Blood Orange Poppies

The human corpse differs little from that of any other animal carrion. Depending on its freshness, it may look no different from its living counterpart, a cold, stiff-boned doppelganger.

The initial reaction to death is entirely selfish. The first thought usually runs along the lines of how will this affect me, that "I" have lost something. "I" lost something, as if that stolen life was mine from the beginning. Not only is it selfish but wholly arrogant.

However, this reaction to death must be self-involved. How can any consequence and feeling resulting from death belong to the dead? Death is of no matter to the dead, so yes, all the burdens that follow – grief, loss, shock, issues of possession and inheritance – it must belong to the living.

I could not illicit this necessary selfish reaction in myself upon the death of my mother. I attempted to make all the appropriate arrangements in order to feel the weight of my loss, yet not a single emotion surfaced. In time, I believed it would come, like a dam slowly degraded by the elements. Perhaps I had only numbed myself to the tragedy, a common coping mechanism. Yet each passing day left me feeling increasingly relieved. I saw her remains wither bit by bit each day, and in turn, all of my connections to this estranged maternal forebearer faded with her decomposing flesh.

During her final moments I had lain beside her, observed how her jaw slackened as bloodied gray matter seeped from the shattered temporal, from where I had blasted a rifle shell clean through her skull. I could hear my uncle buckling his belt just as my mother's bright blue eyes went clear and far away.

When I stood, my uncle carefully wiped the blood from my cheek where I had pressed it to the soaked chestnut floor.

"Go clean up. Are you hungry?" he asked me, letting the soiled handkerchief flutter down to drape partially over the mother's frigid face. I shook my head dumbly and noticed he was smiling that boyish but off-putting crooked smile, the first middle four of his white upper teeth revealed oddly. Proud, exciting, knowing but screwed in wrong.

"When do we leave?"

He untangles my hair lock by lock with his fingers without my request.

"A week or so." Those long bronzed fingers catch a snag but tug gently to relieve it.

"Why? Why not tomorrow? Why not right now?"

"It's not the right time. It will look too suspicious."

"How will we explain my mother?"

"We will say she has gone on a retreat to recover from grief. The death of her husband has overwhelmed her nerves. The fresh air will do her good," he explains.

"Is that how they explained sending you away?" I inquire bluntly.

"Perhaps. Over time people stop asking until you are forgotten and then you never existed." His hands slide down my shoulder blades once he has finished with my hair.

I swivel to face him, crossing my legs, hair still damp and curling around my neck. I pick at the hem of the silk nightgown my mother bought me.

My uncle is still wearing the clothes from before – the mustard sweater over a crisp oxford, slate slacks and loafers. There is blood flecked across his sweater in sizeable patches. His worn leather belt comfortably cinched around his solid hips, buckled and looped in place. I reach out and brush my fingers along the edge of his sweater, and he complies, pulling it over his head and dropping it over the side of the bed. He shrugs out of his oxford, leaving only a simple cotton undershirt.

Without his permission, I carefully unbuckle his belt and see his gut clench with the action. He murmurs my name as I pull the leather from its loops. I wrap it in a clean roll and place it on the night stand. He toes off his loafers over the edge of the bed, the heavy soles clunking to the ground.

I notice the tiny flecks of red on his dimpled cheeks and he looks like a little boy that got carried away with the household pets. But, he was not the type of child to limit himself to domesticated animals – no, his tastes extended to those small tots just learning to stairs, learning to climb upward to where he could strike them down. I licked my thumb and reached for the tip of his nose. He flinched momentarily before leaning forward to let me wipe the blood off his face.

It wasn't until I was working at his chin and the coppery tang was soaked through my tongue that I realized this was the first time I was voluntarily touching the bare skin of my father's brother. The momentum of the situation amplified by his pleased smile, as if he knew each move before I would make it, as if he was surprised in the best way to find he was right about all of me even after eighteen years of searching for me blind in the dark.

We collapse to the mattress simultaneously, laid on our sides facing each other. His knees knock into mine, his face bare inches from my nose, our hands brushing. His eyes are bright, practically electric. I wonder if he ever gets tired, does he slump or yawn.

"We are going to be okay. I know it," he whispers.

I give him the smallest of nods in affirmation.

"What places have you always wanted to go?" he asks offhand.

"As in travel to?" I ask and he clarifies with a nod. "The Lindenburg Castle. The Venus Grotto. In winter."

"That will be the first place we go once we finish New York. We will travel all over," he promises.

"Anywhere?"

"Everywhere," he confirms eagerly.

"And then Prague."

"Bull fights in Spain."

"Dye markets in India."

"Spice trades in Indonesia."

"Sailing the Tierra del Fuego."

"New Years in Beijing."

"Incan temples in Peru."

He laughs giddily. "Wherever you want to go, we'll go. We have a lifetime."

I yawn with a small smile, and he tells me to rest, pushing my hair behind my ears and neck. His palm remains flat over my neck as I drift off.