The Letters
By Brice Britton
The shattering sound of the bus echoed harshly overall the narrow sandy valley. Its engine rattled breaking the deep silence dominated the whole area. The truck, struggling every meter, snailed its way over the moderate elevation. It halted a while as if it was taking a rest. The worn wheels enhanced the friction with the tar of the hot asphalt producing a smoggy scent. The old vehicle took off around the turn in sluggish shifts leaving a huge cloud of black smoke. The constant dark fume exposed the shadow of a female frame standing at the curve alone. Because of the absence of any gesture of breeze, the emissions never changed its shape nor its volume. As the human figure climbed away from the dark smoke, a well-dressed, seductive lady appeared. She grasped a squared wooden green suitcase. Her blue-green gradient sheath dress with ankle strap high heels sandals restricted her steps on the hot tar. The lean parts of her soft body trembled with every stride. She mopped the sweat of her face and exposed torso with a green handkerchief harmonized with her dress and footwear. The tight soft garment stuck with soaked parts of her physique. She slowed after a few minutes of mounting the brief upward path. She inspected the snaking black road in the midst of a vast desert. The sand accumulated on both sides of the asphalt decorating its lane with thin sprints of the yellow powder. The woman explored around for a shelter from the ruthless rays of the sun. Her eyebrows crinkled in a try to find a shadowy spot. Nothing appeared except a lonely shabby Ebony tree away at the end of the turn. She rested her feet long gazing at the small shrub at the top of the curve. The exhausted female mounted in slow steps with solid insistence glittering in her eyes.
Barista, taking a deep breath, tossed the wooden luggage against the tree thin trunk. With her back sloping alongside the smooth stem, she rested progressively on the wooden box of her clothes. Closing her eyes with her head flipped backside, she inhaled several profound drafts of the hot air resting her muscles and nerves. Sliding down the thin shoulder straps of her dress to expose her skin to more shade, daydreams of her childhood flooded in her imagination. The image of her mother’s sad face popped up first. “I’ve never called her Mom except when my father deserted us. I always entitled her Margret.” Barista remembered calming under the tree. “Mom, don’t care. Men are everywhere.” Barista tried hard to articulate the figure of her young mother, but only a distortion of a black-and-white picture that kept shifted fluctuated in her brain. “Why he left her alone!? She was a very attractive, lovely female.” The weary young woman murmured repositioning her seat over the suitcase. “I shouldn’t leave her in that terrible situation. I asked her to leave with me, but she refused. Five years are long enough. I should have come before. The letters she has been sending were of great relief.”
“I hated this place. I hated the sand, the hotness, the tumbleweeds, the salty water, the old the young, even Harold who chased me day and night. I only loved that twisted road which leads to the city where civilization and enjoyment. How could they stay in this barbarous place!?” Barista thought opening her eyes looking around. The rocky eroded mountains erected high against her sight. Hills of sands scattered everywhere. The line of trees extended along the route has disappeared. “So, Global Warming is a fact. All the trees died except this.” She purred to herself. “Let the world burn down. I want to take my Mom and leave. Even the dead won’t stay here.”
Barista scanned the area with attentive gazes, but none of the life signs appeared. Even the houses of the village were out of vision. She stood up tilting her head right and left. A few dwellings tops disclosed behind sand mounts. “It’s a long distance I have to walk. I must start now to leave with Mom tomorrow morning. There is only one bus every day.” She stood up holding her bag. She delayed her trip enjoying the shade before burrowing the green shoes in the loose yellow soil. Her feet sank totally and the burning sand blazed the soft skin of her legs. The beauty jumped back moaning and kicking the dust off her limbs. She paused under the green branches confused about the difficult situation. “What should I do now?” She sighed. “I’ll hold you on my stick, as we’ve been doing years ago.” A coarse sound boomed over her head. “Oh, my goodness.” She shouted. “Harold the shepherd. Are you still in this ruined place? Where are you talking from?”
“I am here over the tree.” The male voice answered. “I’ve been watching you since you landed off the bus. I knew you are coming today reading the letter you’ve sent to Margret.”
“Oh, Harold, you are still that naughty boy. Please, I want to reach our house. I only intend to take my mother and leave. I really missed her. Will you help me, please?” She begged in a tempting tone.
“Sure, I will. I’ve been waiting for this moment for five years.” He bounced down with a long, thick stick in his hand. He peered long into her green eyes. “Oh, my God. How much spicy you are! Your beauty has improved a lot. You look like those hot movies stars.”
“I am really a star, but in nightclubs, many VIP men attend my show. I am famous in the city. I’ll take you with me. You can make important money there.” She promised the young man facing her.
He inspected her body in desire smiling in irony, “I am a rich man now. I’ll support you now only for the love which I’ve been asking since our early childhood. But first I need a warm hug.”
She left the wooden baggage to fall down pulling him close to her chest. He pressed her back with his stick, but she pushed him away with a cozy smile. “You can show your kindliness later. Lead me now to my mother.”
Harold fixed the straight pole at the bottom of his lower back. “You remember. Sit on the rod with your back against mine and relax. First, dangle your sack at the edge of my stick, and then jump up.”
Barista rested her bum on the thick stick clutching it with both hands. The sun stood still in its zenith. Barista tried to protect her head with one hand while the other continued clutching the wood rod. But the vertical hot rays struck hard over her skull. “You should have brought a hat to protect your brain. The sun here is too hot. Take mine off my head. I am accustomed to this weather. It may burn your white soft skin.” Harold told her hopping with sandshoes in his feet.
“What are you putting on your feet?” She asked fixing the straw hat over her blond hair.
“These are a special kind of shoes. I saw some boys hand making them in a documentary. I imitated them. They are very useful. They helped me a lot.” He bragged.
“You are getting smarter Haro!”
“You are getting prettier, Bari. I still recall that hot kiss when you followed me to the cave in the mountains.” He responded exerting his way towards the far village.
“Which cave!?” She wondered.
“The cave where I shelter the goats herd during cold nights.” He reminded her, but she smiled playfully without any remark.
Harold climbed a long distance when many tops of the ruined houses near the steep slopes appeared. A huge black sign with white vague scripting erected at the entrance. Broken and complete bones scattered everywhere in the whole area. Parts of human skeletons concealed under thin layers of soil and dust. Barista asked astonished, “What are these!?”
“The remnants of the village deads and others.” He answered carelessly.
“But who has done that?”
“The dogs.” He talked with a heavy voice. “We build tombs of sand and the Land is very smooth. The rodents ruined them while the dogs took advantage and distributed the bones in the whole place.”
As Harold arrived at the village main entrance, the sun had sunk behind the high peaks, leaving traces of dim light. The remained rays allowed only observing the outlines of the houses and the murky route.
Barista tried to read the black sign, but the lack of enough light and the dusty dirt Permit her to read only two big words: “Skeletons’ village”
“Is this a new name for Sandmill?” She asked.
“Ya, because of the bones scattered in the area.”
“Thanks, Harold. You are still a strong man. That’s enough. Put me down here. I can walk from here.” She demanded jumping on the earth.
“Let me take your luggage.” He seized the bag striding gently beside her.
Barista watched around with deep sadness and fear. Late evening dimness doubled the profound quietness. She could realize only outlines of the houses, which were in a miserable instance. She listened carefully, but never realized any sound except the clacks of their steps. “It seems nobody dwells those shaking shacks!” She wondered.
“They all deserted the place as immigrants or as dead. Only I and you are alive in this damn place.” He declared.
“But where is Mom!?”
“She is inside her room. She asked me to take care of her until you come back. I have done anything she wished.”
“Oh, Harold, you are more than human. I’ll pay you back the way you say. I promise. Thanks a lot.” She smiled pressing his large harsh hand.
His face beamed, and his eyes glittered with happiness and restfulness.
“This is the way to your mother place.” Directing her to a narrow dark alley. Both vanished in the darkness. Only their voices were the single evident of their existence. “What are you doing!?” She whispered in compact pitch. “I am supporting you lest of stumbling. The earth here is uneven.” He answered.
“I can support myself. Take off your hand.” She insisted.
They strode in complete silence to the end of the alley, which led them to a small front yard. The house was to their right. Feeble candlelight blazed inside the damaged wooden window throwing surpluses on the front porch. “Isn’t that the window of my room?”
“Exactly, Margret always asked me to light a candle in your room at night.” Harold declared.
“I can’t wait to see her.” Barista ran towards the stairs snatching her bag from Harold’s hand.
“Be careful. The steps are bony.” He warned adding, “If you find her in the bed, leave her. You can see her in the morning. I’ll be back later. I must drive the herd to the shed now. It’s too late.”
“Alright, I’ll be waiting.”
She mounted the stairs shouting, “Mom, Mom. Margret, where are you? Am here for you.” The young woman flipped through all the doors one after the other. Her mother’s room door was half-opened. She peeped across. “Oh, no. She is sleeping. It’s her old habit to go to bed early covering her head with white sheets. I’ll change my clothes in my room and come back. I missed her a lot.”
The candle flames were sufficient for her to see her old closet. The room was clean and tidy. Barista sobbed as she opened the first cabinet. Everything was in its place. All her old dresses were clean, ironed, and arranged in the same layout she used to. The bed, the desk, the rug, the dirt basked, all the objects were elegant and in their perfect place. “Oh, Mom. You are the tidiest, loveliest woman in the world. I can’t wait for the morning or even a moment.” She flung her bag on the floor and ran to her mother’s room with the candleholder in her hand.
With calm, slow steps, she placed the chandelier on the commode. The chamber was dusky and clean. The panels were closed tightly. She turned and knelt at the head of the bed. With mysterious affection, she unfolded the white sheet off the resting body. The torch flickers shined over a white stiff frame of bones. Barista flung herself into the nearby corner inspecting the skeleton rested over the rotten mattress. “Mother necklace, her marriage wring, the bracelet around the wrist, all her pieces of jewelry are ornamenting these horrible bones.” Sweat washed every slice of her skin. The accelerated beats of her heart throbbed inside her head. Her lips with her limbs trembled as she was compressing herself more into the angle behind her. For long moments, she fancied the bones frame was shaking too, when she realized it was the effects of the dancing shades of the flames. Calming down after long reactions of grief and horror, Barista observed a white envelope glittering beside the bones of the right hand. Gathering the rests of her courage, she snatched the packet restoring her former position. The horrified female dragged the candle closer unfolding the enclosed letter. “To my darling: in black. Barista: in red bold.” She started reading.
“I’ve been waiting this night for long years. Really, I missed you. I know that you’ll come today, so I prepared everything to welcome my dreams and desires to meet the most stimulating girl I’ve ever seen. “
“Barista, where are you? I came back.” A shout caught her awareness.
“Animal Harold. You bastard.” She roared with her head out of the window, “Why haven’t you revealed my mother’s death?”
“You’ve inquired about her place. You haven’t asked me if she is dead or still alive. She became very sick and passed soon after your departing.” Harold insisted.
“Why haven’t you taken care of her? Why haven’t you informed me in one of the letters you were sending? Why haven’t you taken her to the hospital?” She inquired.
“What hospital you slut! The nearest hospital is five hundred miles away. What letters are you talking about? You know. I can’t read or write neither Margret.” He said asking, “I came back to realize if you’ll marry me or not.”
“Marry who? You ignorant beast. Only in your impossible dreams. Who wrote those letters and who received my answers? Where are they?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Ask the Doctor.”
“What Doctor!” She exclaimed.
“A surgeon, who comes here with his dogs slashing the dead in the graveyard extracting their organs for experiments as he claimed. Every time, he spends the evenings with Margret. When she died, he extracted all her organs depending on a will to grant her parts for experiments and to save others’ lives.”
“How could you permit that?” She inquired.
“He showed me a long sheet imprinted with her thumb. I couldn’t deny her wish.” He murmured.
“Where can I find this damn doctor?” She asked angrily.
“How could I know? May be in the next village, Sandspring.”
“Ignorant bastard! I came here upon a letter from my mother asking me to take her away. What shall I do with this heap of rotten bones now? Come and help me lay her bones under the ground.” She commended.
“Burry her yourself. I won’t help you anymore.” He declared leaving into the dark lane.
“Harold … Harold, come back. Don’t leave me alone. Come back you bastard.” But only the mystifying silence was the response.
Barista sat on the edge of the bed gazing into the flames of the candle. The moonlight infused with a cool stream across the half-opened panes behind her. With an intense sigh, she watched the torn curtains swaying with the calm evening breeze drifted into the room. The calm wind carried distant wails of two dogs or more. She disregarded the weak far barks taking a deep breath in a try to regain her energy and control. The drapes in front of her vibrated with dark shapes on its vertical folds. First, she considered them as stains of dirt. The dark spots expanded to become a shadow of a huge male. She peeped behind. The bed was empty and the skeleton disappeared. The obscure outlines of the man leapt into the room through the released panes.
“Harold!? Is that you?” But she collected no answer. Only attentive steps squeezed the decayed lumber off the floor. Outsized, tough hands fastened her at the shoulders as she was striving to stand up. “Harold, stop it. I’ll never marry you. Take your hands off.” She screamed jumping to the opposite corner. The shadow bounced over the bed pressing her against the wall. The fervent man slipped down her dress bands jamming his mouth along her shining long neck. A golden big cross itched her silky shoulder. Her ineffective resistance compelled her to review her considerations. “This is not Harold. This criminal is taller and muscular. He will kill me. I should fight.” She decided. The offender loaded all his mass upon her delicate shape. She kicked between his thighs and scratched her nails over his neck driving him away. Three lines blushed with red under his white collar. His right hand wiped the bleeding skin while the other shivered between his forelegs. Hunting the chance, she darted towards the table where she placed the chandelier. She managed to mount the counter trying to open the window when his fingers clipped her long bright hair, dragging her towards the wall. She clutched the curtain with both hands departing it down. She disappeared totally under the torn textile, which flared at its corner. The fire spread all over the rag catching her hair and thin dress. The villain released her and retreated watching her throwing herself across the glass panes onto the outside balcony. The tiny flames along her mass shined over the sharp, broken transparent smashes. Splinters of all sizes pierced into her face and other parts of her body as she banged over the wooden porch. She tried to put off the flashes with her hands, but painful stings stopped her. She jumped over the fence into the sandy patch rolling over the area in another try to soothe the burning flares, but she faced the same pain. Finally, she threw herself into an abandoned grave and started shoving sand over her body. The flames collapsed under the thick layers of sand.
Barista relaxed, with tough human bones beneath, examining the bright stars in the dark sky. She determined to stay in her place until she rediscovers the situation. Red haze blushed around. She glanced off her eye edge flames bursting out of the windows as a human figure leaping over the balcony hedge. The woman recognized the offender as he paced through the yard dragging her suitcase and her mother’s skeleton followed by two Bulldogs. He stepped over her breast in haste. “Damn these filthy graves. They are everywhere.” The unknown man cursed addressing the dogs. “Sure, she ran to the road. We’ll find her there.”
The wounded woman rested for a long time beside the skeleton before she started to remove the soil aside. She stood looking around. The fire changed the house into blazing ashes and transferred to the surrounding huts. For a few moments, the damage depressed her when she realized she was enjoying the view of the destruction. She watched for a long time with glittering eyes and a melancholic wide smile picking out the translucent fragments from her flesh. The rosy light revealed the burnt wrinkles on her face and skin. The green spoiled dress wrinkled showing most of her white body flashing in the darkness.
The weak wind twisted the glares south carrying numerous cinders toward the lonely Ebony tree. “I must reach the tree. I’ll wait for the bus there.” She moved stumbling the smooth sand. Cracks of fallen houses and shadows of dry tumbleweeds blown away by the breeze scared her for a while. “Thrones running away from the fires. Maybe they are skeletons escaping their burrows.” She murmured smiling. The tree leaves flushed on both sides. The branches reflected the rosy brightness in front of her eyes while the yellow lights of a car flashed on the other side. The car was invisible, but its headlights skewed the black space in the valley’s bottom. Barista rushed in spite of the pain to reach the road. “I may catch the vehicle before it passes.” She encouraged herself.
The standup woman figure was apparent under the tree as the headlights of a minivan emerged around the turn. Barista stepped to the side of the road but retreated hearing savage barks. The driver clutched the brakes seeing her. “Come on. You need urgent medical assistance.” He recommended opening the door. She withdrew back more and more. “Where are you going? Climb up or you want me to help you here under the tree!?” He smiled. She looked in deep doubt and reflecting in her mind, “Maybe he is not the offender. The other scenario could be worse. I’ll take the chance.” She rode looking around inside the car. Two Bulldogs were chained in the rear seats with her wooden luggage and her mother skeleton. “I found them at the curve down. Are they yours?” He asked.
“The bag is mine, but the bones are of my mother.” She answered in doubt.
“I am the roaming doctor in the region and a pastor. I preach in churches in the rural villages. Sometimes, I find one person in the abbey, generally, elders who desire to confess. I hear and lecture them about penance and granting their organs after death. That will help many and brings God forgiveness. Most agree and sign a granting will. I have them all here in my paper case. Would like to sign one?” He explained.
“But why are you holding a revolver under your belt?” She observed his girdle on his waist.
“Oh, ya. Am a roaming sheriff. I settle disputes and arrest criminals, sometimes.” He smiled adding, “Now let’s take care of your wounds. You need first aid then I’ll drive you to the hospital.”
“Which hospital!” She wondered.
“The hospital in the next town, Sandspring.” He assured. She kept silent as he added, “Take off your dress while I am preparing purification tools. I’ll inject you with sedatives. You won’t feel any pain. Trust me.”
“I can stand it. I need no aids.” She purred.
Ignoring her words, he manipulated the steering wheel with his left hand unlocking the first aids box with the other lowering his shoulders a bit. Three bloody scratches brightened on his neck with a golden cross swinging among the thick hair of his chest.
“You can read this novel. It’ll soothe your worries and hurts.” He said handing her a book from the rear seat. Barista, observing the prominent polished letter A, read in a loud voice, “The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne” and rested the novel in her lap. Inspecting the doctor busy preparing the injection, she snatched the Colt Single shrieking. “Stop the car. Let me off. I’ve distinguished you now, criminal. Park aside.” Unfastening the door, she raised the revolver against his head, but he kept driving fast. The dogs raged and thundered in the back seat trying to breakdown their chains.
“You are making a big mistake. You are attacking an official personality and the law considers that a crime. Also, the gun is unloaded. You can’t hurt me, but I’ll forgive you. Abandon it and your illusions.” He expanded his palm towards her.
“Halt. Crook swindler. I’ll try my luck and shoot. You are taking me to your slaughter, not to any hospital. The nearest one is five hundred miles away. I know.”
“Who told you that!?” he asked.
“Harold.”
“Harold the shepherded! These are mere illusions. Harold has died two years ago. I buried him myself.” He told her.
“Lies. All you say are lies. You have assaulted me in Margret’s place. Can you deny the marks my nails drilled into your dirty skin? Your plot is visible now to my eyes and mind. I doubt you are the writer of the letter I received from my mother. You brought me here for a purpose in your sick mind. Harold told me that Margret has died four years ago and this skeleton in the back seat is the strongest evidence.” Barista bolted the revolver with her both hands against his head.
“In reality, I have witnessed, many times, the show you present in Houston. It is sinful, and I wanted to save your soul. I wrote the letters urging you to come for your mother, but you’ve come too late.” He looked direct in her green brightening eyes. “While the granting of organs is legal. I have her in my paper case all the signed to give away wills with your mother’s one. Even those blessed broken bones of hers are bestowed, and I deposit all the money in charity bank accounts.”
“Which charity, you are the angel who wanted to purify my sinful spirit raping me.” She shouted in his face.
“As a fact, you are the cutest woman I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t handle my instinct. Am in love for the first time in my life. I’ll marry you right now even of the defects you’ve got. I own enough money to make you the happiest woman on this planet. Believe me.” He smiled.
“Your praise and promises can’t mislead me. Stop aside and let me leave in peace.” Barista insisted.
“As you want. But give me back the book.”
The doctor seized her left hand as she moved the other to raise the novel from her knees. One of the dogs unplugged the seat, which was trapped by another fastening it again. The hound snatched the extremities of the blond hair. The doctor rattled the Colt Single in all directions to remove it from her arm, but Barista’s teeth plunged deep into his eyehole. The blood poured over his right cheek. He shrieked threating to kill her. The dog barks became louder and harsher as the woman sensed its hot breath over her shoulder. The driver’s hands trembled over the steering ring. Nearly, he lost control and the car swayed left and right on the black route.
In the far background, the burning village looked like a huge ball of fire casting blazing radiance and thick white smoke all over the area. The van headlights twisted penetrating the silvery mist. The car swerved into the sandy slope drilling the thick sand. Two shots boomed in the space of the vast desert. Only the clatters of the van engine buzzed at the side of the road. Tiny particles of dust and ashes oscillated in the inflated beam of the motionless van. The yellow lamps beams uncovered silver smoke chunks rolling cloaked by night into the near valley.
Shadow of a human left the car keeping the door opened. It strode faltering in all directions holding the book with glowing letter A. A dog barked in rage inside the vehicle, while another whined in a low voice.
