Lars Sveen - Children of God

I crawl around in the darkness, turning toward the voices. Some whisper, some shout. Some are hushed, some scream. They all disappear before I can find them.

Everything is darkness. Darkness clings. Everything clings.

A voice rises louder and louder, and I try to get up.

It vanishes, and another appears. I can’t get up. I open my mouth and spit out words. They fall into the sand and black earth.

My beloved, where are you now?

My son, don’t let yourself be consumed.

I try to sing, but I have dust in my throat.

I try to walk, but I walk so slowly.

Darkness is everywhere. Black and blacker. The humming drone and voices. If I close my eyes, I can still see. The darkness runs through me.

One voice won’t leave me. I stay still, and the voice is there, right next to me. A woman, so young, she speaks between short pauses, and then she starts screaming. She screams and screams until she falls silent and is standing next to me. There are cuts and deep holes in her head.

“Hello,” I say.

“Hello,” she says, looking at me, before looking at herself. And when she looks back at me, there are tears running from her. Tears running from her whole body. Out of her fingers and ears, out through the clothes she’s wearing.

“My name’s Sarah,” I say, and then: “You smell of earth.”

My words feel cold once they’re out of me. She smells of earth, moist, warm earth, but me, what am I? Am I cold wind?

Back I must go into the honey-like darkness.

But I stop when she says, “I’m Ruth.”

“Ruth?” I say. She nods, and her head is strange.

“He hit me so suddenly,” she says, lifting her hand up to her forehead.

“The man who hit you has gone,” I tell her. “You’re here.”

“He hit me, suddenly, with all his strength, he beat me and beat me, and then I was here,” she says.

“We must go,” I say.

Ruth stares at me. “I can’t go,” she says. “I must help my sister.”

“She’s not here,” I tell her.

Ruth looks around her. I lift up my hand and close it around hers. I tell her we have to go and pull her along behind me. I think about my lover. He’ll be looking, wanting to find us. He’ll snatch her, he’ll snatch me. I’ve got to get her away. Not into any light, just into the darkness. Ruth tries to pull her hand back, but I hold on, hold on, hold on, and Ruth follows me.

“Who are you?” Ruth asks.

“I’m Sarah,” I reply.

“Who’s Sarah?” Ruth asks.

“I’m like you,” I say.

Come here, come here, into the dark disappear.

“How did you die?” Ruth asks.

“I was giving birth to my child and was torn in two,” I tell her.

Twist and wind, in the light to find.

“Oh,” says Ruth, who then falls silent. Her hand loosens, I let go of it, and she walks by my side. She smells of earth. The remains of what we were. I’m the remains of what we become.

We walk and walk, and I see, and Ruth says, “Look,” and the darkness around us is no longer darkness. Black has become gray, and something large and tall rises up in the grayness. It’s a mountain, and Ruth says we’ll have to cross it. Pitch darkness is behind us, but here it’s gray darkness, and I agree with her, we’ll have to cross it.

My foot can’t climb over rocks, so Ruth has to drag me. She holds my hand, but once we get farther up, her head starts to drip away. She needs both hands to stop everything from running out of her. We stop by a well, and the mountain’s above us, and I hear my lover whispering softly far behind us there.

“What’s that?” Ruth asks.

“It’s the wind,” I reply.

“That’s not wind,” says Ruth.

“It’s flies,” I tell her.

“Is it him?” Ruth asks.

I nod, and Ruth takes my hand again. We kneel down by the well.

“Is that water?” says Ruth, putting her hand down into the well, and the water creeps up her hand. It splashes and flows. It trickles over to me. Cold water, and it makes my mouth twitch. Ruth’s mouth twitches too.

“What is it?” I say.

“You’re smiling,” says Ruth.

“No,” I tell her.

“We’re smiling,” says Ruth.

Then something touches my foot. I turn around.

“Feel,” says Ruth. “It’s alive.”

But I turn around, and they’re roots. They’re around my foot.

“Sahah, Sahah.”

“No,” I shout. “Ruth,” I cry. And the mountain changes. Ruth begins to scream. The mountain cracks open, and out come the roots.

“You’re minne, Sahah, I’mm yourss.”

“He’s everywhere. He’s everywhere.”

“Thhat’ss how I like you.”

My eyes are open, they’re always open. I hear a buzzing and lift my hand to stroke their wings. But it’s Ruth’s hair I’m stroking.

“Sarah,” she says. “He’s here.”

I feel the roots binding my foot. My lover’s here to take me.

I’m in several pieces. Ruth gathers me together. She has a needle, she has thread, she stitches me together.

“Hush,” she says. “I’m going to free us.”

“Hush,” she says. “We’re going to the sea.”

The roots tighten around my foot. I belong to my lover. Wherever I go, whatever I am. The cold light, his grip. I’m his.

“Sarah,” says Ruth. “Sarah, you’re Sarah again, you’re in one piece.”

He’s my lover. I’m his.

“I’m going to free us,” says Ruth.

“The water,” I tell her. “You have to give him your water, Ruth.”

My eyes are open, they’re always open. I hear a buzzing and lift my hand to stroke their wings. But it’s my lover’s mouth.

“Sahah, you tasste of salt and earthh.”

“Ruth,” I say, and he pulls at me.

“You’re bothh minne, everything here iss minne.”

“Ruth,” I say, and my lover tears himself out and away. He goes into the cold light and says that this mountain isn’t his, he’s going back to the sand and the black darkness.

“I tasste wetnesss here, Sahah. You should be dryy.”

My lover vanishes into the cold light. Through the darkness out, I must seek the drought.

My eyes are open, they’re always open. I hear a buzzing and lift my hand to stroke their wings. It’s the flies. It’s Ruth. She’s covered by the winged creatures, the water’s dripping from her to me.

“Sarah,” she says. “I’m going to free us.” And I hear my lover. I see him coming in the cold light.

“You’re bothh minne.”

“Sahah and Ruthh, small and dryy and finished.”

“Come,” says Ruth, taking my hand. The flies’ wings beat and cut, and cut and cut and my foot’s free. But my lover’s here now. The cold light and his howls.

“Ruth,” I say, and my lover begins to grab at me. He takes hold of me and pulls. Then I hear Ruth, she’s dripping and dripping. She’s water, screaming and flailing and flapping, and the gray light blinks, or is it me? My lover snatches Ruth, he tears her skull apart. Ruth is left in pieces, but out of Ruth comes gushing water, and my lover stops everything. He’s in the water, burning up, and I blink and crawl toward what was Ruth.

“Ruth,” I say. My lover burns and growls.

“Ruth,” I say, and the pieces of Ruth are wet. The gray light blinks, or it flashes, or is it me? Everything blinks, everything flashes, gray and black, and Ruth and water and the buzzing and the wings and my beloved and my son and I blink.

“You’re here,” says Ruth.

She’s back in one piece; her skull has mended again.

“Sarah,” she says. “I’ve found light, we’re there, listen.”

There’s no buzzing, but it’s not silent. There’s something else.

“Listen,” says Ruth. “We freed ourselves, your lover’s no more. The light will come to you soon.”