I feel like I say this every time I post these days but: wow, it’s been a while, huh? Anyway, here is a slightly macabre little piece, inspired by something I dreamed this morning. I hope you enjoy it!
Judgement
Alena saw a figure moving through the dark.
They had all stepped into the Hall and sat down on the bench to face the Wall of Judgement, all six of them bathed and dressed in white. They’d all been at the party down on the marina, all lacked alibis for the time when the freshman boy was pushed so hard the wooden railing on the pier broke and he plunged into the dark waters below. It wasn’t Alena, she’d been hiding in one of the restaurant bathrooms trying desperately to get a wine stain out of her blouse. The Gods would know that and the sight of Their Eyes, smooth and opalescent ovals in the grey stone of the Wall of Judgement, filled her with no fear.
When the lights went out and their six pairs of eyes closed, they all knew only five pairs of eyes would see the light again. The Gods would look into them and find in one of them guilt, and with neither blade nor hand would rip the body of the Guilty to pieces. Alena closed her eyes with the others, but the next moment some unidentifiable impulse made her open them again. The next moment, she saw a figure moving through the dark, heard the rending of flesh by what was meant to be no blade and no hand, to corporeal body of any kind. She squeezed her eyes shut once more, gooseflesh spreading over her bare arms as she fought the urge to run. When she opened them again, blood stained her white dress and the seat to her left, where that young man she knew from the tennis club had sat, was what was left of the Guilty, now without eyes to weep his remorse, without heart to repent.
Afterward, Alena spoke her truth to anyone who would listen. None of them believe her, not her parents, not her spouses, not even the others who had been accused alongside her. She didn’t relent, not until the holy persons who tended the temple told her that if she didn’t stop blaspheming she would have to step into the Hall once more and face the Wall of Judgement as the sole accused…