The Farewell

The Farewell Shourya Agarwal

“I am in blood stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go over” Macbeth, William Shakespeare.

Icy cold-water soaks through the petticoat. With each step, it seeps deeper and deeper into her crevices. Fills up the lacerated thighs and the cratered vagina to finally puddle into her enormous belly-button. The needles creep up slowly, spikes gnawing into her skin— until she is completely drenched by this sharp pang of freedom.

Just below her swollen breasts, two brown moons shine. Two hungry mouths to feed, four twilit eyes to coddle. Months of traveling have tattered the strands of her bodice and they no longer wait for her approval to feed. Just suckling at the diaphanous cloth drains milk into the ravenous lake. Filtered through the last speckles of the plantation dirt, life dribbles into their mouths as she wades across the water.

Twenty yards. Fifteen. A small raft hovers about in the middle of nowhere. Ten paces to safety. In eight, the flogging would end. In six, she will be free from the chains. It feels too unreal— dawn not breathing back to her in cattle dung. She clambers onto the raft and breathes a sigh of relief. Quickly, she unbandages her breast-wrapping to release the children into freedom. One of them comes o loose and crashes down on the wooden board like a fisherman’s catch. Eyes staring into the milky way as if consuming the sky. Too fraught to close themselves, they are transfixed in a vacant stare while the clumps of stars glide away from the barge. The hungrier one keeps biting at the dried teat and she waddles over to the stargazer.

With her huge palms, she erases the sky’s reflection from the eyes. Putting the children together on the raft, she looks back across the lake. Near the pine trees with branches whiplashing in the wind. Beyond the rock outcrops on the bruised bedrock. Flocks of morning birds whistle through the air. Just like Massa used to when he had trouble sleeping. Years of memory thaw over the frigid lake. The thick clot burdens the barge, almost sinking it deep into the water. She’s too afraid

to put her hand in the water. Her gut tells her that something will clutch at it. Grab her colossal body and chain it to the bottom of the lake forever. She wants no part of it. She wants to silence the sirens calling at her from below the water. Those loud painful screeches she doesn’t understand but speak to her nonetheless. Taunting her. Reminding her that she will never be free. That she cannot steal from the plantation.

She quickly lifts the child from the wooden floor. In one heap, the brown bag falls overboard, sinking deeper and deeper into the water. With patient ears, she waits for the final thump. But nothing speaks to her anymore. Only the deafening silence and the creaky barge nearing the shore. She lifts her child to her breast and cold meat pinches at her skin. Cold flesh slips from her chest and slides deeper. From inside the chemise, a powerful wail emerges. Through rage, anguish, horror, and freedom. The sounds close in one word, Sapphire.

Acrostic

Shourya Agarwal Frozen stars are snu ed out by wispy clouds. Oasis of molten silence enshrouds. Roaring across these weather-broken trees, Furtive whispers of the moist, winter breeze. Under the blanket of my shattered dreams— Clustered Hope sewn in the Horizon’s seams. Kindling the liquid crystals of dew, Soiled moonlight immolates itself anew. Shadows and the emptiness are entwined— Ageless wrinkles one can not leave behind Knotted berries clung to edges of grime, Eager to burst and stain the moving time. Injured Moon winces through its cloudy cloak— Amber swerving through snaky locks of smoke, Mystifying the glow of silk-soft grass, Senses churn as wine in an upset glass. Addled you are; I am no lunatic. Dunderhead, just read the damn acrostic!