Beneath a Dark and Ruinous Sky
This is my first year as a NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge participant. The FFC is a writing competition that divides participants into 60 groups of 35 and provides each group with a different genre, location, and object which must be used in a story of no more than 1,000 words. The stories are due 48 hours after the release of the group assignments.
For challenge #2 I was assigned to group 59 and received the following prompts:
Genre: Drama
Location: A cave
Object: A tent
Here is what I came up with.
Beneath a Dark and Ruinous Sky
by Shannon Chapel
Emma tiptoed over the broken glass, regretting what she’d done. She rarely went into the man cave, but she’d wanted to hurt him — hurt him as badly as he’d hurt her.
I’m sorry, Max, she thought, scooping up the shard-covered tent, a boot with its crampon still attached, three carabiners, the climbing harness. Snot clogged her nose as she surveyed the shattered display case that once housed the mountaineering gear Max used to ascend Denali’s Cassin Ridge.
“What the…?” Harper ran into the room, gliding to a stop in her stocking feet. “Jesus, what happened? Are you alright?”
Emma slumped to the sofa, her face a rictus of pain. “No, I’m actually pretty fucking far from alright. Christ, I want to scream. I want to break things. I want to curl up in a ball and die. I want to hug him. I want to hit him. I want something to make this agony go away!” Emma pinched her eyes shut as a sob caught in her throat, and she lowered her head to the armload of what she had left of her husband.
Harper climbed over the back of the couch, wrapping her arms and legs around her sister from behind “Shh,” she whispered, rocking Emma in a tight embrace. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry you have to go through this. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Emma reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “You know, we argued about this for months, and I’m talking knockdown, drag-out fights. I didn’t want him to go, but he said it was a lifelong dream and he had to. ‘It’s K2, Em,’ he said. ‘K2! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’ve got to go.’ I think I finally gave in because I was just too tired to argue anymore.”
“Climbing’s what he loved most in the world.”
“I know. I know he did, but he was supposed to love me more. I feel like he had a choice between a long, happy, safe life with me and a cold, miserable death on that goddamn mountain, and he chose the mountain.”
“Emma. Of course Max loved you, you know that, but he’d’ve regretted not going for the rest of his life, and he might have resented you for keeping him here. Max wasn’t content with your typical, domesticated existence. He craved risk, adventure. He wanted it all, and you gave it to him. It was the greatest gift; don’t you see that?”
Emma leaned against her sister and closed her eyes. “Did I tell you he called me on his satellite phone? He said the team was stuck in a blizzard at camp four on Abruzzi Spur, seven hundred meters from the summit. He told me how much he loved me. He said ‘I’m beneath a dark and ruinous sky, but thoughts of you keep me warm.’”
Harper sighed. “He always was a silver-tongued devil.”
Emma imagined Max’s smiling face and wondered if he’d suffered. Had he been afraid? Had his death been a prolonged, painful process, or was he killed instantly? Did he know he was going to die? She synchronized her breathing with her sister’s and wished it was Max sitting behind her, Max breathing softly in her ear.
“I think what’s killing me is not knowing. I have so many questions. My imagination conjures such horrors. The avalanche blasted them right off the mountain, did you know that? He’s still up there somewhere. He’ll probably be there forever. Yesterday I Googled ‘well-preserved bodies’ and — ”
“Oh, sweetie. You shouldn’t look at things like that. It’s not — ”
“No, listen. I found this story about La Doncella. She was a fifteen-year-old Incan girl who died in fourteen fifty — frozen solid for over five hundred years until they found her in nineteen ninety-nine. She’s perfectly preserved. She looks like she could open her eyes and start talking at any second. Maybe five hundred years from now someone will find Max, fresh as the day he walked out the door. I can’t stand that — the thought of him all alone in the cold, a human popsicle in fucking Pakistan. He should be here with me. He should be buried so I can visit him, but I have nothing. I have … oh, God. I’m gonna puke.”
Emma stood, the mountaineering equipment clattering to the floor as she sprinted to the bathroom.
Harper ran a washcloth under cold water, poured a glass of Pinot, and palmed a Xanax. When Emma opened the door, her pallid face drenched in a sickly sweat, Harper dabbed her sister’s forehead, neck, and cheeks.
“Mm, that feels good.” Emma closed her eyes. “I’ve never been so exhausted.”
“Take this,” Harper said, holding the pill for Emma to see.
Emma downed the tablet, emptied the glass.
“Good girl. Come with me.” Harper laced her fingers through her sister’s, leading her down the hallway to the master bedroom. “You need sleep. Your mind can’t cope without rest.”
“But the man cave. I need to clean — ”
“I’ll take care of it.” Harper pulled back the covers. “Get in.”
Emma climbed into bed, holding Max’s pillow to her face and breathing him deep into her lungs. “I miss him so much, Harp,” she said, dissolving into tears. “How do I live without him? How do I function at work, check my mail, go grocery shopping like nothing’s happened? I don’t know how to do that.”
Harper tucked the quilt under Emma’s chin and stroked her furrowed brow. “You do it one minute, one hour, one day at a time. Right now you are overwhelmed with grief, but eventually you’ll focus more on the good stuff — the memories that’ll last forever. We’ll talk more after you rest, okay? Close your eyes now. Slow deep breaths, baby girl. Good. That’s good. Dream sweet dreams of Max.”
Emma smiled in her sleep.
Originally published at www.shannonchapel.com.
