Short Story: 'Psyche'

 by Hamish Critchley

Psyche walked the path alone. The track clung to the side of a wild River which had grown more confident in its lappings of the bank and soon began to dampen the bottom of her chiton as if controlled upon by the Goddess Herself. She didn't notice, the weeping girl, as she moved down the bank against the water. The Sky overhead let the sun paint on its face a diffusion of yellow to pink to the dead dark of Night. With the tiring Sun to her back, she kept walking. The valley the river slithered through was dense with Trees like a razor's teeth that had cast long shadows on the ground ahead of her, their shade pointing and accusing as she wandered. She kept to the River: the Trees respected it. Would he have stayed if she’d been like them? Divine and respectful. They mocked her for it from their havens - like the gilded palace she had left behind - a fool for love. Psyche stifled her tears and moved onwards. She pressed on till the only light left was the Moon and she saw the dark silhouette of a great hill at the end of the valley. She would find Her there, for She was nowhere else. This was the place. The Winds ran over the hilltop, pulling and pushing against her, fighting against her dress, grabbing it in every direction. The riverside became jagged with Rocks that commanded her to climb if she wished to proceed. She climbed. She cut her hands on stones and the cuts filled with dirt and she climbed. Brambles tore her legs and she climbed. The water sprayed her eyes, and still, she climbed. The Moon watched as it creeped across the stars and Psyche saw the world had begun to brighten and blue behind the peak. She heaved herself once more. Hunched and haggard she took nine steps and saw everything. The Mountains. The Forests. The Ocean. How desolate she was. An oil lamp in a labyrinth. She had been waiting for her. Psyche howled into the morning air.

The wind drifted through the room, calming our damp faces and breathing his blinds in and out. Sometimes we would lay for hours listening to the sound of August’s evening, the moon unlocking his tongue to speak to me in praise and glory. He swam through my head, enough for the waves to roll onto his bed that we shared. That altar for our sins and misgivings where time melted into itself and all there was to see was his face above mine. Afterwards we would wind around each other, so his heartbeat sang softly through my head and I would stare at his walls until his breaths deepened before letting myself slip away.

I dreamt of wings and blossoms and when I awoke the ceiling was white. It had that strange popcorn texture, like a disease was growing under the paint - boiling from the inside out. Rain flew down from its perching and the sun on its distant horizon began to climb across the wall above the headboard. I cried when I knew I loved him. I threw my dog her ball over and over, and watched it soar over the blue sky and land in the shade of a tree. My world had splintered before I could throw the ball a final time and we walked home, all the while she kept looking up at me, hopeful for more time.

The frozen sheets next to me rustled and I waited for his waking movement. All he did was take a deep breath and sigh - eyes still closed. This final morning has always been present like the turn from dawn to dusk, but neither of us spoke of it. There seemed little to talk about in truth, we had made a terrarium for ourselves and the world outside didn't exist for the other. We drove through this empty country to fill it with our joy and spent lazy afternoons under the canopy of a lone tree in a field with the sound of a hidden motorway roaring in the distance. I know I’ll never be able to go back. That shattered image would bloody my feet. 

We never met in town. He said it was too loud but we both knew he was lying. It fated our embracing and I knew for as long as the hum of summer was alive, so we would be too. The way he has touched me the last nights have made me want to never let him go, I know he feels the same. I’ve been hiding the last page of our book even though I wrote it myself. He will ignore me when he sees me again, the start of September and the start of a new story, but I'll always be on his mind. I won't go back to him, I won't admit my failure and I won't let him know how he and us frightens me to my core.

When he wakes up, I will have left him, safe in the knowledge that our ethereal summer will be eternal in my eyes. The rain has subsided and this Sunday morning is slow. He let me go, I know, he wanted me out of his room and out of his bed. His disgusting parasite who sucked out his love of women and replaced it with love for me, his own kind.

I stepped out into the morning air and heard her cry.

Why curse me for such? To love, this silent secret, whispering to myself what I wish he would tell me. To sit and watch in agile wait for any sign of favour. Leading me further down, away from him, to this fallacy you created, this fantasy you painted, for me to eat and soak in. This palace that holds unsteady against my reason. But I held out for you and yet there he stands, a chasm across, standing rooted whilst you corrupt and fill my chest. Flowing through my body as blood just to watch me to bleed. You vampire, you beast, to take advantage of my ignorant youth and twist me around him for your own amusement with no intention to ever make this any more than it was. You are cruel and vile and I hate you so and always will for making me love him and making my every heartbeat for him and making my chest cave when I feel him close. You will feel my scorn, Goddess, if it takes me to my last breath. You will feel the pain you gave me Oh Divine one. You will feel the wrath of my lament, Aphrodite, if I am his Psyche true.