Seraphina Green was severely inebriated.
That was always her excuse these days. She said there was nothing much to be awake for. I often wondered if when she said 'awake,' she really meant alive. Since the death of Seranotta, she had been lifeless. Lifelessness, in the wake of loss, and especially in this case, had translated into a blur of a couple days, weeks, and months of listening to Dusty Springfield and feeling sorry for herself.
Perhaps it's true that not everyone learns something from death. Perhaps we don't all become the better people we know our innards to be. Talking about what she had learned from that night had become the only semblance of her identity and attempting a life in the hereafter was rapidly approaching hopelessness.
Some would say I'm heartless when I say what I'm about to say but the perception of heartlessness is a fearful and precognitive notion that I will not sympathize with. Seraphina should have died that night. She would have been far better off than being a servant to this kind of misery. She was as good as dead the moment her sister's eyes were glazing pots and descending into the throws of rigor mortis.
And since then, stars were taking new shapes and census marks were changing, and this was all a wash.
I believe that some things are better left unsaid. In this case, the majority of the piece is strikingly curious, a mystery that I am trying to unravel. The brevity of the piece, as with many of your writings, leaves me wanting more, but knowing the format, I can't expect a novel in a day. There is a youthful quality to the narrator's tone, but a knowledgeable control of diction, which makes for a nice dichotomy. The only thing I don't like about this piece is the inclusion of Dusty Springfield. Who is this seemingly peripheral character? I am a proponent of when Stephen King once said something like this: a story can just be a story; there doesn't need to be a reason for it to exist, or a final conclusion to satiate the masses. I believe this is true, but only to a certain extent. Give Dusty purpose and a little bit of reason. Or did I miss something altogether? Love the name "Seranotta" by the way. Is that a real name?
ReplyDeleteMaybe your right but each of us reacts to death in many different ways from denial to catatonicness. With each breath there is always a chance that one's spirit can be aglow with fire and a life restarted overcoming any tradgedy that befalls us At least with the living there is always hope!!!.
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