in the garden
i will die
i will die
I
would tell myself over and over and over again, when I reflect back to this moment, that I did not know what would happen next. That I did not know where this man was leading me, or what unspeakable things would happen in the desert. That up until the moment I watered the sand with blood, I did not know what it was like to be wild or fierce. Some lies are so convincing, even we who speak them to life begin to believe in them.
The desert is so big, so endless, it’s hard to imagine where it ends or what lies beyond it. It’s hard to remember the leafy halls of Viride, and the watercolor meadows of Illuster. Perhaps it is better that way; perhaps it is good I have the desert sea to baptize myself in, to wipe away the memories of the person I no longer am, to be reborn in sand and heat. Perhaps it will make it easier to do what I need to do - at least, I hope that is true. I hope it will remove the guilt.
When we come to the tree, and the obelisk, and the vulture lording over them, it feels like the waiting has ended.
I know why the tree is white. I know why it is a skeleton, why it is here. I know, I know, oh I know.
I stare at it, at this dead thing, and I feel - almost feel - something stirring in my chest. For a moment I can see what it used to be, can see the leaves lifting, reaching for the sky, searching. All I have to do is blink and the memory is there: branches heavy with budding green olives, cream-colored flowers putting thoughts into my head, thoughts I did not know how to have.
But then I blink again, and all it is is a dead tree alone in the desert. I grip the spear tighter.
"I’m sorry." I almost don’t recognize the words, even as I speak them. I almost don’t feel them, even though I wish I did.
The pelt draped around my shoulders feels heavy with expectation - but not so heavy as the almost-forgotten spear I now lift. There’s Davke suns painted along its shaft, the same suns painted against my cheeks in red, red, red. I can hear the desert shifting behind us, the dunes rising, singing: yes, yes, yes they say, and now now now. The vulture raises its wings high and laughs, not with the voice of a bird, but that of my brother - do it, he commands, if it isn’t him -
it will be you.
So I ready the spear before me, and I turn away from the sun-bleached skeleton that used to be a tree, the tree that used to be me.
And with the obelisk looking on in judgement, I point the stone-sharped blade at the stallion’s throat.
"I have to," I tell him. It is the best - the only - apology he will get, and the last apology I will speak.
@Dune "speaks" notes
