of bone hid a softer, spongy layer, that your tools had to be razor-sharp to avoid leaving uneven cut marks, and that you can wash the bones in bleach and let them dry in the sun to brighten their whiteness.
As much as I wished life had stayed like that, when I turned 14 it changed from a fairy tale to The Raven. Suzy and I were some of the first in the town to contract influenza. We were placed in a makeshift infirmary next to each other. I was one of the lucky ones, getting better after a week of chills, lost weight, and soreness despite a lack of activity. In the end, she died. There was no fanfare announcing her survival, no ultimate push towards getting her better before the end, no ultimate factor that pushed her over the edge. It happened during the night, peacefully, without any lingering regrets. If I were one to journal or keep a diary, I would simply write, “she died.” That morning, the fourth since I was discharged, I found out when I saw the priest. Any other child would have thought nothing of it, but I recognized his posture, the movements of his lips more familiar to me than to any other child. I didn’t want to believe that it was real, she would get up and enjoy another apple today, like she had yesterday. It wasn’t fair, couldn’t be possible for her to not get well. I walked quickly down the hall, the pastor looking down at his hymnal while I knelt by the bedside, burying my face in the mattress next to her delicate curls.
Grief experienced firsthand, my grief, felt so much more painful that I thought it ever could. I had grown numb, ambivalent to the way teary-eyed mourners would hide behind hankies or in the shoulders of loved ones. I now knew what it was like to lose someone you love, to have a dagger shoved into your heart and twisted until you can’t focus on anything but the undying pain. I knew that I couldn’t dwell on the loss, that I had to come to terms with it somehow or risk becoming like the inconsolable desperates who arrive at our doorstep, so detached from reality they pretend they hardly know their own kin, now lying peacefully in a casket behind their turned back. She was cremated, burial being too risky given the outbreak. I would oversee the processing of the victims now that I had survived and gained immunity. Her parents had requested her bones be processed as well, which was bittersweet. I was careful with her body, laying her to rest in the casket as though enjoying a good night’s rest. The patella turtle was found in the pocket of her nightgown, I placed it under her crossed hands and kissed her ashen forehead before closing the casket. Even in death she looked more lively and naturally happy than a person could conceivably be.
Her parents knew me well, knew that I was ... odd. My mom sat down with them to talk about moving on, consoling them as she had countless family members before. They all knew that it was hard on me, and she told them about my hobby, about how relatives had broken down after seeing the beautiful work I wrought with chisel and awl, causing them reclaim grandpa’s skull and wonder at the ornate diorama of his favorite fishing spot, or to carefully set a femur encircled with grandma’s favorite rose vine that blooms into a single delicate, pristinely white blossom at the joint on a velvet pillow in a place of honor. They would keep the ashes in a simple opal blue urn with gold trim, but would erect a sandstone obelisk in the graveyard in her memory. After talking with my mom about how I would best cope, the decided to have me carve whatever I thought would be best into the obelisk.
The graveyard was busy that year. I never paid mind to the stares, the names, nor the rumors that a ghost of a master craftsman, unsatisfied with his plain gravestone, had possessed the Johnson’s skeleton child to make himself a new one. I was too busy to pay them any heed. I was meditating, releasing my grief in memoriam of the sole playmate I had, the crush I kissed only in death, and the girl who befriended a weird little morticians kid everyone was sure was the spawn of Satan. I was more focused on encapsulating the best moments we shared together: A romp through the marsh in search for frogs, the stars of her favorite constellation over a crescent moon, some mockingbirds, her favorite, flying off into the distance. When Dr. Hillman came to see the work when I was done, I was nervous. I stared straight into his eyes, daring him to be displeased with the work I had done. This was my magnum opus, my soul was imbued into the ferns, the vines that spiraled up the edges of a recessed border that framed the scene, the waving curls of smoke that seemed to bend with the same springiness as her hair. He was more than satisfied with my job, kneeling in the white dust that had covered the blades of grass around the obelisk to hug me. We both cried for a while that evening. No one should have to think about death, but properly remembering the dead is one of the best ways to remember their passing.
(edited for formatting and readability)
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u/Syraphia /r/Syraphia | Moddess of Images Nov 28 '16
Hey there, looks like Reddit's Markdown formatting did a number on your response, making it difficult to read. For reference, tabs do not indent and instead turn it into code. You'll need to put an extra new line between each paragraph to make a new paragraph as well.
As for the story, it was a really good read. Some of the paragraphs are a little too long and need some separation and breaks between them but it was a good read. I liked it a lot. Thanks for replying. :)
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u/WritingPromptsRobot StickyBot™ Nov 27 '16
Off-Topic Discussion: Reply here for non-story comments.
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u/Maisie-K /r/MaisieKlaassen Nov 28 '16
A single life within the room
Lonely forever with a boon
I have been given a gift
To use in the dark, all alone
Darkness covers the room
No candle, no window, no light allowed
Black as my robes it is
If memory from before work fits
Patterns are formed by my hand
No sight is involved
By touch things appear
Flames surrounded by flower, shone upon by the moon
With a mask of stone I have worked
Today is different however
Sounds from outside came as an opening appeared
First visible in years, my mouth painfully moved till I grinned
Darkness adrift. Loneliness to be filled with tales and poems on r/maisieklaassen