And Death Shall Leave Its Mark

There’s nothing there and that isn’t right. Death should leave a mark, scorch the ground with anguish and pain, and leave behind a scar no one can turn a blind eye away from.

Instead, I study the scrubbed linoleum, trying to find even a faint reminder of the quarter-sized circle of blood. I even squat to get a closer view. It happened right here.

And yet, nothing.

My husband cleaned it, refusing to let me come home broken to a quarter dollop mark of the beginning of the end. He spared me while putting himself through hell, but I still see it in my mind’s eye.

The tiny pool of the end of my innocence, the end of hope, the understanding that the little life I so desperately wanted died.

My screams echo in my memories, leaching into tiny whimpers as I try to collect myself. I wanted her, wanted to hold her and watch her grow up, wanted to see her toddle after her older sister and drive her crazy.

Cradling my empty belly, I turn on the bathtub and let hot water flood the porcelain. Unlike the floor, a little cleaning wouldn’t scrub away the stains of suffering from my body. But I could enjoy some sickeningly sweet Boone’s Farm, boil like a lobster, and turn the bathwater into the Dead Sea with my tears.

She would never be and I will need to learn to breathe again through the fist crushing my heart in my chest. I will carry on but she will never be forgotten. Death has left its mark forever hidden inside me and I will be her gravestone, carrying her name until it’s worn with time and lost when I crumble away into dust…

Kyla

This is an entry for

Daily Flash Fiction Challenge  (13+) Enter your story of 300 words or less. #896794 by Arakun the Twisted Raccoon