The Legend of the Widow's Walk

The Legend of the Widow's Walk

Once, in a place far from here, there was a handsome man. He lived a life beyond what most would even think of ever owning. He sailed the ocean and worked hard everyday for what he had, and could have any woman he wished, if he'd only choose.

One day at sea, he noticed someone thrashing, someone drowning in the water as he pulled up that days morning catch. He turned his boat towards the trouble hoping that he was not too late. The waters thrashed around this person stuck in the sea and he swept them onto his boat by the cuffs of their sleeves.

And that's when he found her, the one who he would love. Black hair, tight lips, and eyes as green as olives that shut before they could even grace his own. He thought her dead. She must be dead, he could hardly hear her breathe. But he had to try, that's all that could be asked of him he thought. If he could take her to shore as fast as he could there was no way that people could ever say that he never tried for love. So he sailed onto shore- the one thing that was ever constant- more constant than the subtle flow that ebbed the water from the moon drawn tide. He rode such waves to his constant, his land, in hopes that he could salvage what love he could from such a beauty.

And salvage her he did. He reached that mighty shore in time to see her face as constant as his land. As constant and still, as the frozen ice he envied that clung to the sand felt shores, this curiously cold winter.

What made it more curious to him, as he carried the frozen beauty through the brown and dying reeds, sand grinding and sticking to his boots, was how such a beauty came to be- drowning in the ocean. How did she get there? Who had dropped her off? Who had forgotten her? Was she forgotten, or just left? Too many questions to have when the one with answers was so cold. He continued to push through the reeds making it finally to the yellowing grass full of sinkholes; him careful not to trip and lose his prize. He thought of her as such now, like a precious fish that would sell for premium at the town he was suddenly entering. The shops and market place busy, him weaving with the girl in his arms, people staring asking the same questions he did only now, with him as a suspisious twist.

Women offering apples, as if this young girl had not learned enough of strange apples in her deep sleep of snow, but still the young man continued through the town eager to finally reach the town doctor whom he believed would have answers just like she would have for him. All he wanted was answers.

He reached the door of the doctor and slowly released his lady to the ground, the largest sacrifice he could manage: her so far from him. The wait is what truely killed him. Waiting for answers. But not from the doctor, from her.

The doctor had opened the door that day, releaved the boy to tell him that his fair girl was still alive only in a deep coma, a deep sleep he said from the shock of the cool waves from which she thrashed. The boy was told to feed her, he was told to change her, her was told to excerise her. So that day he took her home and laid her on his bed, but that was not before carrying her home. Not before everyone in town had come to a conclusion of the situation. Some romantic, most dark. The women swooning from such valor, the men jealous and lusty from such envy.

And so he sat there that day, the world on his bed, it's bosom swelling up and down with each subconious breath. He stared at her for a full two hours, the pail skin regaining colour being so near the passionate fire that was consuming the wood faster than his questions. The skin so delicate, so pure, if only he could touch it and not be consumed himself. He had been to church many times and heard of the dread, one man could have, if he let himself slip into temptation, if he so slowly crept off the garden path to the bush that was so strange and inviting. The clothing she wore was transparent from the moisture of the ocean, and was gaining it's thickness from the drying of the fire. He wished to change her so that she could be warmer but temptation still haunted him and he could not bring himself to help her. He could only stare safely from a distance, refusing to let his hands linger below his waist. Linger, linger, just one finger. It was the one thing he could do without touching her.

He fed her, excerised her, even changed her in the coming weeks, becoming bold enough to clean even the most private places. He had cleaned and comforted for months, neglecting himself and his home, it leaking from time to time, the fire slowing from lack of wood. Women commented on how the young man looked: aged and worn in a matter of weeks losing what handsomeness they once concidered noble. The mirrors, he had all broken the first week, to keep himself from vainity, and to hide the want on his face from himself. Wet and torn his clothes, so clean and white hers. He bathed her with a damp cloth to keep her from the thing he had swept her from.

The thing he broke next was penultimate from the last. He broke the boat, leaving her only momentarily. The fire was low and the sheen from her skin had grown dull one night from the cold, another fear of his from the past of her; when she was still here in the land of the wake. The thing that gave him his prosparity, his popularity, his wealth. The thing that gave him pleasure, that gave him wind, that nurtured him, replaced by the siloette of a lady from the sea. He broke the stern, the hull, the mast. Chopping each with a steadfast ax that did not shine from the moon- dull as his spirit. Holding his face taut, holding his ax, holding the air dry in his chest. The wood would be good, it would help her he reasoned, and looking at the boat now- it in pieces at his feet, the shards and splinters ground into the damp sand that froze to his heels he angered. Questions swept through his mind again, more furious than the last and he marched. He marched back to the house that housed her.

Back through the sand, back through the reeds, back through the town, to the place he made her rest, and then finally to the place where she now rests. He stormed into the room and took her by her shoulders- a hand firmly on each, and shook for the life of him, shook: her head bending- snapping- jerking in sick and tattered rips of taut relentless cold muscle. Arms swinging, limp and cold. Saliva spitting and dripping from the corners of her awkward moving lips. The air stale that came from her lungs, as lifeless as a corpse, but one that would not just die.

And he screamed to her: why! He screamed to her the questions in his head, his breath sour and raw. The spit from his own mouth spraying, mingling with her own that leaked from her mouth still, her coughing from the cool liquid that ran down her throat, her coughing... her hair tangled and shifting back and forth on her face, her coughing...

And still she became. And still he bacame. And then he laid her down again, her breathing harsher, more alive than before. And she opened her eyes. And he smiled. And she smiled. And then she querried where. And then he died.

The last thing there was to break. The last thing to be consumed by the other. He stood and stared and she stared to him, pondering whom he was, and where her other was. Our young man, walked away and back to the shore. He gathered his wood and walked back to the house. The girl pondered still, while our boy, he made stairs from the drift to the roof. He never once answered her questions: where is my lover? I lost him out to sea.

He built the floor of the walk, the railings too, while she bleated him with questions harder than the salted wood he nailed together. He finished and grabbed the sanding, while she screamed from the stairs, the sun nearing the horizon on that final night, her confused and uncaring.

He polished the floor and mended each crack till the walk was greater than the house had ever been, even when it was new. And he stopped and looked at her and then held out his hand. She quieted and took it, and he lead her to the edge and asked her one question: Which question would you like me to answer?

She stared into the eyes of the broken man, noticing now how the moist strands of hair touched his forehead, in half hearted attempts to become cresent moons, how his jaw was set like his mind, how his eyes held what was left of himself in the palms of his pupils. She thought to herself that perhaps if things had been different that perhaps she could have fallen for a man like him too but then thought otherwise and asked: where could he be?

And with that our boy released her hand from his own and the girl felt like it should be returned. He walked away and the turned at the stairs: Let me please go look.

She nodded in confusion and watched how he doubled his steps down the stairs and how he quicken to a run; through the town, past the apothicary, through the reeds and finally slowing at the sands. She stood at the railing, watching and feeling the pace slow, the pace of her own heart melting, realizing. He turned and looked all the way back to the house, seeing the siloette of a woman reaching forward, him hearing the screams of a lady, feeling the emotions of a girl: broken.

The girl screamed and reached from such ledge for him, her body doubled on the rail as far as she could reach, the hair kicking her shoulders as she tried to heave herself further, watching him slowly wade into the waters, arms still by his sides, hands slowly dipping into the deep. His chest deepening it's breathes in the too tepid water, the goose bumps subsiding as the wetness of the ocean caressed and soothed them, the hair rising and falling as it gained weightlessness, even as the eyes burned from salt and the air finally left the lungs. She screamed watching a man walk into the sea for her.

"Where is she now?"

"Little one, we don't ask such things."

"But, what of the man, the lover? Which did she love?"

"No one knows- all they know is that she waits for both, on the widow's walk."

-Matthew Koutzun


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(This is the first short story on this page and I hope you enjoyed it. It should actually be placed before "The Bull and the Matador" to keep it in time written order, but it took longer than inspiration could wait for that one poem. Maybe there will be more of these short stories- you decide.)
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