The Widower

25 August 2003

He sat each night upon the broad shelf of the window to watch and wait. Often he would be hunched, his feet flat upon the window shelf and his legs bent at the knee. His hair would cover his eyes, a dark page boy's curl long enough to meet his chin that gave his face a peculiarly innocent quality. Sometimes he would nurse a candle in his hands, focusing steadily upon the flickering light or passing his finger through the flame.

He would watch them negotiate the cobblestone street below, and he would know when he saw one as they would always be alone.

The room he used remained dusty and bare but for his mattress of straw. Cobwebs hung in garlands from every corner. He rarely left the room. Most of the time he slept. When he awoke in the evening he would be hungry and restless, and lighting his candles he would watch moths draw to the light of the fires that fluttered in the cold drafts.

When he saw the lonely ones he would leave his seat by the window, and taking his candle he would descend the twisting staircase to unbolt the heavy, studded door.

Through their enquiring gaze he appeared to be a handsome man, his rich velvet clothes over-sewn with red and gold. The light reflecting in his eyes drew them, and they would go to him, men and women alike, their faces strangely empty as they sought to leave behind the cold and the poverty of the night.

He would lead them to his room, where they would come alive once more, seeming bewildered by the dusty shapes upon the floor; the litter of crackling leather and the white ghosts of old bones. There he would take them, drawing out all memory, all existence, leaving them dry and empty as tinder. Then they too would be no more than husks upon the wooden floor, silent as snakeskins and discarded cocoons.

Sitting in his window, tired and fulfilled, he would watch the rain and the moonlight shining upon the slick cobblestones. Playing with his candle, passing his finger through the flame, he would feel the heat upon his cold, damp skin. Sometimes he would weep.

Until, one night, death came upon tiny wings to take away his tears. He lay upon his bed, satiated and sleeping, the whisper-dry remains of a new feast upon the bare floor. His candle sat upon the ledge of the window, sputtering in a pool of molten wax. In the light of the moon a moth flew in through the open crack of the window like a shadow. Drawn to the flame it danced about on the hot thermals, thrown back by the searing heat and forth by the instinct that drew it towards light, stronger than preservation. There the moth caught a spark of burning wax by its wing and soared away in a final flight of the phoenix, plunging to its death upon the brittle tinder of a human corpse.

Dry as straw, the fragile lace of flesh caught afire within a heartbeat, flames scurrying across dust and blazing along cobwebs like tapers. The wooden beams of the house set alight, and only now did the widower awake, surrounded by smoke and light. He sat upon his bed studying the fire with a mixture of curiosity and resignation. As the inferno grew higher the heat clouded his mind, until, mesmerised, he watched his own fingers burn away, the orange light reflecting in his eyes for one last time, as he passed into the flames.

Copyright © 25 August 2003

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