The Justice of a Body Snatcher
– a love story by renan goksin –
Episode Fifteen: ‘The Letter in his pocket would make him famous’
Little did Esmund suspect, as he trailed along the ridge towards his destination, that Alphonsina had not cared about his ambitions, ideals, or handsome looks. She cherished the little moments in life. Her routine of nutmeg infused tea in the mornings and precisely two apricots in the afternoons made her happy. As he tracked towards his final destination, Esmund was still not aware that Alphonsina had sought to be free from his possessive dream as much as she had from the expectations of her beauty and upbringing.
Oblivious, like all self-centred men, he screamed down to the peaceful valley: ‘Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori!’ quoting Virgil.
As he descended, he found himself amongst the prettiest apricot trees, immersed in delicate red and white flowers just beginning to bud in April against the pale sapphire of the sky. He recalled how much she cherished her two apricots in the afternoon. She, indeed, was quirky, and nobody else had experienced it but him.
‘Her lips are a gorge of juniper berries and underground springs, and when she smiles, it is multiplied a hundred times,’ Esmund had written about her once.
What thoughts were hidden behind that smile? And how could she do it? Why, why, and to snatch his baby from him so unfairly…?
‘I did all I could to save her,’ he thought. A heavenly life lay before them, beckoning them to claim what was theirs by right. A beautiful, joyous family that would have been every mortal’s envy was theirs to have. He would be writing with Alphonsina by his side, their souls fused into one. They could have avenged all the famed lovers of the past who had failed. He repeatedly pleaded with her to elope. When he could not say anymore, he wrote letters, sometimes hiding them inside the pages of a book or under her pillow, even inside her inner garments in her wardrobe.
‘Hesitation in love is the cue Satan awaits to intervene and change the plot.’
Just before crossing a small brook, Esmund paused, ‘This must be my Rubicon,’ he thought, momentarily satisfied with his own significance in history. The meaning of a man’s life is not fulfilled until he is no more. Ahead, in the distance, lay his beloved mountains where fame roamed abreast drifting clouds, and mountain peaks drooped like teardrops. He recalled the ancient Nordic saying: ‘There is nothing a man would not exchange for ashes.’
‘We spend our entire lives looking for a noble cause to die for. So why wait; now that he had found it?’
The letter in his pocket would make him famous.
to be continued…
next episode: 16- ‘It was fate’
