Father to Son

Jedidiah thought of nothing as the crusty snow crunched rhythmically below his feet.  The pain reverberating between his eyes made it impossible to do so.  The flesh on his exposed hands prickled lightly as a response to the bitter cold that had assailed them on his walk from the two bedroom farm house to one of a variety of out buildings that he had built on this distant piece of land. He would find what he was looking for directly ahead.

His eyes adjusted easily to the gloom that hovered inside of the small wooden shed where he kept his farming implements.  There, just to right of his plow rig, leaning quietly against the wall, was the pick and mattock that he had been compelled to seek.  With the ground frozen as hard as concrete, the shovel would do him no good.  He exhaled a cloud of wispy steam as he bent to acquire his digging gear. It was now the fourth day of January.

He need not ponder about where the hole would be dug.  He knew all too well the location; it was just feet from where he had hoped someday to be laid to rest.  The charcoal sky now began to loose a barrage of snowflakes onto the whispering wind.  Jedidiah raised his bearded face toward the sky as the tiny missiles stung him, then thawed, leaving  freezing teardrops as they melted on his wind burned façade. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.  It had felt a year since the unfettered sun had shone on him.

He stopped now, and his tools made a dull thud as he dropped them to the earth.  He chose the pick first and made a solid swing, putting everything he could muster behind the descending arc.  His bones rattled as the implement stuck home, sending a severe shock through every joint in his body.  This was supposed to be the way that the work would get done; there would be no easy battle to gain the ground that would soon house another of his own.  His pick struck again, he now gaining a painful rhythm as shards of ice and earth exploded haphazardly around him.  A random projectile sung up at him, cutting a gash in his face that started to bleed.  He did not stop to attend it.

The earth became a bit softer as he breached the freeze line after a couple of feet.  He would go twice that deep.  He now dropped the pick and seized the mattock as he began to square off the breach in the ground.  It would not take long to dig the three by three foot trench that he required.  He dug more swiftly now, his expulsions of breath matching the steam of a locomotive.  He was now almost knee deep, wildly excavating as the pain burned bright behind his left eye.  He now eyeballed the sides of his pit, making sure that it was uniform in its dimensions.  A swipe here and there with the mattock, and he was done. 

Jedidiah threw his tools from the pit and climbed heavily out of it, not bothering to wipe his dirty hands or the knees of his stained canvas trousers.  He now set his gaze on the curling white smoke that was winding itself from the chimney of the small farm house to which he now retraced his steps. The snap and crunch of the snow beneath him lessened, as he slowed his pace.  He breathed deeply of the stinging winter air, almost like the swimmer before he takes the plunge.  His hand was on the door handle for what seemed an eternity.

The air inside was warm, but the space was far from inviting.  There was an unintelligible smell that hung in the air; it reminded Jedidiah of spoiled milk.  His mind would soon tune it out and he would take no more notice of it.  His boots were leaden as he crossed the small parlor that housed the crackling fire.  It spit noisily at him as he turned his back to it to warm his extremities.  He wouldn’t tarry long; he still had the worst of his duty to perform.  He was listening now for any signs of life issuing from the bedroom, the door of which he was now facing.  It stood partly open and he could hear the repetitive creaking of the rocking chair that he knew was drawn to the window.  She had been watching him as he toiled in the freezing weather beyond her enclosure.

It was time for him walk the walk of the dead.  He clunked slowly to the door of the other bedroom that was sealed off by a closed wooden door.  As he swung the door to, his eyes were met on the far side of the room by four burning candles, two on each side of a pure white shroud that was laid purposefully on an oak table.  The room was completely empty except for the death place.  The shroud was no more than half of a sheet that he had cut in two with her sewing sheers.  The outline of a child, his child, stood out like a ghostly essence against the candle light. It almost seemed to hover over the dark wooden table on which it lay.

His footfalls echoed loudly against the hardness of the floor as he crossed the room slowly.  Reaching the table he stopped.  It would take all of his strength to lift the tiny child to carry it from there.  He wasn’t sure if he would be able to do it.  A man was only as good as the son that bore his name, now he would be bearing his infant son to an unmarked grave.  He would too be burying his line in the same earth that would cover the tiny body. 

He gingerly lifted the shroud enough to slide his flattened palms underneath the prone infant.  His heart now beat wildly as fresh torrents of memories flooded him and he stumbled back, barely catching his balance before he fell.  The weight of the child, once a wriggling joy, was unbearable.  He could feel the stone cold reeking from the dead skin as he held the corpse at arm’s length, determined never to cuddle him in death.  He had cradled him his last the night he had left, and would never do so again.

The pain was exquisite and building to a crescendo as he exited the room holding the still, white mass.  He could hear her still rocking as he crossed the parlor and made his way out of the front door.  His step now became a rhythm, as if he was singing a silent dirge as he followed his trail toward the dark, brown earth that was laying in piles and clumps not far in front of him.  He now began to hum. It was a low and mournful sound, as he marched forward, his tears streaming down his face into his dark beard where they became icicles.  It may have been “Rock of Ages”.

He finally reached the grave.  He laid the sheet aside and climbed into the hole. Gently he reached for the bundle, holding it away from himself.  He spread his legs wide, his boots now straddling the walls of the burial chamber.  He then slowly lowered the burial cloth into the cold, hard ground.  Eyes fixed doggedly forward, Jedidiah inched his way out of the enclosure.  He reclaimed his mattock and began slowly tossing the clods of dirt inside.  He didn’t notice as the last speck of white was consumed by his labor. Soon all of the disturbed earth was replaced, leaving a small hump in the ground as the only marker. 

Jedidiah plodded over to the outbuilding to return the excavating tools and retrieve a five gallon can of kerosene.  He opened the can as he exited the out building.  He then began to splash the liquid willfully on the wooden planking that covered the tool shed.  He turned then to the smokehouse, dashing it with the flammable fluid. In turn the hogshead, then the barn, the outhouse, and the root cellar.  Every building that he had carved out of the lumber that he had timbered from this place with his own hands was soaked.  He removed a rag ceremoniously from his jacket, and then a match hissed to life.  Jedidiah walked calmly to each building and set them to a steady blaze.  He returned to his son’s grave and sat watching his farm burn to the ground.  The roar of the flames deafened him as he felt the heat upon his face.

Jedidiah sat upon that grave until the last ember of the last building had gone out.  He then rose and dusted the seat of his pants thoroughly.  There was but one last structure that remained, and he made his way unflinchingly toward it, his kerosene can fixed firmly in his right hand.  As he reached the front porch, he began to empty the remaining contents out. Then he kicked the door to and poured a stream right into the living room.  He could still hear her rocking.

He wanted badly to enter the adjacent room and demand of her the reasons for what she had done.  He longed to have her gasping throat between his work hardened hands as she struggled to plead for her life.  He would never understand a mother could take the life of her own child.  He had imagined her with hate in her eyes as she stuffed the pillow tightly over his struggling son’s face, until he became as still as the corpse now buried outside.

He had left not a month after the second child, a regret that he had carried like a hangman’s noose.  He should have known after the first time.  He had loved her, and forgiven her, even the basest of treacheries could be mended by his devotion to her. He had left her for town and he had come home to a stone dead baby and her there in that rocking chair, staring out the bedroom window.  She was transfixed by the unmarked grave of what had been their first son.

Jedidiah now sat down heavily on the floor of the living room.  He began to slowly undress himself.  His work boots thudded twice upon the floor, followed by his coat.  His shirt and pants followed; he pitching these onto the roaring fire in the limestone fireplace that he had built with his own hands.  The hungry blaze then ate his thermals, then his socks and underwear. Now, as naked as the day he was born, Jedidiah got up and fished a match out of a wooden box on top of the mantle.  He would never really know, but he thought he could guess, that she would just keep rocking as the fire that would soon consume his flesh did the same to hers.  He smiled the bitterest of smiles and dropped the flaming match to the puddle of kerosene beneath his feet.