Boxing Hares
I lie in an infinite field of dandelions that will only disperse at my command. The sun is low in the sky. It casts a golden light over the field and sets my world aglow with the approach of twilight. As that time draws near, I roll onto my side and fix my gaze upon one of the white bobbing heads. There is nothing notable about this dandelion. Nothing to distinguish it from the millions of others that fill my heaven, but I know it is the one. I feel the knowledge in my bones.
I sit up from my orange blanket and reach to pluck the weed from the earth. It comes away with ease. I have chosen true. The flower that hid behind the first, now revealed, calls me too and I pluck it from the ground. Sometimes there is more than one.
I hold the stems gently between my long fingers, lift them to my lips, and imbue them with intent before letting out a low, steady breath. The seedlings dislodge from the pocked bud. The gentle breeze whispering through the field catches the seedlings and carries them north. My path is set. I leave the blanket and set off across the field.
There are souls to collect.
The sun has almost completed its descent and the golden glow is swiftly fading. As the cool blue of twilight spreads across the field, I feel my world brush up against another and step lightly from the field, across the void, and into the womb-dark garden of a thatched cottage.
I do not need to see the belltower looming over the rooftops behind me to know where I am. This village has felt my passing many times in recent weeks as a sickness spreads through it. Now it seems I am returned to claim two more of its victims.
The door opens on silent hinges. I glide up the rickety stairs that mortal feet may have caused to creak. The attic is narrow and cramped. The slant of the roof limits movement, but nothing hinders my path to the two creatures curled up on the straw mattress under the eaves. A third mortal, an older woman, lies on the edge of the bed with her arm across the children as though with that one gesture she can defend them from their nightmares.
I am no nightmare though, and there is no obstacle in the world that can keep me from my work, my burden.
I touch a finger to the brow of the first child. Her skin is clammy, her half-closed eyes feverish. She knows I am here and welcomes me with a weak smile. Her soul slips easily into my waiting hand. Her sister passes just as quietly and then there is only the one breath left in the room – that of the mother, whose time is not yet come no matter how she might wish it to be so when she wakes.
I turn away from the bed, cradling the two young souls. They are drowsy still, silver wisps of light that wind lazily around my fingers and curl up in the hollow of my palm.
It is a relief to return outside – to leave that attic. Its walls echoed with the lives of those children and the ever-present drumbeat of their imminent demise. The sounds of life have always made my head ache.
Their cottage is near the edge of the village. The lane opens out into a wheatfield not long sewn with new seed. Most souls return with me to the field of dandelions and then move on where I cannot follow, but these are so very young. They deserve more.
I kneel and lower the souls to the tilled earth. The intangible wisps turn to long paws when they touch the ground – long ears, rosebud-brown fur lined with a silver glow. The hares bound away from me and race across the field. On the crest of the hill, they pause their scampering and raise their front paws to one another as if boxing like real hares might.
The ghosts of children playing in the twilight.