The Gift of My Curse

People don't die. They're just forgotten

Image: Atiyeh Fathi via Unsplash+

This piece is for

Meg

’s Milk & Honey June Horror Writing Challenge week 3 prompt, which asked for folk horror.

Please enjoy…

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Every year on the autumn solstice…

One of us disappears. 
No goodbyes, no sea of tears. 
We act like they never existed. 
Memories become torn and twisted. 

This year it was my mother…

I wish I could forget her face. 
Sunken eyes, and wrinkles that trace
a pathway straight to her soul. 
Now gone, leaving only a hole. 

They act like she never existed…

The other villagers get to forget. 
It is I that carries their emotional debt.
Hanging over me like overcast skies. 
Weight added every time someone dies. 

Are they truly dead if no one recalls that they lived?

To mourn is to remember. 
To hear their name whenever
A gust of wind whispers to you 
of false memories that used to be true.   

Jebediah says it’s my duty to carry this burden…

The farmer must till their soil. 
The seamstress must sew and toil. 
We all must fulfill our duty to our gods.
Lest we be condemned as frauds. 

My mind is an underworld of departed souls…

They scream at me day and night. 
Begging me to finally hear their plight. 
To free them from their eternal prison, 
And kill the false prophet that has arisen. 

I did as they asked and struck him down…

Hands covered in his blood. 
Memories escape like a flood. 
Crashing into the minds of those who remain.
Drowning them all in delayed sorrow and pain. 

I’ve given you the gift of my curse…

The village remembers what it lost. 
Now they all pay their share of the cost. 
The debt for love isn’t collected at birth. 
It is exacted when one returns to the Earth. 

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Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing

Listen to this after reading, like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.