Shards Of A Novel In Progress # 2 - "Done and Done..."

From "Hush, Polyhymnia!", a novel in the scribblin'.

“They’ll kill you for this” he says, gazing out upon the blaze, the flames all knotting and gyrating ‘gainst the indigo sprawl of the pre-dawn skyway. “It ends for you here. This night. Ends.” The pift-put-put of the windows giving out on the far side of the building, chards of stained glass Christs and Virgins shot hither and thither o’er the grass and the gravel. “They’ll take you and they’ll tie you down and they’ll wire the divil to your skull and they’ll plant the rubber ‘tween your teeth and they’ll lash whatever’s left o’ you t’fuck.”

“Let them lash” says she, kneading the heel of a punctured palm with fingertips reeking of clotted blood and paraffin. “S’done now, so. Done for them. Done for me. Done.”

The screeching of approaching sirens. Ropes of white and blue whipping at the black billowing westwards towards Main Street. Folks woken by the blast staggering down from the flats next the showgrounds, pointing and gasping and pulling at mouths all warped with fear and wonder.

“If the whites o’ your eyes remain you’ll be the lucky girl. If you’ve still got the space tween your teeth and your tongue...”

Moss-matted roof slates crumbling, spilling through the rafters, clattering and clanging off buckled timber. Fellas inching across the graveyard with backs arched and coats pulled up across their faces, gesturing to this or that grotesquery strewn in bits about the earth - headless cats and wingless pigeons; rats de-tailed and slit from throats to bellies; something’s lower jaw… For the grotto, headed, Our Lady clad in robes of ash and cinder, flanked by stone all heat-split and wheezing. One at each end they grab her, carting her back along the pathway then, propping her up next the gate-post, genuflecting and lamenting.

“Done for me…” she says again, pacing about the floor next the bed where your man lies sleeping, murmuring intermittently ‘gainst the sweat-yellowed pillow. “Done”, and brushing with the back of a finger the hair all matted across his brow.

Done and done, for them and for her. Done, and to the glory of our Lord and Saviour whose name is Emmanuel and whose name is Infinity and whose name is Christ Jesus. Done…