dealing with the devil // elegant

I’ve killed my father.

He’s waiting for me in the shed back home, the same dead expression set across his features as was there when I plunged his head under the water and didn’t let him up. Those same dull eyes stare blankly at the walls he rests in. I’m sure of it. There’s no taking this action back now that I’ve committed it. Ellison is dead and I am the one who has stolen the very breath from his body and replaced it with water. For so long, it’s been he who has come out of our confrontations with the upperhand. I’ve always been the one who has walked away spattered with my own blood, quilted with bruises, nursing myself back to a whole being. Now, however, it is I who have won. Mama must never know of my victory.

She can home not long after I had finally pieced the perfect picture of the house back together. None of my blood on the floor or the knife. No water spilled over the countertop. No body sprawled upon dark wood. It was almost as if he had never come home from work. Mama didn’t question it. It wouldn’t have been the first time Ellison hadn’t come home for the night. Sometimes he works late or says so, at least. (I’ve done enough asking around to find out where he really goes after work has ended for the day…) No, mama didn’t suspect a thing. She was in one of her distance moods anyway. She came home and sat in her chair and looked out the window in silence for an hour before I had dinner ready. Then, she ate quietly and resumed her staring, as if there was someone beyond the window for her to see. There never was. Sometimes I wonder what it is mama is trying to find out there, but I almost don’t want to know the answer. She’s the one person I’ll never question to find out more about. I’m not sure I’d like the answer.

Now, I sit on the dock and wait. It’s been hours since mama went to bed. I made sure everything was locked up tight before stealing away into the pitch. There’s a serenity here that I wasn’t expecting, a calmness that soothes my soul. I have killed a man and there is potential for me to be caught and tried and hanged for my crimes. I don’t feel the panic shake through my bones as I thought it would. Instead, there is only peace. Peace because mama is safe. Peace because I am free of Ellison. Peace because the ending to this chapter that was long overdue has come.

I wonder what will come next, however. The prospect of something new on the horizon does surprisingly little for me. All that I have known has been this life. Now, with the promise of a different purpose in the distance, I find myself strung to the one I have carried out for so long: protecting mama. I don’t think I’ll ever be free of that one. There will always be something new to protect her from. My life is given to protecting her and I will be full of that weight until the day I die. There’s nothing else for me to do, really.

My eyes shift up, looking through the fog and up to the full moon. It’s a bright beacon high above, but also a reminder that I am alone in this. I am the man on the moon, unchanging and cold and overshadowed by day. I breathe out slowly, watching as the chill carries my visible breath into the fog and onwards towards the shadow that approaches. It is a slow movement in the water, this darkness. With my brows wrinkled inwards in focus, I narrow my eyes to try and make the shape clearer, more distinct. Little by little, it comes into focus through the dark.

The Ferryman.

Instead of being in awe at this person, this man who smuggles away the dead across the water, I find myself utterly unimpressed. He’s a dark shape drifting forward in his small boat, a long pole in his hand as he pushes himself forward. The theatrics are entirely unneeded. My eyes narrow a little more out of dislike than anything else. I stand before he can even climb up onto the dock, hands shoved into my pockets and all limbs slack in disinterest. I cannot find it in myself to even offer a greeting, instead choosing to sigh and turn my head up to look at the moon again. Why must the world be so full of strange people attempting to make an impression on everyone around them? I find myself wishing I had never come to this man for help, tilting my head back down to look him dead in the eye.