The Justice of a Body Snatcher
– a love story by renan goksin –
Episode Twenty-two: The Story of the Rose
Herman finally succumbed to a deep sleep. He dreamt he was at Lake Valda. The bungalow was built on stumps rising from the lake. Large white rabbits had replaced the human population. He could see them frolicking in the fields, multiplying by manifold in plain sight. The broken shells of painted Easter eggs had spread across the countryside, covering the soil like a prehistoric patchwork with deep cracks.
He sat with Alphonsina on the veranda over the glassy water. The lake’s mirrored surface reflected back to the couple their most intimate worlds. Alphonsina was vomiting red roses. Herman, with his arms around her waist, held her gently, slightly pressing underneath her ribs, encouraging her to continue.
“I love you; I love every cell of your body.”
Alphonsina smiled as the roses oozed through her lips, pouring onto the lake and feeding the fish, which circled around their image in a frenzy. Suddenly, the mirror surface cracked and the petrified head of the fish-girl rose from underneath; her human mouth wiggling like a cut worm amongst the gashes and the moss of her face… She came so close to Herman’s feet that her lips almost touched.
“Do you remember me from Gabriel’s story?” she asked. “When I became entangled in that wretched net and the fishermen hauled me to the shore, all the villagers assumed I needed to be saved.”
To Herman’s horror, the fish-girl spoke in a male voice which sounded oddly familiar.
“They could not accept that I could love my life at the bottom of the sea,” she continued, “I love the sea-shells, I love how the reflections in the water change each day with the passing of the hours, I love my little nooks and secret caves, I fill them up with shiny trinkets that I collect from the ocean bed. I cherish trivial things, Herman.”
With the scales and the shells covering her face, she looked like a leper. Herman held Alphonsina tighter to protect her from the strange creature. His large hand rested on Alphonsina’s pregnancy like a shield while caressing it at the same time. He felt the kicks of the unborn inside his palm. Alphonsina was still churning roses, now shapeless; shredded into bits of red petals, branches and thorns.
The Fish-Girl spoke once again: “We are different, Herman, I am not made for great ideals. I don’t seek, I just am.”
“Why are you telling me all this, who are you?”
“You can never fully know another person,” she replied, ‘We are all separate beings, Herman, we each have our own inner world.”
“Who are you? Get away from me!”
“Alphonsina did not ask to be saved,” she continued. “You won’t like hearing this, Herman, but the young man you killed; he too, in his own way, had tried to save Alphonsina. You are a resurrectionist. He, a poet with lofty ideals, but in truth, both of you were seeking a prize for your lives.”
Herman’s eyes searched for a nearby stone to throw at the creature, but with Alphonsina still unwell in his arms, he could not move.
“Both of you wanted to mould Alphonsina to your ideal,” continued the fish-girl, “yet all she ever wanted was to love and be free. The Rose seeks to be understood, not adored.”
Herman, lifting Alphonsina in his arms, stood up to flee from the evil fish. Furious, he kicked the flowerpot he had spotted earlier towards the lake. For a split second, he thought he heard a cry coming from the lake, but as he was entering the bungalow with the most precious person in the world in his arms, he could, to his dismay, still hear the creature calling after him:
“Release her Herman, release her from your world of dreams, just as I was released back to the sea.”
to be continued…
next episode: 23- The Desception
