The Meaningless Mound
Flash Fiction
“There’s nothing more to say, son,” said the rugged old man standing on the cliff overlooking the grave.
The boy perched next to him had to strain to hear; his father never raised his voice depending on the environment they found themselves in, even today as the wind whistled and danced around them.
His father clapped a hand on his shoulder — Nate felt the coarseness of the fingers through his jacket. The wind and rain stole from the touch any semblance of softness, leaving what little warmth his father had managed to muster in the small squeeze he gave before letting his hand fall to his side again.
Nate’s father was quick to go back on his word.
“Your mother was a kind woman,” he said. Nate inched closer. He continued, “A wonderful human being.”
Nate nodded, sagely. He knew. They both knew.
In a howl that pricked goosebumps on the back of his neck and lanced down his arms, Nate saw his father fling himself on the small mound of dirt that covered the woman that had so lovingly claimed the role of third member of their family. Nate himself stood there, rocking slowly with the wind, and while his father screamed and yelled and cursed the heavens, nature, bad luck — anything that might have caused the cancerous cells to take flight within his wife’s, Nate’s mother’s bloodstream — and let the tears fall and mix with the cold raindrops clinging to his red cheeks.
While his father sobbed and the muck clung greedily to his face, chest and arms, Nate could not help but be pierced by a spear of the utter meaninglessness of it all. That cancer, in just wanting to survive, had killed the only living thing it required for it to keep living. That is spread and spread without regard for the chemotherapy, radiotherapy, well wishes and best wishes.
Now there really was nothing more to say. And the only thing left to do was to wrestle his father into submission to stop him from bolting off the face of the cliff.
Silly, thought Nate, as he grasped his father harder than he had in the previous sixteen years, and they both sat and sobbed. How did he think he was going to see her again if she was buried on land, while he would be lost at sea?
Matt Querzoli wrote this. Follow him or his randy publication if you liked the post, or even the bloke himself if this tickled your proverbial pickle.
