“A Little Tale”…
With a gleam in his eye socket, empty now that he is a skeleton, and with a toothy grin (Yes, he still has all his teeth.), the skeleton, after years of clawing at his prison, the coffin in which he was buried so long ago and which rose to the surface after the great flood of 2005, kicked his right foot through the top of the coffin lid.
You must realize how hard a feat this was to do since, as a skeleton, he has no muscles, ligaments or tendons.
Ahh, that hole, made by his foot, let in fresh air and, even though it didn’t totally eliminate the rotting stench of his own body, it was enough to grace the skeleton with at least some clean pure cool air.
Despite having no lungs, he raised his chest up as if he still had them, so that mentally, the fresh air could flow through his empty rib cage. He imagined how the air would feel filling his lungs and cleaning them out after all this time.
The fact that he was able to get one body part out of the rotting wood, creating the small hole in his coffin and giving him a taste of what awaited him outside his prison, fresh air, spurred him on to free himself even more and, eventually, be out of his coffin completely. So, he began to claw furiously at the wood and over time, he made a hole just large enough for his face and neck.
What joy! After all that time in his airless dark stinky box, his face, now all bone, was free and with his eye sockets he imagined the sun…bright and warm on skin, eaten off long ago.. He remembered the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds. He was certain he felt a gentle breeze caress his cheeks.
Life. Once again, after decades, he felt a part of it and amongst all the living things that lived and walked on the earth. It made him feel alive again and he heard himself laugh deeply and loudly. Of course, no sound escaped his mouth or throat for he no longer had either. He didn’t care.
He was on his way to complete freedom and becoming a part of the living. He had his imagination and his memory and that would do him just fine when he was free.
Then, without warning, it was black again. Boards had been put across the opening he had worked so hard to make for his face. “No”, he screamed, but no one heard him for he made no sound.
Once again he was trapped inside his dark rotting coffin. Life had been so close. Now, it was gone. He was dead, a skeleton, again.
After feeling defeated and broken, the skeleton, after awhile realized that his foot was still partially out of the coffin and there was still a hole for fresh air to enter. So, He did still have hope. He made an opening before and he could do it again… in another place in the coffin lid where the boards were not placed. It would take hard work and time, but time was something that was of no consequence to him.
He had hope and hope is, well, life.
~Marsha J. West, Author
This “A Little Tale” (story) and creation may not be copied, reproduced, republished, edited, downloaded, displayed, modified, transmitted, licensed, transferred, sold, stolen, distributed or uploaded in any way without my written permission. My work does not belong to the public domain. Marsha J. West ©all rights reserved.
