Book 3: Transgressions

Excerpt: Chapter One

I often wondered if my funeral pyre were to smell of sage, rosemary and heather or any other multitude of wild vines plucked from a ripened glen. If the round eye of the silver moon would glint with wisdom or worry from its blank, dark face above as it watched my coming death. Or, was my burning tree merely to be piled high with the driest of wood available so that the flames would spark quickly? The tinder piled deep within the pyre’s bowels. Flint ignited to flames. Flesh and bones turned to ashes. Last hopes and last rites ground to nothing but memories and dust.

The only thing left of me would be the hollow wail of my angry spirit in the drudgeries of madness. A last mournful cry for the dying. A wail whispered on the sorrows of the wind.

Maybe, if I were lucky, there would be psalms hummed on memory’s sallow lips. Lips that quivered and trembled, either in tune or loss of pitch. Maybe even loss of hope or loss of friendship. A sweet, bitter sadness. Some sad soul grieving my passing, this melancholic melody maker. The empty, tragic face no more than distance and shadow of someone that I’d touched along life’s way. Maybe. Well, one could hope. But then again, maybe might be too much.

I guess I’d never know. For the moment, Hell wasn’t quite ready to set me ablaze.

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