I thought about his death for so many hours tangled there in
the cloak of the night, that it came to have a body and dimensions, more than a
regret gurgling from my blade or the red stain blackening on the wall he clung
to for support.
His death now had an entrance and an exit, doors and stairs,
windows and shutters which are the motionless wings of windows. His death had a
head and clothes, nagging and biting my conscience.
His death had pages, a dark leather cover, and index, and
the print was too blotted for anyone to read. His death had hinges and bolts
which were oiled and locked, had a piercing whinny, four black hooves, ears
pinned back which listened to the wind, and a shiny saddle horn in which you
could see the past.
His death had sockets and keys, it had walls and beams. It
had a handle which you could not hold and a floor you could not lie down on in
the middle of the night.
In the freakish pink and grey of dawn I took his death to
bed and his death was my bed and in every corner of the room it hid from the
light, and then it was the next day and all the days to follow, and it moved
into the future like the sharp tip of a quill moving across an empty page.
A rat scampered through my room, again the arbiter of my
sin.
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