- Whisper of Flies
Jolie stared…
All night the stars suffocated in the moonlit sky. Gasping in the dawning sky as the first rays of the morning star tiptoed through the field. Her last chance was leaping out the window. The snow smothered the decaying crop as she had done to her infant child all those years ago. That day the bees played hide and seek outside that very window. The memory swallowed Jolie’s eyes with tears. The wind howled its infuriation’s from night until day, nightmares to daymares. She gripped the windowsill with one hand and pinched the marijuana blunt in the other till it suffocated. Once the shiny pool of tears reached the brim, they glissaded down her sallow, coarse cheeks: rough skin all over – the life of a farmer, a presence of depression. Jolie peered down to her blunt and felt a sense of peace and forgiveness wither her dead baby. However, she was speechless; she had no one alive to talk to, only her hogs and dead friends.
Samantha was lost. Her foot was heavy on the pedal, gliding down the open, hilly slopes of that farmer’s backcountry. Cellphone in one hand, the GPS buffering. Twice already, she almost crashed. Approaching out of the horizon was a yellow sign which read: SLOW DOWN-SHARP TURN-15 mph. Samantha pressed the brake as the momentum leaned her forward; the seatbelt fastened behind her. GPS still buffering, Samantha flew past the occasional country road which posted: UNIMPROVED ROAD – PASS AT OWN RISK. Then one lone, splintered wooden post caught her attention as it rapidly approached…
A screech followed by a single percussion of thunder echoed off the rolling backcountry hills into the ears of this farmer digging a plot for her garden. Jolie’s head shot up at the pandemonius sound, scanning the property lining the road until she noticed a plume of smoke rising above the treetops. She impaled the shovel into the earth and began the trek to the road where the turn is hazardous.
Cleaving through the woods to the road, Jolie could make it out more clearly. Between the spikes of leafless trees, a car half submerged in the ravine. Eyes rolling up to the top, Jolie observed the shitty, wooden fence lining the bend splintered open, the fragments trailing down the precipice. The car lay in the stream hissing, flames gasping for air. The farmer clenched her fists and lunged forward. The door, as damaged as it was, and with Jolie’s farmer strength, pried opened under her prodigious strength. She peeked inside through the smoke and saw Samantha, face streaming with blood, hair perfectly groomed, eyes glassy with death. The farmer knew how death looked. Taking a deep breath, she leaned into the smoke, dragging Samantha out like a ragdoll across the rock-studded stream onto the damp earth. She again scanned the top of the ravine, then back towards the farm. “No one,” she muttered.
It was a catatonic gaze. Samantha lay there in death as her body was still warm, eyelids slightly ajar only revealing the whites of her eyes: a death gaze. It was this farmer’s living eyes that was oddly catatonic. Scanning the crest of the ravine, Jolie saw nothing. Nor did she hear anything but the car’s dying hiss.
Grabbing Samantha by both wrists, she proceeded to drag her over blades of crabgrass and jagged rock to the farm. A second percussion of thunder in her ears, the farmer did not look back. Instead, she observed Samantha’s expensive white dress dotted with blood stains, and diamond earrings which glinted in the sunlight.
Jolie rested her up against the side of her shed, which houses trade tools for any farmer. The shed was old, weather-beaten, and leaning to one side, settled in the soft earth where the field ascended. Its black windows never illuminated with any light.
Jolie crouched down before Samantha, lifting some strands of hair that had gracefully come to rest over Samantha’s forehead. From where her knuckle had brushed her forehead, there was now a streak of drying blood. Jolie noticed the blood on her finger and, as quick as a reptile, popped it into her mouth, wildly licking Samantha’s copper-tasting fluids. She was a madwoman. Hearing squirrels running along the shack’s gutters, she beamed her insane eyes to the ceiling and back again to Samantha. “Does it hurt to be dead?” Jolie said with eyes locked onto Samantha’s lifeless ones, as if expecting a twitch of the eyelid or, a roll of those radiant eyes.
***
Hours later, the sun’s dusking beams were yellow at the bend, as each beam of light struggled with death to shine out of the dark woods onto the road. The shitty, broken wooden fence was now intact with fresh white paint, the skid marks in the dirt road raked. Jolie slowly made her way down the precipice with a tool bag slung over her shoulder, a rake in one hand, a paint can and brush in the other. At the bottom of the ravine, she stopped and scanned the area: dozens of crumpled, burnt-out cars and trucks scattered along the stream. A smile came over her face. The smoke now no longer plumed, nor was there a hiss, the car laid there like Samantha: cold, silent death.
Making her way back over the field to the tool shed, Jolie noticed a congregation of hogs at the shed door. She clapped her hands and shouted at the animals to scatter. After stepping through the door, her jaw fell in silence, and eyes flashed. One hog had a shred of Samantha’s dress in its mouth. Another mouth blackened with blood. “Shit!”
The dusking sun had descended below the horizon and gave way to a blackening sky over Jolie’s Swine Farm. The lights of the two-story farmhouse at the edge of the field burned more brilliantly as the nighttime haze came, and the occasional passing truck or car could be made out, then thunder. Following that, a trek out to the ravine, whether day or night, rebuilt the fence. Following that, the squeals from the hogs.
***
There was no more thunder that night. At the farmhouse, Jolie lay in her bed before the television, static on the screen. The bedroom window was parted a few inches and allowed a steady, chilled breeze to enter. At the corner of her room, there laid, still attached to its metal post, the yellow SLOW DOWN sign. Jolie’s attention was stolen by a screeching of tires in the distance, but no thunder. Jolie’s eyes rolled from the window back to the meaningless static.
The beasts squealed below Jolie’s bedroom window, propelling rushes of excitement within her. She smiled. The wind carried the squealing from other beasts who assembled at the shed. Their hungry stomachs conducted their savage sounds. It would have pierced the ears of any living body, save a seasoned hog farmer. The dead cannot hear. And the wind howled, rattling the tin coverings of the shed with its hidden, cold hands and tearing the tree branches, stampeding through the fields, hurling dead leaves into the shed siding. The white-eyed corpse sat slumbered, reticent, insensitive to the pandemonium. The beasts were desperate to get in; the tool shed was locked. Its lifeless blue-eyed inhabitant dead to the world in rigor mortis. The hogs again assembled at the door, pressing their nostrils into it, squealing. Jolie could make out the squeals in the distance as her eyes rolled back to the parted window. Lifting the covers, she said aloud, “it’s time.”
Jolie made her way down the stairs, and her oversized calves made it difficult. Keys in hand, she made her way to the tool shed with a flashlight that beamed profoundly in the milky haze over the fields. At one point, she shot her head back towards the farmhouse, watching it slowly disintegrate out of view into the veil of the nighttime haze; the bedroom window was a distant glow. The grass was damp, the soil soggy from the evening fog.
The rusted padlock barely unlocked, and the chains rattled. The rusty doorknob wobbled under Jolie’s vice grip. Jolie unhurriedly opened the shed door as if in trepidation, and a rush of musty air came out. Shining the beam of her light into the murkiness of the shed, the blade of the scythe glinted as did Samantha’s diamond earrings. Jolie’s flashlight dimmed till it went out, the air turned black all around her. Jolie vigorously shook the flashlight till the life of light came back. “I’m in Hell,” she said. Her light scanned the interior of the shed for rodents. One hog pressed its snout in the space between the door jamb and her leg as Jolie responded by striking the hog to back away. The hog squealed. Then the hazy beam came to rest on the otherwise unrecognizable corpse save for two white eyes. “The hogs did a number on ya,” Jolie spoke. The whites of its eyes stood out on a pale-white face dried in crimson. Jolie shut the door behind her, and the whole siding of the shed rattled. The beam of light came to rest again on the white-eyed corpse, “Compost! I need more compost!”
***
The sun was peaking above the horizon over the fields and gave heavenly light to the early morning blue. The first ray to rest on Jolie’s face forced her to squint as she stood beside her small vegetable garden with a blunt as she does every dawn. Blue clouds dotted the sky in a backdrop of brilliant pink hues. With garden equipment, Jolie took her eyes off the glowing sunrise and proceeded to dig the next plot to her garden. Jolie will periodically turn an eye to the tool shed on the hill and again say aloud to herself, “compost! I need more compost!”
Had the corpse been able to breathe, see and hear, those murmured words would have brought tears of terror to Samantha’s white eyes.
Jolie never picked lilacs in the summer on the farm. She preferred to walk out on her back porch to be consumed by the lilac heat. Jolie also never bargained, very willful at getting her way. She stalked the large garden and hedges in her backyard with a pair of shears that glinted in the sun. Other times she would consume a large marijuana blunt; “Oh, where did the time go?” Jolie would ask herself as she stood eyes, boiling bloodshot in the dusking sun. Then came the depression. “How can I go in life without a bigger purpose?” Jolie was, in fact, in hell.
Jolie’s bigger purpose is ambition. An aspiration to becoming well-liked by the townspeople and, most of all, to have a best friend. The very dream, however, has sent her psyche straight to a hellish meltdown. Jolie never had any friends, and often, she would be gossiped about by the townspeople. It was her lack of expression, dull face, and very introverted personality.
***
Many grey thunder clouds had drifted over the farm that morning. The fields turned to sludge by noon, and the mud-covered hogs were stalking the shed. The heavy, constant rains danced off the rusted tin roof and gave the effect of a white halo crowning the shed. Jolie was sitting back in her favorite long chair on the porch, watching the rainstorm. To her, the rain looked like thousands of falling needles and knives. Then her eyes came to rest on the shed, noticing the profound halo. “God has sent the rains to make you an angel’s crown, girl,” said Jolie. The thought made her smile with those intense eyes that always seem to gleam. “Perhaps I don’t need more compost,” Jolie sighed, “I’ll just kill one of my hogs!” Jolie reached down into her cooler and picked out a glass bottle labeled: Apple Moonshine. It was now midday.
Feet buried in the sludge of the field and mud splatter on her wet face, Jolie stared at the shed with a look of determination. What she was determined to do is sending her straight to the hell of insanity.
The stiffly unlocking padlock, the chains rattling, the handle wobbling under her prodigious strength, Jolie welcomed the smell of musty death. Rigor mortis had eased, and Samantha had slumbered over her legs, her hair still tightly groomed. The rain was beating the tin roof with its prodigious strength, but Jolie gave no notice. Her eyes zeroed in on Samantha’s diamond earrings. Jolie grabbed her under both armpits, and as she lifted, a long creak came from her spine. Samantha’s head dangled then fell back as her jaw stretched open to reveal a purple mouth, blood deprived tone, and those slightly parted eyelids which show only the whites of her eyes. The diamond earrings were full of life, glinting into Jolie’s soulless eyes. “They’re mine!” Jolie snapped at those dead white eyes when she thought they still possessed more of a soul than her own. “I could leave you for the hogs!” Jolie snarled at the pale, blood-stained face. Then with a prodigious force, she grabbed both earrings and tore them off Samantha’s ears. Jolie cradled the diamonds in her hand and looked back up into her white eyes, and said, “I’m going to look so beautiful with these” Jolie began to sob, “I don’t know what your name is a girl, but you can bet we could have been friends in life.” Jolie again fixed Samantha’s strands of hair that came loose and continued, “now all we have is death.” Jolie tilted her head as her eyes streamed with tears and repeated in a whisper closing the distance between their faces, “all we have is death.”
The dusking sun was peeling the light off the farm, and the shroud of the night had descended upon the ordinary setting of a simple looking farmhouse with a chimney pluming, rolling hills of fields, and a dark shed. As the light peeled back, this farm’s dark underside revealed as it will be a loud night at the dangerous turn lining the precipice. The new addition of the DANGEROUS TURN sign hacksawed and lying in Jolie’s bedroom.
The hogs were squealing below their mother’s bedroom window, Jolie smiled, and that same gleam came across her eyes. “Yes, babies, mama’s gonna have to kill one of you tonight!” Jolie said excitedly. She then rolled out of bed and walked over to her mirror, Samantha’s diamonds in hand, and spoke to the soulless reflection in the mirror, “they brought out your eyes; maybe they’ll bring out mine!” Jolie noticed a chunk of flesh from Samantha’s ear on one earring, “pfff!” Jolie tore the lump of flesh from the earring and proceeded to put them on her ears. Once on, there was no sparkle or glint. Jolie placidly stared. “I thought they would make me look beautiful. I have a soul too!” then a tear glissaded down her coarse cheek. Jolie stepped away from the mirror, wearing the earrings opening the windowpane with such force that it slammed into the side of the house. She sniffed the air. Looking down, she saw her babies, dozens of beasts all squealing for a meal. Jolie walked to her gun rack and cocked a sawed-off shotgun. Heavy handing the back-porch door open, Jolie made her way to the congregation of hogs below her bedroom window.
At that very moment, two teenagers were speeding down the road passing Jolie’s Swine Farm towards the dangerous turn. “Thunder?” asked one to the other.
“No! No, that’s a gun!” the other answered.
“What sort of gun?”
“Shotgun, I bet ya.”
Seconds later, there was thunder echoing off the farm. Jolie stood there beside her house, marijuana blunt in hand, sawed-off shotgun in the other, smiling. Before her, a dead hog, oozing as if gorged with blood. Jolie went to grab her flashlight.
That morning, the dawning sun ascended above the treetops, and the blackness peeled away from the earth. In Jolie’s garden, three new plots were freshly composted. The hogs stumbled around like drunks with blood-stained mouths. In the shed atop the hill, the yellowing, white-eyed corpse was blind to the light; she was, lost.
***
By noon, Jolie was staring at the sun, almost in an awe-struck kind of way. Eye boiling red with hell, she too was blind to the light and lost. Jolie carefully stood to watch in her garden, waiting for that next thunderclap at the precipice and taking her eyes off the sun and into the woods lining that dangerous curve. “Compost… grub for the hogs – everything costs money!” stammered Jolie. Her eyes seemed lost, as if she could not focus on any given point. The madness well up inside her and her eyes became redder than ever. Her eyes then fixed on the shed, “fuck it!” Jolie hissed. Blunt in hand, Jolie proceeded across the field and up the hill to the deathly musty shack. “I have to, girl!” Jolie shouted. When the door opened, Jolie found a swarm of fat-bodied flies, many crawling on Samantha’s face. Jolie turned to a cabinet and grabbed a can of fly spray, then, with her lighter, used it as a makeshift torch. The shed brightened as well as Samantha’s pale face. The whites of her eyes reflected the fire of Jolie’s hell.
The floor dotted with crispy flies; the flame died. And in the dimness of the shed, Jolie knelt before Samantha, “what’s your name, girl?” Jolie rubbed her face and was not at all offended by the aroma of death. She fell into a catatonic trance staring at Samantha. A cold draft entered the shed, relieving her of the deathly heat as if Samantha’s soul was putting her cold dead hands-on Jolie’s face. Death was meaningless to friends. “I’m so sorry I took your earrings, girl.” A tear glissaded down Jolie’s sandpaper skin. “Oh, what is your name, girl?”
