Tobias : A Short Story

It was the dead of the night, and the only sound heard was the silent scrape of his feet as he carried her gingerly to the pond. It was for the best, he thought, he couldn’t bear to look at her this way, mutilated beyond recognition. I can recognize her he thought, as he smelt her fragrance past the singed smell of her tightening flesh. Like the honey dew of the forest. He sniffed as he drifted into his thoughts again, his own imagination his kingdom, she the queen. The ache in his arms from holding the corpse jarred him back to reality. He scraped on towards the water thinking all the while how beautiful she once was. He looked across his arms to her slender legs, now charred, to her delicate torso, now riddled with defects, finally to her face. He let out a little squeal of laughter. Funny, he thought, she can still make me laugh. As he saw her face he noticed what was left of her expression. His smile vanished as he strained his mind to imagine what she might be saying. He thought, but the words didn’t come to him.

She was already dead.

“Yeah I did the right thing” his voice sounded hollow. He would do anything for her...

Professor Dave Dewford lived in the house on the hill. He had no neighbours and he had no garden. Just a rusty old gate to a house which was well past its prime. It had been a cheerful place once, years ago, when the professor had been newly married. Unfortunately, within the year, his wife, Melanie, had a miscarriage and the baby was stillborn. Melanie never recovered from it. She became

a husk of her previous self, moping around the house like a zombie. The door to their house would never open if it wasn’t for the professor to occasionally go out to buy food. He didn’t talk to anyone except himself. No one else understands my pain he would say to himself.

That morning the professor was sitting across the table from Melanie. He was reading the newspaper as he saw her cut the butter with a steak knife. “Honey there’s a butter knife in the-

Slice her throat

The professor was startled at the alien thought that had suddenly intruded into his mind. “What the hell” he muttered under his breath. Melanie didn’t seem to mind his muttering and continued hacking the pad of butter. Abruptly, she got up to leave. The professor returned to his reading, putting the thought out of his mind. Oil prices had risen a few notches. “Great” he muttered under his breath.

That night, the professor sat down and opened a random page in the only book in his house, “A Collection of Fairy Tales” by Hans Christian Anderson. They had picked it off a book-shelf years ago when Melanie had told him she was pregnant. “Well let’s see here, today we are gon’ read the bog king’s daughter” The professor said to himself cheerfully. A touching story about a child who had a beautiful and docile mother, but a violent and unattractive father, the bog king. By day the child retained her mother’s beauty but her father’s temper, but by night she mirrored her mother’s kindness but turned into a frog, to reflect her father’s callous looks. The professor read late into the night and finally put his book down. It was almost time.

The first sounds came from the living room. The professor hurried on down and saw Melanie, her eyes wild and red, puffy from crying. Her hair dishevelled and her scalp showing in some places. She had claw marks all over her wrist and her nails had cracked from clawing incessantly at the wooden floor. Most nights the professor just found her like this, in her ruined state.

“Melanie! Don’t do this!” The professor wailed, almost like a child insisting on something trivial.

Melanie screamed and waved her hands at the professor, as if to keep him away. The professor rushed on over to her and grasped her hands firmly, he wasn’t a strong man, but the starving husk of a woman he held between his arms could still not do much. He could feel his nails digging into her skin, the more she thrashed, the longer her scratches got. “Shhh” He sat down on the wooden floor, now caked with some blood, and waited it out. He broke into a song ‘Lavender’s Blue’. Lavender, that’s what they would’ve called the child if it was a girl.

“Lavender blue and Rosemary green, When I am king you shall be queen; Call up my maids at four o’clock, Some to the wheel and some to the rock; Some to make hay and some to shear corn,” And you and I will keep the bed warm.

The professor was shocked. He hadn’t sung the last line, and neither had he imagined it. It had been a different voice, inside his head. It sounded like a little child, except it was whispered. It had a certain duality to it that the professor couldn’t place, it was soft yet firm, shaky yet menacing. Child- like, yet terrifying. By now Melanie had fallen asleep, gently snoring. The professor examined her face, overcome with his love for her. “God Mel, I love you so much,” he said, kissing her forehead. He examined Melanie’s forearms, she had scratched out what seemed a word on them. “Tobias” the professor breathed out.

The professor was stunned, he shakily mumbled “Who’s there,” nearly expecting a response .Few minutes elapsed in absolute silence, interspersed only with Melanie’s rhythmic breathing.

He started to feel embarrassed. Tobias was the name they were to give to the child if it was a boy, and it had been. It was knowing this that killed him the most.

He carried Melanie up to her room and carefully placed her in the bed and pulled the covers to her navel, just as she liked it. Her expression softened and she fell deeper into her slumber.

She did this

The professor turned sharply as if to see someone standing there, but saw nothing. The voice in his head was getting clearer. Confused, he tried to shake it off and left the room.

The next morning the professor woke up in his study chair. Groggily, he put on his glasses and patted down his pepper hair. As he walked down he was greeted by an ominous smell of something burning. Startled, he tried to quickly trace the source. Nothing was burning, Melanie was sitting on her chair as usual and not a hair seemed out of place.

You see what you must do

“Did you hear that Mel?” the professor asked Melanie, but she just sat there, slicing the butter with the steak knife again. “For God’s sakes, Melanie, I’ve told you not to do that!” he said, taking the sharp knife away from her and handing her the butter knife. As his hands wrapped around the hilt, without any reason a thought rose inside

Kill her

“God, no!”

And then the voice began its rant:

A tale of woe it was, To be left at the reaper’s claws. To never take a single breath, And lie forever in the forgotten depths.

Such a cruel fate he adorned, To lie still never be born.

The professor grabbed at his hair and pulled hard as if to drive the voice out of his head.

Such a cruel fate he adorned

The professor looked around wild-eyed for something, anything, to help him. The voice continued to whisper

To lie still

He fell to the floor and curled up into a foetal position hoping the voice would go away. Melanie did not seem to react, continuing to stare at the butter knife, now lying on the table.

Never be born

The professor blacked out. The last thing he saw was his wife reaching out for the steak knife again.

When he came to, Melanie was no longer in the kitchen. “Jesus, what in the world...” he shot upright and headed for the balcony. That’s where Melanie usually went after breakfast. He opened the door and saw her sitting quietly by the railing. A new scar had formed above her left eyebrow and, if it was possible, she looked even feebler than before. “Melanie!” he said, gently shaking her shoulder “Mel, is there something....anything...that you haven’t told me? About...about Tobias?” He was right, he thought. The mention of the name stirred up a reaction, her eyes came back into focus, she stopped shivering and her spine straightened ever so slightly.

She remembers

The professor ignored the voice and continued his interrogation. “Melanie, Mel, listen! You gotta tell me, okay? It’s very important!”

She did this

The professor gazed into his wife’s eyes, she sat still for a moment but then her eyes lapsed into that glazed expression again, and her back slumped.

Do it now

The professor hurried out of the balcony, heading downstairs. He almost reached the front gate. Standing there, he turned around and glanced at his dilapidated house. From here he could clearly see Melanie sitting in the balcony, it all looked quite eerie to him.

We would be so happy

“WHO ARE YOU!” the professor shouted in despair. He fell to his knees, clutching the wet grass beneath his fingers. Breathing heavily, sweat beading his forehead.

I am in your thoughts

The professor tried screaming, his mouth opened but only a breath escaped as he collapsed on the wet grass.

When he came to, it was nightfall. With no moon, it was an inky, dark night. He felt cold.

Perfect

The voice again. The professor got up, ignoring the voice, and ran into the house. Melanie was sitting in the living room, the light of the lamp shone off her hollow cheeks. “MELANIE. TELL ME ABOUT TOBIAS” the professor shouted angrily. Melanie froze, and looked at him, her eyes suddenly tearing up. “Tobias...Oh, Dave, you sweet man” the words coming out from her mouth seemed strange, like a voice detached. Tears rolled down her cheeks occasionally getting stuck in her deep scars until finally dropping off her chin onto the scratched wooden floor, her fingers touched her forearm where the raw scars had formed the name of her lost son.

Black spots danced in front of the professor’s eyes. He tried blinking them away but they stayed, tantalizingly close to the edge of his vision. Was it the professor’s imagination? The spots were getting bigger and bigger, until his vision was restricted to a small diminishing circle.

This is it

The last thing he remembered was grabbing Melanie by her hands. She screamed.

He appeared to be in a daze, oblivious to her screaming. He stood by watching himself dousing Melanie with gasoline, unable to prevent it. It was as if he had become a mere witness to the crazed fanatic that seemed to live inside his head. He was a bystander in his own body. He saw his hands as they reached for the lighter, trying to light it once, twice. Then the flame sprang to life, dancing on top of the lighter, as if taunting the professor. Melanie screamed herself hoarse.

Burn

The professor suddenly jarred awake, as if from a trance, just as the lighter hit Melanie. He screamed as he tried to douse out the fire. He called for help, but there was no one, theirs was the only house on the hill, with no neighbours and no garden.

Melanie stopped screaming.

The professor grabbed her body in his arms. He took her out to the pond outside. “You used to love the pond Mel, remember” his voice sounded rough like the scrape of metal on concrete.

She was already dead

“Who are...you...? Why did you make me do this?” the professor sobbed, tears rolling down his cheek. His sorrow seemed like an endless pit, the more he seemed to go into it, the darker and deeper it got.

A tale of woe it was,

“What did I ever do to you? What did SHE ever do to you?” the professor cried in anguish.

To be left at the reaper’s claws.

“STOP THAT. TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME” he screamed feeling a sudden pang of rage.

To never take a single breath,

He felt helpless. He was his own worst enemy. The voice was inside him.

And lie forever in the forgotten depths.

Melanie was a sweet innocent soul, caught in the cross-fire between a hellish innocence and the mind of a crazed man.

Such a cruel fate he adorned,

Melanie wasn’t the crazy one.

To lie still never be born.

“I was” the professor said with a breath of finality.

I am Tobias.

#fiction