SNOUT

thNOT FINISHED.
  Solemnly, a rhythmical prayer echoed in the temple of high Dorian, white marble columns.  There, on bended knees, an old man's head leaned forward.  Behind him, in the pews, he heard their prayers.  There were many.  His hands clenched in fervently.  The furrows of his forehead wrinkled into reddish lines beneath gray, clipped hair.  His eyes closed into a tight, a line of sealed flesh.  His mouth opened.  His lips trembled in a movement of silent, repetitious words.
  "Please?"  He whispered.  Looking up, he saw her face of love.  What does she know of human pain?  Does she look down on him with kindness or ridicule?  Perhaps, anger?  His body quivered.  His hands shook.  A tear formed beneath his left eye.  He hesitated, but the tear fell leaving a streak of silver on his wrinkled cheek.  With the sleeve of his worker's coat, he wiped away the wetness.  He looked pass the image to see the stain glass window.  He looked around, ashamed.  With a final gush of breath, he said.
  "Thank you."
  To his right, against the mason wall, the hurriedly made coffins from the city of Chespaw were orderly stacked.  The slaughter had been great.  The bodies smelled of decay.  From one box, a strange scurrying sound echoed.  Like the movement of two bodies, one moved another.  The Old Man looked around.  Did anyone noticed?  No one.  The sound of the body being moved stopped.  Between the boards, caked with mud, still eyes looked out.
  The Old Man stood.  He gathered his large, loose coat around him.  He wrapped the thick, red scarf around his neck.  In a huddle fashion, turning, he walked between the rowls.  As he passed, he heard the prayers.  They preyed for food, warmth and salvation from the ones who eat their bodies, their souls.
  He has his own prayers.  He wondered if he was alone.  At the entrance, he opened the large, double doors with the hand-carved gargole heads for knobs.  Their eyes stared back at him.  Their voices were mute?  The wooden faces were sublime.  He pulled the lapels of his coat against the whistling wind as he opened the large, wooden, double doors.  Alone, he entered the black night.  In one of the coffins, rocking gently, the wooden boards moved to the rhythm of the chewing of flesh as it is torn from bone.
  Arriving at his little thatched covered house, he entered the kitchen by the back door.  He placed his tool kit on the floor.  He saw her standing with her back to him.    She was stirring a boiling pot of stew.  He watched her.  He smelled the mingling of carrots, peas and spicemeats in the brew.  Quietly, he walked up to the Woman until he stood behind her.  She smiled.  A single strand of gray hair dangled in front of her face.  He placed his callous hands on the curves of her waist.  There were wrinkles around her eyes, but she was still beautiful to him.  His wife.  His love.  He placed a kiss on her cheek.  Her smile broadened.  Looking forward, stirring the stew with one hand, she patted his entwined hands locked around her waist.
  Together, the couple sat at the table.
  They ate.
  "Capra has fallen."  She spoke.
  He said nothing.  He looked at the bottom of the empty bowl.
  "They eat human flesh."  She spoke.  "The city streets are falling in.  The buildings are collapsing.  The people who are left behind?  The poor.  The old.  The abandon.  The creatures eat the dead."  She spoke nervously.  "They eat the living."
  "The Prince has sent the army to Tiege."  He spoke calmly.  "Let's not talk about  such things."
  She bowed her head in contemplating.
  He washed the dishes while she dried; later, she cleaned the table.  Outside, the night winds howled.  Large raindrops peppered the windows glossy wet.
  "I prayed again."  He whispered.
  "I love you."  She responded.
  In the distance, thunder struck cracking the air violently.
  They laid together beneath a thick comforter and a blanket that she had sewed with her own hands.  The sheets were warm and clean.  His arms wrapped around her.  He felt the heat of her body, the rhythm of her heart next to his.  Outside, the long mournful cry of the wind was like that of a banshee or a lost soul drowning in fire.  Torrid, cold, coming down at an angle, the rain hit the roof harshly.  Incessantly, the floating, luminous moon glared through the white curtains.  He struggled unable to wake, to sleep, to dream.  Outside the window, the large oak swayed with great limbs as if it was animated casting black shadows with stubborn reticence.
  A distant, mournful howl echoed.  From shadow to shadow, the carrier of nightmares stalked the dark night for anguish, loneliness and despair.  The Old Man awoke.  A baby was crying?  Sitting up, he shook his head.  Was he dreaming?  No, a baby was  crying.  Turning, he looked down at her, his wife.  Her eyes were wide open.  She heard.  Her lips moved.  She spoke in a hoarse voice.
  "We need to go."
  Jumping out of bed, they threw on their heavy coats.  Barefoot, they ran down the hallway to the front of the house.  With her standing at his side, the Old Man opened the thick, wooden, front door.  The rain had abated; yet, the wind howled.  Sparsely, large, cold raindrops peppered down.  The branches moved in strange undulations as if animated.  The Old Man saw movement from the corner of his eye.  Laying in a weaved bassinet, he saw the exposed face of a baby.
  Lightening flashed from a distance.
  The infant screamed.  It's mouth became a jagged form.
  The thunder echoed.
  The wind howled long and dreadful.
  Bending down, the Wife opened the panels of the bassinet.  The Child was wrapped in a red and gray striped blanket.  She picked up the child.  Holding it aloft, the child's ashen face was exposed by the light of the burning torch that the Old Man had ignited.  The blanket opened exposing the child.  It was starved.  The bones of the ribs pressed tight against the flesh.  The limbs were thin and long ending with ungainly hands and feet.  The Child coughed.  It's chest shuddered as the ribs undulated beneath chalk-gray skin.  Was the child sick?  Diseased?  Deformed?  The Old Woman thought to herself.  The Child's long fingers wrapped around the Old Woman's callous thumb.  The Child's eyes were large, unnaturally large, and blue, wolf-blue like the people of woods would say.  Darting back and forth, the Child's eyes examined the Old Woman's face, her open questioning eyes.  It spoke.
  "Mama."
  The chalk-white face glistened wet.  A smell strange and sickly sweet drifted from the child.  The odor was pungent, wreaking of decay, sanguine death.  The Old Woman pulled the child closer to her breast.
  "You are so cold."  The Old Woman spoke with trembling lips.
  The Child opened it's mouth exposing a full set of teeth.  The infant attempted to bite into the fabric that covered the Old Woman's breast.  She held the child away.  It's limbs moved about in an awkward struggle.  The frayed blanket fell away from the child.  Caked with dried blood, the child's lower torsoe was red illuminated by the sputtering torch.  The inner blanket was soaked red.  The scattered rain drops diluted the dried blood washing down the woman's hand, then sleeves.  The Old Woman felt the stickness on her palms as she held the child farther away from her.  They heard a long, mournful howl like that of a loss soul.  The Old Woman covered the Child's mouth with the blanket as she held it closer to her breast.  Their world became colder.  The Elderly Couple shivered.  With human ferocity, together, they held the Child tight.  Entering the hamlet, they shut the thick, wooden door against the bitter, cold night.  Entering the hamlet, they shut the thick, wooden door against the bitter, cold night.
  Together, the Elderly Couple raised the Child.  They doted on her.  With love and tenderness, they spoiled her.  The Adopted Mother prepared elaborate meals of spice meats and snacks of sweet cakes, but the Child ate gingerly.  Yet, the Child grew.  The Mother sewed the finest, delicate cloths.  The Child prefered overalls.  In his workshop, the adopted Father created toys with intricate curves.  The Child didn't play with the toys, but she wore the wooden shoes that her new Father had made her.
  The Child was different.  For her age, she was tall and thin.  Her long limbs moved in an ungainly fashion.  Her palor was anemic, pale, ivory.  Blue veins marked her flesh.  Her hair was straight, white.  Her nose was thin.  Her mouth a red cherub.  Her eyes were unusually large with black rings around the irises.  At times, her eyes were light and melancholy.  Other times, they were dark like black-rimmed clouds of a thunderstorm.  Her face was symmetrical, beautiful.
  The Child was devoted to her adopted Parents.  Respectful, she listened to and completed their instructions dutifully.  Yet, sometimes, sadness filled her Parent's hearts.  The Child never smiled, nor laughed, not cried.
  On the days off from school, the Father took his daughter to his work.  He was a construction man well known for his craft.  He arrived at his work with heavy tools in hand and the Child standing mutely behind him.  As he worked, the Child dust and swept. behind him.  Running about with long legs and awkward hands, she picked up the tools placing them in their proper place in the work kit.  Once, close to refurnishing the burgomaster's kitchen floor, the Craftsman went on break.  While he sipped tea outside near a horse drawn wagon, the Child busied herself.  Returning to work, the Carpenter found that the kitchen floor had been completed.  The Child stood in the middle of the room.  A hammer dangled from her hand.  A line of blood traced from her hand down the shaft of the hammer.  Saw dust caked her cheeks.  Sweat glistened on her forehead.  She waited for his inspection.  He examined the surface cut of the wood planks, the fitting of the boards, the smoothness of the finish.  Done, he patted his thick hand against the floor.
  Looking up at her, he said.  "Good.  Very good."
  She didn't smile or cry.  She placed the hammer and other tools in the Carpenter's box.  She was no longer her Father's janitor, but his assistant.
  With pencil, paper, saw and hammer, the Child designed and created chairs, cabinets, tables and knickknacks from slabs of wood.  On each protruding point of the furniture, a handle of a dresser, a stem of a chair, a myriad of figures were cut with horrid faces, open snouts, lashing fangs and psychotic eyes staring out.  She created a statuette of a family being attack by a pack of creatures wolf-like, yet humanoid.  With sharp teeth and razor claws, the creatures mauled the parents and an older male child.  Limbs were serated, intestines exposed and jagged mouths screamed.  With close arms, the mother attempted to protect the second child, an infant.  The Carpenter rolled the statuette in his hand.  He examined each crevice of the intricate piece of wood.  The hand applied varnish gleamed like ice.
  The Child looked at the adopted Father with still eyes.  What does this child know of violenc?  The Old Man thought to himself.  A piece of paper laid on the table.  The drawing of the grotesque statuette had algebraic notes beside each hand drawn line.  The Carpenter was troubled.
  The adopted Father laid his callous hand on the Child'd shoulder.  "You're a good carpenter."
  "As good as you?"  Asked the Child.
  Looking at the statuette, he signed.  "Better."
  Reaching up, the Child wrapped her thin finger hand around the Old Man's.  She felt the callouses on his palms.  To the adopted Father, the Child's hands were cold, paw-like.
  Sunday was the family's special day.  After service, on the wagon, they would take a trip to the zoo, a tour of the city's museum, or a picnic at the Blue Lake.  Beneath the tall, red-wood tree, the adopted Father cast the line of his fishing rod.  The adopted Mother set out the meal.  The Child stared out at the shimmering water.  Deciding to go for a walk, she stood.  Into the woods, she came on to a baby deer.  Pulling a branch from a berry bush, she held the limb out.  Slowly, the deer approached her; then finally, cautiously, it ate from the branch.  She returned to her adopted parents.
  Later that day, they visit the city's art gallery.  In silence, the Child stared at the paintings like the Trojan Women, the rape of the Sabrines, the burning of three hanged witches on an Iberian hill top.  The adopted Father placed a hand on the Child's shoulder.  She turned to stared at him.
  "We need to go."  He spoke.
  Time passed, the Child turned thirteen.  She was thin, angular and taller than other children of her age.  The Mother cut and sewed the Father's old coats to fit the Child's frame.  She wrapped a hand woven, red scarf around the Child's thin neck.  Kissing the Child on the forehead, she turned the Child around pushing her out the front door.  The Mother watched as the Child walked towards the cloister school.  With snow flakes falling, the Child swung her lunch pail as the long coat floated in the cold, winter air.
  One day, the Carpenter entered through the kitchen back door breathless.  He was home early.
  "Emergency?"  He gasped.
  "The School."  The Mother answered with a rasping voice sitting at the table with her back to him.  Placing his tool kit down, he preceded to the cloister without haste.
  The Carpenter entered his Child's school room.  In the corner, to his left three large, farm boys huddled together.  Bloodily beaten, their cloths were a mass of ripped fabric hanging from their bruised flesh.  The largest one had a slash running down the length of his leg.  Blood was smeared across his thigh.  The farm boy callous hands hid his beaten face.  To the Carpenter' right, his daughter stood in another corner.  Her face was towards the wall.  From the side, he could see the tear streaks down her cheeks, yet the Child was calm.  Her long thin arms dangled at her side.  In front of the Carpenter, the aged Instructor stood in middle of the classroom.  His brow was a crest of furrows.  His stare was stern.  His bone thin arms tied like a knot in front of his bird cage chest.  A long, polished cane dangled from his fingertips.  Behind the Instructor, mathematical problems were etched in white chalk on the blackboard.  Each problem was more difficult than the last.  Each problem was worked out precisely.  He didn't know if the answers were correct, but he knew his Child's delicate curved handwriting.
  The Instructor stepped forward.  The wooden floor creaked beneath his weight.  His upper body leaned forward.  His face balanced on the stem of his long, thin neck.
  "Your daughter is a filthy, little savage."  The Instructor spoke.  Lifting his left hand, pointing his forefinger, he spouted.  "Look at what she did to those boys."
  The Carpenter looked at the boys, clinging together, their bodies trembled.  Cold sweat perspired on their foreheads glistening; then, the Carpenter looked at the his Child.  She stood alone.  She was calm like the air after a violent storm.
  "This Child."  The Instructor spoke sternly.  "She is affront, abomination, a monster.  She is insolent."  Clenching his teeth, the Instructor closed his mouth his lips forming a thin-line frown.
  The Carpenter walked up to the Instructor.  They stood face to face.  The Instructor's eyes were like orbs of angry fire.  His face was red with rage.  His jugular vein pulsated to a heart wrenching beat.  The Instructor's chest rose and fell with a sharp, short restrictive movements.  The Carpenter felt the heat of the Instructor's breath on his face.
  "Why?  Is this Child too intelligent?"  With a grimace, the Father nodded towards the black board.
  The Instructor's breath halted.  Without realizing, he stepped back.  His hand groped for the head of his cane.  He took a deep breath, breathing again.
  The adopted Father smiled.  Turning towards the Child, he spoke.  "Come."
  The Child obeyed.  Together, they left.  The Child never attended the cloister school again.
  Winter came and went.  With the melting of the snow, the leaves unfurled green.  The flowers sprouted into many hues.  The Mother began to cough.  At first, the cough was an inconvenience, but grew in occurrence and harshness.  Finally, the cough became an epidemic an act of self-violence and morbid pain.
  The Mother became bed-ridden.  The Child prepared the meals and maintained the cleanness of their abode.  The Father grieved as his wife of forty years sank deeper into Death's arms.  On a day when the sun was bright and golden and the sky was a deep blue, the adoptive Mother died in her bed holding her husband's hand.  Beside the adoptive's Mother's bed, the Child stood obediantly like a sentry to the gates of the land of the dead.
  The Child stared at the ashen face of the adoptive Mother.  Reaching down, she touched the white hands.  Underneath, the palms were still warm.  The thumb had callouses.  The still face was bleached white, bleached of life.  For one solar cycle, the Child stood beside the bed.  The adoptive Father beseeched her to sleep, to eat, to move.  She wouldn't.  On the following night, blood traced down her inner thighs soaking her white, ankle soaks.  She was bleeding.  In the black night, the moon hung illuminated;  she heard the guttural sounds of wolves howling, many wolves.  The baying resonated like the sounds of lost souls from the black, sulfur pits of hell.