"What cannot be said will be wept" - Sappho
Cain: An Alternative
History
His tunic, now dampened by the
messy dew of the garden, clings to his chest as he stands in the dawn’s dingy
light. The heavy, wet air rises in thick clouds, drowning the nighttime’s
struggles in a layer of foggy solemnity.
Beat by beat, his burning heart
returns to a steady pace and the primality of his tense body gives way to
exhausted surrender—his skin glistening with sweat and sweet water, mixed with
the crimson of his brother’s veins.
His head drops and his eyes meet
the body at his feet: his brother’s face is finally stripped of helpless
terror, its features shaped by that ironic peacefulness of death. As the man
begins to drag the body through his garden, a sprouting of white lilies from
the valley—Mary’s Tears—tumble from the murdered man’s limp hand and a gust of
warm wind surges across the terrain.
The Earth begins to tremor—rocks
splintering with screams. The heavens, moaning, fade into a penal darkness and
the surrounding woodlands explode in hellish cacophony. Paralyzed by the
Earth’s violent revolt, the man drops the body, his face turning as deathly
white as his shepherd brother’s. A frigid fear overwhelming the heat of his
murderous passion.
A foul stench saturates the air.
The putrid smell of decay. His gardens—his life’s work, his offering. They
are blackening, shriveling, rotting. A wailing rain passes over the valley and
a large snake retreats from the scorched soil.
The Winds howl with holy anger, “Where
is your brother?”
Shuddering, the man’s entire body
collapses in prostrated repentance. Mute with sorrow, the killer weeps, his
wordless sobs nonetheless crying: “I have sinned.”
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