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Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 15

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 15

Verduan and Patreo pulled the Tinker’s cart into the village. The body lay on the bed and the cart’s top kept it from village eyes. Ide and Patreo covered the body further with cloths found in the cart. Tardiff walked in front and shooed people out of their way. Ide walked behind and wept. One hand rested on the body or made minor adjustments to the covering clothes when the cart jumped over a rock or bounced over a rut. Eric stayed at her side, his steps shortened to match hers, and comforted as he could. Father Baillot walked a few solemn step behind mumbling prayers. Thomas remained in the wood where the body and cart were found, hidden less anyone return.

Baillot guided them to the sacristy. He moved vestments and wine goblets from a table and lit candles all around. Verduan, Patreo, and Eric lifted the body and lay it there.

Tardiff pointed to the door. “Verduan, stand outside and make sure no one bothers us.”

Verduan nodded and closed the door as he left.

Patreo carefully pulled back the cloth covering her and began to remove its clothes.

Ide stopped him. “I’ll do that.”

Patreo bowed. “We must be careful how we remove what is worn. I will assist you.”

Baillot nodded and Ide stepped back. She turned Eric to face her. “Go, bring my husband.”

Eric looked past her and caught Patreo’s eye. “I’d rather stay.”

Patreo nodded slightly. He wet a cloth and dabbed matted blood from the dead girl’s hair. “Let him stay. You, mother, you will know best where your husband is this time of day. It is best you bring him, please.”

Baillot motioned her away with a wave of his hand, his eyes fixed on Patreo’s ministrations. Ide snorted and left.

Patreo proceeded. He turned the head and quickly directed Tardiff’s eyes. “See this? Touch it gently. It yields. The skull is cracked. Eric, wash away the rest of this blood until the wound is visible.”

His fingers massaged behind the ears then the neck. “And the blow was fierce enough to snap the neck.”

Tardiff inspected the wound. “The blow to her head killed her then?”

“Surely.”

“So the violence done to her. It was after death?”

“Yes, but not long after. Or while dying. These marks on her face, either her heart still beat enough to send blood there or it was moments after she died and blood still ran through her veins.”

Patreo continued exploring. “Her eyes were removed by someone who knew what they were doing. Someone skilled in torture.”

Tardiff crossed his arms over his chest. “Removed because she saw something?”

“Or someone thought so.”

“Why cut off the hand?”

“A Gourdin punishment. For theft. Brought here from the Crusades. So someone who’s served, knows those who served and knows them dearly, or a Gourdin themself.”

Eric stood back, his eyes closed. “Not punishment for taking the hand off the witch?” He crossed himself.

Patreo frowned down upon the body. “The witch’s retribution would be so clean? She would want to cause pain as well as damage. The bones would be shattered before the hand was taken.” He lifted the arm with the missing hand. “See? The arm itself is whole.”

He held the arm up in one hand and felt along its length with the other. Coming to her chest, he cupped a breast and lifted it slightly.

Tardiff watched. “What are you doing now?”

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Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 14

Okay. Enough of a break. Time to get back to it, me.

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 14

Byell stood on the edge of his field. In front of him lima and tomato rows alternated, a thirsty crop with a dry so water would disperse throughout the field evenly. Behind him his orchard started, apple trees and pear trees, another thirsty crop meeting dry. A mallet hung loosely in his right hand, slipped through his palm, and landed with a dull thud on the dry earth by his boots. He wiped sweat from his brow and looked down as if confused by the sound, then slowly raised his head and scanned the horizons. “No rain.” He clenched his fists. “No clouds, no rain.”

His thirsty crops pulled what water they could from the dry, the ox yoked with the ass, and both suffered for it.

A duct ran from the Vell to his fields and he spent the last hour damming it so no Vell water would reach them. Tardiff stated it correctly; the Vell’s water quenched like poison and none knew why.

He sobbed and pulled a leather pouch from his pocket. “You promised.” A knotted cord held the pouch’s top closed. Sweat ran down Byell’s cheeks and mixed with tears. “I gave you my daughter and you promised.”

He pulled the cord and the pouch opened. He bit his lip until it bled, tasted the blood on his tongue, spit into the pouch, and mixed the contents with his finger.

“You promised.”

He walked his fields. Every few steps he took some grains out of the pouch and sprinkled them on the ground.

“You promised.”

At the end of his transit movement caught his eye. The trees around his fields had once been loud with wildlife. Birds followed him when he furrowed and he talked with them. “Are those grubs to your liking, Mr. Grouse? Does that worm serve, Mrs. Tanager? And you, Mr. Grosbeak? Are you getting your fill?” Swifts flew over him as flies and grasshoppers took flight. Opossum and stoat waddled at a safe distance behind him to catch any gleanings.

Now the trees were silent. He prayed to gods old and new to bring the wildlife back and kept his eyes alert for any signs of life in his fields, so the dark movement, the fluttering of black against the withering green of the trees, caught his eye and he looked.

My Wife’s An Alien

Last week I offered Grandpa’s Pasta Sauce and this week a slightly longer flash piece, My Wife’s An Alien, a bit of a break from a steady diet of Tag.

My Wife’s An Alien comes from a family joke; my Mediterranean blood makes me a furnace compared to most people. Susan offers me to people she sees shivering. “Hold his hand, you’ll warm up fast.”

The contrast to this is, compared to me, she’s the arctic. She once walked up to a fellow worker and put her hands on the back of the coworker’s neck and the coworker (no kidding) jumped about a foot in the air. “Good god, woman. Have the courtesy of staying in the ground when you’re dead!”

The scene here about cold feet? Yeah, it happened. A lot. Took me a while.

My Wife’s An Alien

My wife’s an alien. I found out on our wedding night. You see, I’m old school. None of that heavy breathing stuff until the rings are on the fingers. She didn’t seem to mind. I offered to…umm…pleasure…her in other ways. You know? If she wanted.

“No. I can wait.”

I can make a joke out of it. One of those “My wife’s so frigid…” but that’s just the point. She is.

We’re lying in bed that first night together and she lets out this heavy sigh. I mean, long, deep; it sounded like an airline ruptured in the honeymoon suite, but what’s pneumatically driven in a honeymoon suite?

“You okay?”

She smiles, her eyes on the mirrored ceiling. “Yes. Just relaxing.”

“Do you want to…you know…?”

“If you’d like.”

But just then I’m noticing the bed is getting cold. “Are you getting chilly? Let me adjust the temperature before we start anything.”

“It won’t matter.”

“Huh?”

She’s still staring at our reflections in the ceiling mirror, smiling, and her foot slides over towards mine under the covers.

Except her foot’s a good five, six inches away and I’m feeling like I’m Luke Skywalker on the ice planet Hoth. She touches me with just her toes and I swear to God my skin turns blue up to eyeballs and my nose hairs twitch.

“Holy Mother of…are you alright? You need a doctor?”

From the Casebook of Ima Flush, HDP Certified Space Plumber, Quadrant 6E now in Harvey Duckman Present V9

Yes, it’s true…the long awaited and no longer a special plumber’s issue of Harvey Duckman (Volume 9) is now available for your reading pleasure.

Many writers contributed (including Peter James @Brennan_and_Riz Martin, Kate @KateBaucherel Baucherel, Liz @LizTuckwell1 Tuckwell, Robin @robinmoonwrites Moon, Will @will_nett Nett, Mark @DarrackMark Hayes, A L @ALBuxton2 Buxton, and Craig @CKRoebuck Roebuck). My offering is From the Casebook of Ima Flush, HDP Certified Space Plumber, Quadrant 6E.

This story has a strange history.

But then again, what story of mine doesn’t?

The special plumbers issue – which this story was written for – never came about. Kind of. The issue had been talked about for several years. It was on again off again and the seesawing (frankly) became tiring. I hadn’t written anything for it yet so no worries.

Then I drove to a master telescope maker to have our telescope repaired (it’s a beautiful Schmidt–Cassegrain I originally purchased back in the 1990s to learn astral-photography. finally getting back into it). I’m driving along and listening to music (must listen to music) when the protagonist, Ima Flush, appeared in front of me.

Naturally, I swerved.

After people stopped honking their horns and getting back on the highway, I listened to what Ima told me.

Even had to turn down the music. A bit.

Turns out Ima likes classic rock, too!

She had an amazing story to tell.

Here…let me share just the title. I thought Ima was changing her mind. No, she was sharing her genesis with me.

And an amazing genesis it is…

“From the Casebook of Ima Flush, HDP Certified Space Plumber, Quadrant 6E”

[no, that was true when we started, not any more]

“Choices made Manifest Through Self-Awareness”?

[too wordy and obscure]

“The Opening of Ima Flush”?

[no, nobody’ll remember the reference]

“The Silver Ring”?

[no, ditto… ah, I have it. how about…?]

Breaking Through

(Yes! That’s it!)

Hope you enjoy.

Grandpa’s Pasta Sauce

I need a break from Tag and will offer two flash pieces as respite.

The first is Grandpa’s Pasta Sauce, written spur-of-the-moment for a class I took on creative non-fiction writing. We were given five minutes to come up with something based on a real event and humanize it. I read this piece when called upon and the teacher wanted to know if I really just made it up on the spot or had worked on it long and hard and offered it for comment.

Her specific question was, “Are you really that good or is that something you’ve been working on for a while?”

I offered it was just a good day for me.

This demurecation upset Susan greatly. “Why can’t you own you’re a good writer?”

That honest, simple question set off a storm of self-analysis, all to the good.

But you tell me what you think.

Grandpa’s Pasta Sauce

Grandpa cooked pasta sauce so hot your eyes watered when you walked into his kitchen. His fingers reddened as he crushed dried red peppers into the sizzling olive oil, the garlic, onions, and green pepper already skittling across the cast iron pan.

Next came tomato paste. A whole can that he practically cracked open like an egg because he’d been a dirt farmer all of his life and his forearms were veined like rivers running to the sea and his hands calloused like the earth itself after a dry summer’s harvest.