Blood Song by Hannah Vesey
CONTENT WANRING: The following short story contains several triggering themes including; terminal illness, ableism and the use of slurs, suicide and ideation, violence, sexual assault/sexual violence, and physical violence.
Blood Song
December 2023
Someone is falling.
The bird drops from the clear blue sky like a tear from the eye of god. It falls into the yellow teeth of the grass. The blades bend beneath its thrashing. The sight of blood makes your stomach clench. You remember how you threw yourself in front of a car to make it stop, but by then it was too late. In other countries, they have firing squads, electric chairs. Doused your bedroom curtains in lawnmower petrol in October, mid-panic attack, but part of you wanted to live. Even then, some song inside you was rising. You cried for a long time, then turned back the way night turns to morning. And it was dramatic, like the sun exploding, but also as quiet as fire. Nic got home, IV’d his meds in front of the telly. Barely looked up. Maybe the light wouldn’t let you go.
A road trip. You stop at a Macca’s in Dubbo. Syringe on the floor of the bathroom. You die your hair black over the sink then watch plastic bags wheel across the carpark. You shove the stained mattress back into the boot alongside the bags of clothes and bottled water. Your football rolls out and you pick it up and chuck it in the air. Your jaw still hurts from where that bald guy in the change rooms shoved you into a wall. He couldn’t have known, either about Ciara or the diagnosis. Maybe he just saw that video of you picking your nose, which is all over Instagram. It’s more about your behaviour than your diagnosis. At least for your condition. Not for Nic’s. That asshole is dying.
You punch the door. Your fists hit the metal like rain on a desert. Over and over.
It’s summer now. Three years after you first thought of leaving. Two wars began while you were making up your mind. You climb the fence to help the stupid bird and scratch your leg on the wire, drawing blood.
February 2024
This is the time when the day falls to its knees. It will never rise again. Not even if you kill for it. Remember this when you die. Nic hitting the polished wooden tabletop, like he’s angry at his reflection. Remember this when you die. The way your aunt couldn’t meet your eyes. Remember this when you die. The last time you hugged him. The last time you let go.
‘Are you alright?’ you ask her. You want someone to comfort you, but Nic’s having his private moment in the bathroom and Michelle is a professional. Or she’s trying to be.
‘Sometimes I get kids who don’t affect me,’ she says. ‘But you...’ She swallows. ‘You did.’
The sun is setting behind the clouds. Dark meeting light. River meeting the sea. You can see lights coming on in the town like eyes. It’s fucked up that you’re the one comforting her. She’s not the one who just got sentenced to juvie.
‘I feel relieved,’ you say. ‘I’m glad it’s over.’
‘It’s not fair,’ says your NDIS support worker. ‘Fuck, I know life isn’t fair, but today I started praying the god I don’t believe in and I thought maybe…’
That empires would fall. That the dead would rise from the dust. That the dry and empty river would become a flood.
‘You need to stop,’ you say. ‘I’m carrying my own pain.’ Like a mother carrying a child. ‘I can’t handle your shit as well. If you must get upset, do it at home. Not here, not around me.’
Michelle turns to face the wall of the courthouse like she’s going to fight it. She slams her hands against the bricks, softly, like a storm breaking against the hard clay. And she cries. The earth is dry. The land needs water. She cries. The sound of it peels your heart like an apple. Bites you down to your core. She cries.
In the street you’re nearly hit by an oncoming car. You want to die but it misses you, goddammit, it misses you and you rake your arms to make yourself bleed and in this city of falling stars Nic grabs you in the middle of the road and holds you tight. That stunt earns you some extra psychology sessions before the bus takes you to Wacol.
December 2023
Sprawled in the grass, you can taste your own heartbeat. You spit grass ends out of your mouth and spit runs down your chin like you are, in truth, retarded. The light is heavy, pinning you to the ground. The golden blades rustle, as if with passing ghosts. You clamber to your feet and walk towards the bird, the sun burning the back of your neck.
The magpie is young, still covered in its juvenile plumage. A wound stretches across its chest, seeping blood. You bend down for a closer look. The bird flutters feebly, but it’s too weak to get away. The bird begs for mercy as you walk towards her holding a knife. The bird’s wing is bleeding and she presses her hands to her shirt to stop the blood flowing. Her school uniform is red where you stabbed her.
The girl from your English class stands before you, gasping, covered in blood.
You pull the knife from her chest and drive it into her throat.
April 2023
Autumn. When the dead wake up singing. The eyelids of the morning are opening, blinking away the dark. You hope Nic’s not feeding someone his fist outside Hungry Jack’s. Or taking a piss on a TransLink bus. At this stage, anything could happen. The sky is red, and you imagine the cells dividing in Nic’s lungs. Imagine him at work later today, coughing as he changes the bedpans, checks the catheters. Yesterday while he slept, Nic stopped breathing—
then started again. The stars held their breath. The dawn sun rose with every gasp of his lungs. You would set fire to heaven. You would kill your god. Just for one more minute. You fought the light until it died. Fists hammering like gunfire against the door.
Nic walks in with shadows under his eyes. His shirt is drenched in sweat and his left eyebrow appears to have been shaved off. You are so used to this that you don’t ask. Nic’s a big guy. Always telling you to be a man, be violent. He doesn’t realise that your fists are the same size as your heart.
‘Food,’ he says. ‘Now.’
You force a smile. ‘No use wasting food on you. You’ll be dead in a year’s time.’
‘You little bitch,’ drawls Nic. ‘Coffee, two sausages, two eggs. Chop-chop.’
At the kitchen door, the pain rushes through you in blinding flashes of light and you have to cling to the doorframe to stay standing. You wish you were strong enough to kill him. It’s the only way you can still love him. By making the hurting stop. The pain feels like wings trying to break out of your skin, like you’re a heartbeat away from flying. But the pain never lifts you all the way off the ground. You serve out the food and walk back to the dining room.
The sunshine is bright, shocking, each blink a tiny death. You give him the plate, Nic, I can’t do this, put the coffee on the table, Nic, I can’t. If he notices you’ve been crying, he doesn’t say. He takes the plate from you. He doesn’t say thank you and so you won’t say goodbye.
He raises the toast to his mouth, stops. ‘What’s that on your neck?’ he says.
You swallow. ‘It’s called a head. It contains something known as a brain.’
You turn and walk casually out of the room, from sun to darkness to sun again, and you must close your eyes for a moment because suddenly Nic is in front of you with the fire of day behind him, and in this war of light you want to tell him everything.
On Tuesday it was yellow. Leaves were falling. The boys jostled onto the bus with their meat pie breath and pimples, stinking of sunshine. You watched the birds wheel black against the patches of sun in the darkening sky. The bus gasped down the road in dry sobs, dust motes spinning in the glow from the windows. You barely noticed as the Kitney boys got off after you. Some change in the light. They ended up stripping you naked, making you wet yourself, and beating you with a cricket bat.
You don’t want to tell Nic. He’ll say it’s your fault. He’ll say, why don’t you fight? You want to beg him, Nic, set me on fire. Burn me alive. Set me on fire. It’s all over now.
‘Some boys…’ you say. Your words burst inside you like flowers waiting to bloom. You turn towards him, throat choked and gasping with blossom. ‘Some guys did something bad to me.’ You look away. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I love you,’ says Nic. ‘I just don’t understand. Why don’t you fight?’ He swallows. ‘It’s kind of weak.’
It’s in your head, but it’s so real.
Guns fire as you slam into his arms, like you’re two warring armies colliding, like you’re a car crash going up in flames. Ripped apart by the tide and slamming back together. As wars begin. As the stars turn to dust. Five billion years from now, the sun will explode, and he hugs you. He rocks you as if dancing. And he doesn’t need to say that it’s not your fault. Just be here, with you, as the seas rise against you.
You want to tell him. But you can’t, so maybe you are weak after all.
They said they would force you to have sex with a pig. Some days you imagine being hurt. Killed. Maybe you deserve it. Maybe you deserve to be raped, for being what you are. You imagine it for a moment.
And then you’re back in the kitchen again, under light stolen from another year. And Nic’s standing there and he loves you but he doesn’t understand and he never will. This is the moment that you accept it. That the dawn still rises even when he can’t see the light. And you hear yourself say that you are not weak. The thought of it rises like an empire, like the tide, like the chorus of a song. It moves through you like the breath of god. The thoughts never last. But sometimes never is long enough.
You raise your head.
Nic looks at you and swallows. He clenches his fists uselessly like he’s trying to choke the light from the air but nothing dies and nothing bleeds and he lowers his hands to his sides. ‘Shit, are you okay?’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s okay, Nic,’ you say. ‘Really.’
Outside, the sky is low enough to touch the tips of the yellow grass. It’s growing tall around the rusted Kluger with mould on its seats. The windscreen is shattered on the driver’s side. Mum didn’t look both ways at the intersection, and if Nic hadn’t grabbed the wheel, none of you would be alive. Nic doesn’t talk about it. It’s in the past. And even tomorrow happened years ago. Right now, clouds are crossing the sky like ships on the tide of morning and you lean your head against the dash.
Even then, you had no reason to stay.
January 2024
On 11 October, Toowoomba teenager Ciara Wright was fatally stabbed by a classmate, Callum Matthews, on her way home from school. Ms. Wright, who is remembered as a national cross-country champion and loving daughter, died shortly after receiving three wounds to the stomach.
- The Courier Mail, 24 January
DETECTIVE: So you saw that she had a knife. What happened then?
MATTHEWS: Do you think I’m a good person?
DETECTIVE: I wouldn’t know how to answer that, I’m sorry. Can you tell me what happened next?
MATTHEWS: Nic thinks I’m a freak. I don’t have anyone left who believes I’m a good person. So why do I breathe? Why do I fight? Tell me why I fight.
DETECTIVE: I understand that this is hard for you. We’re going to get you help, okay?
MATTHEWS: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
DETECTIVE: Can you tell me what happened next?
MATTHEWS: Sped.
DETECTIVE: Sorry?
MATTHEWS: Retard.
DETECTIVE: Excuse me?
MATTHEWS: Those are the things…the things she was calling me. I was scared, because I knew she could outrun me. And because she’s huge, bigger than most boys. But more than that, I…was angry [blows nose].
DETECTIVE: And then what happened?
MATTHEWS: You seem like a smart lady. You know what happened next.
DETECTIVE: We need you to say it.
MATTHEWS: It’s over. My life is over…
DETECTIVE: It’s not over. It’s just going to change. And who knows, some of those changes might be good.
MATTHEWS: Yeah. Just give me a minute, okay?
DETECTIVE: Take all the time you need.
A minute of silence.
DETECTIVE: Are you ready now?
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I’m ready. Her face was melting.
DETECTIVE: What do you mean?
MATTHEWS: She’s the Kitney boys’ cousin. You know, the ones who beat me up. She looks a lot like Dan. As she got closer, her face started to change into Dan’s face. And she was Dan and Dan was her.
DETECTIVE: That sounds distressing. Can you tell me what happened next?
MATTHEWS: I don’t remember. Kind of a blank.
DETECTIVE: Okay. What’s the next thing you remember?
MATTHEWS: I sort of woke up. Beside her. I was covered in blood, and she was covered in blood and…dead…and [sobs]. Flies were landing on her face. I tried to chase them away, but I couldn’t, tried to wipe the blood off her face, I couldn’t. The sun was setting. The belly of the sky was bursting open, light everywhere. It was beautiful. But like it always does, the light faded.
DETECTIVE: So you ‘woke up’ with her dead beside you. And then—
MATTHEWS: And then I walked home.
December 2023
Someone is falling.
The Camry falls down the road like a shooting star, trailing dust in its wake. The setting sun is bright, and you haven’t slept in two days. It hurts to blink.
There is more to life than you know. Above you, stars are colliding, new worlds are being born in every breath. Two hundred years from now, the land will fall to the tide. A year from now, spring will turn to summer again. An old couple invited you into their caravan for dinner. Your heart kept beating. This is not the end. Or maybe it is. Maybe the sun has exploded and the light just hasn’t reached you yet. You close your eyes and see the sky bursting open. Like it did then. Like it is now.
You gun the engine to reach Adelaide before nightfall.
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