There is the scream. The scream so loud it will be the last word. The scream so loud it will render the man mute. The scream so loud the man will die. You cannot release such a cry and survive. You can only release such a cry if it is the last thing you do. You can only release such a cry if all things are done.
It is the cry of death.
It fills the whole earth. The very earth shudders. The very earth splits. The very earth might not survive. The very earth tears.
The very rocks tear.
And history tears. And all stories tear. My story tears.
And the cry is more than volume, more than decibels, more than sound. The cry is the power of death. The cry is the power of life. The cry releases power.
There is the moment of the cry. There is the moment the man dies. But what is released in his cry and what is released in his death is life.
The dead rise. The dead walk. The dead are given a way through.
Because his spirit, which exits his body, fills the very earth. And the earth cannot hold still. And the dead spill out like salt, like salt pouring out through the millions of tiny holes torn in the earth. The dead spill. They rush back into life like children into their mothers’ arms, like babies carried by a river, like an infant sailing through the air. His exiled spirit fills this earth with life.
Life. Like bread. Like wine. Like what you always longed to ingest.
Life. Like hope. Like a future. Like a meaning you always wished to believe.
Life. Like jumping. Like floating. Like a body you actually belong in.
Life. Like peace. Like grace. Like everything old and stupid and done being forgotten.
Life. Like joy. Like laughter. Like children climbing into your heart.
Life. Like energy. Like voltage. Like light so comforting you don’t miss the dark.
Life. Like miracles. Like magic. Like fairy tales becoming truth.
Life. Like blood. Like water. Like all that flows within you.
Life. Like breath. Like spirit. Like inhaling the love of God.
And in the scream, life left his body and entered ours. And in the scream, one boy with black hair dies and another boy with black hair comes back to life.
Life. Like change. Like difference. Like your dead son returning home.
Copyright Brita Miko, 2007. From her forthcoming novel, Nailed.
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