Honey And Manure

My pale, bare, devoid of even hair, body hovers in a dense, heavy darkness. The darkness feels nearly solid, thick to the point where you could almost feel its weight against the pads of your fingers. But as soon as it reaches out, it will consume me, and I will become nothing more than a part of it.

But I’m still alive, my bony chest slowly moving in a ragged, slow rhythm. None of the gods have stooped down into my darkness to lift my barely living body from this burden. My dim, tired brown eyes manage to look upward into the cold, emptiness above. The darkness, like a noble executioner sensing the faint pulse in my cold hand, steps out of the way of my gaze, fulfilling my last wish.

At the other end of the corridor I had laid out, a soft glow spreads in a gentle tone. I see a face, bathed in a silvery haze, a face as if lifted straight from the canvas of Rosalba Carriera, embodying the  irony of the name “Rococo” itself. Face of my mother.

She appears before me, or in fact, her face does, emerging before my frail eyes. Her soft, rounded chin with its familiar scar, her delicate, perpetually bitten lips. Her cheeks, hollowed, with a natural blush and kissed by the sun. The sharp nose with the bump, what passed to me. Her eyes, are brown like the wood of an oak tree,  with a pattern like the petals of a gazania. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, which appeared earlier than those of her peers because of her constant smile. Her high forehead, which she was never quite satisfied with. The only thing missing is her hair, dark and velvety, untouched by my gaze. It all was so ordinary, so routine, like breathing itself. It was... Just a week ago, and now it's just a sorrowful memory and guilt.

Once a living woman, her corrupted ashes laying on the shelf next to the TV. After running her eyes over me, Mom's eyes stopped and blinked sympathetically.

 Her usual warm and caring gaze cut into me like a hot razor. The face changes, just as it had when she scolded me in the kitchen, a look of deep compassion, of wanting what’s best for me, even if I don’t understand. Her silent lips part, and the first drops of honey fall from them. There was more and more of the amber mixture, a small stream followed the drops, then an even larger one, then the honey filled her entire mouth. A sticky, warm, viscous liquid envelops me, soaks into my skin, floods my eyes and ears, and finally enters my mouth. The honey flows into me unimpeded, yet its supply never diminishes. Drops fall from her eyes, seep from her ears, and with every second, her glow grows dimmer. Honey fills the surrounding space, driving out the cold darkness, and my mother’s face becomes increasingly faint, a phantom. The warm stream stops, and my eyes, coated in amber, can no longer find her...

The vivid sweetness of the honey begins to fade, drying on my cracked lips like water disappearing into desert sands. Thin rivulets of amber flow from my body, like rivers charting a course through the most intimate places – the hollow of my collarbone, beneath my arms, between my chest, along my thighs, past my knees, dripping from my Achilles tendon. The darkness, colder than ever, chills me to the bone, encasing them in frost; the depth of the cold only becomes clear as the last drop of warm honey falls away.

With the final drop sinking into the newly created amber sea, a stench arises. The aroma is heavy vanilla, sugary sweet and at the same time disgusting, wrong. A smell that instinctively disgusts you and makes you want to get rid of it. With this scent, my body begins to change, blistering, reddening, swelling, so bloated that I can barely see through my own swollen lids, as my pores stretch wide. And, rot begins to seep, oozing from beneath my dermal, trickling from beneath my nails, seeping from my ears, eyes, and every intimate place, oozing out of every pore. Every inch, every patch of my time-ravaged body exudes this foul, yellow-white fluid. Yet I feel no pain, no revulsion; if anything, there is relief, as though disgust itself is flowing out along with the pus. It forms a white stain within the honeyed ocean. This rot had been buried deep within me, clasped by seven seals, compressing my lungs, weighing down my stomach, hanging from my heart, slowing its beat. It pressed against my darkened soul with its weight, tainting me from inside, decomposing my moral.

The final drop, this time a yellow-white substance, falls from me into the muddy pool within the amber sea. I feel lighter. My skin takes on a faint flush, the film over my eyes thins, and my chest rises and falls with more rhythm. A cold, refreshing stream of air caresses me, stirring my lashes. The feeling of freedom spreads over the entire area of my body, and responds with pleasant cold needles down my spine. Finally, my previously dormant body gets a stimulus and moves its fingers.