Arachiane: The Problem of Evil

Belabored arcs displaced the bitter morning air, forcing subtle ethereal eddies. The capricious eddies spun in and out of existence in the dank air. A wet fall breeze delivered the pungent scent of moldering leaves, smugly kissing the olfactory with the realities of decomposition. The wooden prison shuttled East to West, mimicking the path of the sun, traveling from the life of morning to the death of night. The aquarian prisoner's rebellious surge broke on the sturdy cylindric walls of the ancient bucket. This ancient diluvian prison hung from a heavy yoke, which crowned her twisted spine. A question accented by pain.
Her movements were harsh as if she were an ill made marionette, bouncing awkwardly on end of invisible strings. Each jerking step seemed the work of a diabolical puppet master. The bucket rubbed her skeletal calf each laborious cycle. All of her bulbous joints were swollen like the members of an insect. She lowered her tired body to the ground. The bucket nestled in her center. Her joints crumpled around the cylinder giving off the impression that she was a spider crushed under the weight of the bucket. Foliage reach out for her, curling around her like empathetic fingers of the tattered green. A sigh rattled up her ribcage.
The last vestiges of summer surrounded by encroaching fall hid her harried form. The spring was a emerald bullseye dissipating in a flaxen sea. The liquid life was the reason this wounded Charon had beat a path of death through this pocket of vitality. Each day she ferried life to the living at the price of death to the vegetation. Her bent body maintained the path to the spring by simple friction. Today the callouses cradling the root of her foot had three times raked the ruddy flesh of the open earth leading to bubbling vitality.
Above the moisture of spring filled the avian throats with cheerful song. Hundreds of sparrows danced through topiary exultant at the material providence of the verdant pocket. These chirps slowly circled her ear like a snail drawing deep within his shell. The spiral of cheer burrowed through her physical and spiritual lethargy to echo within her weary soul.
The body of pain's puppet wearily sought slumber, while her mind feared it. She imagined matronly emerald leaves tucking her into an earthen womb. Her eyes flittered like the sparrows. She sternly shook her head. Her twisted prison imagined a still crystalline pool and divine tranquility. She attempted to knuckle the sleep closing eyes. The rust that once was a stately windmill rhythmically clucked like a mother hen. Embryonic in the midst of the molting ferns, she resisted in a battle of attrition that she was bound to loose. A false Zephyr continued to spin Fortune's wheel, as if this pocket of spring was nestled in a heart of fall. The warmth of the soil weighed heavily upon the child's eyelids. Her consciousness spun lazily away like tepid water searching for the drain.
Each sound was the beating of her heart. Each sound echoed through her mind like subtle waves braking on a soft beach. A thousand chirps became one primordial hum. And then there was a voice . . .
. The voice had a quality of wind chimes floating on a placid breeze. The crystalline whisper dripped into her thirsty ear, “Child . . . child . . . open your hand.” Warmth washed over her like a moist rhythmic current; like the breath of the earth itself. “Little one, I have seen you. I'll wait for you here, my child . . . my Arachiane.”
“Wait . . . please, do not leave?” the girls called to the stillness.
Arachiane's eyes twittered as she swam up through lethargy towards the light of waking consciousness. Her eyes lashes open with the slow deliberation of venus fly trap. Spring bloomed on her winter countenance, when she found that blossoms had opened encircling her in delicate yellow wild roses. She looked at the tender petals wondering if the Spring itself were smiling at her. The playful tickle of insect feet roused left hand to dethrone the insect perched on her right. A casual glance at the interloper expelled her breath hissing between desert dry lips. An industrious procession of ants clothed her entire arm. Their bulbous little bodies surged up her arm in waves carrying a beautiful flowering vine towards her open palm. Her left hand fell to her side limp, as her eyes danced to the rhythmic beat of the living black lace gloving her stone still right hand. The black bodied army marched according to miraculous orders twining the vine around Arachiane's outstretched fingers slowly creating a divine laurel.
After the insect army had retreated, leaving a crown of morning glories resting in her ungainly palm. Arachiane lifted the orb of golden trumpets for a closer inspection. It was a visual orchestra balancing the shades of green and golden in tribute to the long past Spring. Arachiane placed the crown of life on her gorgon-like tresses. Her body contorted folding unnaturally, so that she may look on her reflection in the rippling water pinning her arachnid body. As the bucket settled, the distortion of her visage subsided. She found herself staring into the face of a goddess. It looked remotely like her gaunt sunken face. The vivacious sable eyes were strikingly like hers. She stared at the image confounded. Slowly each of the bells turned inward facing the glory of the head it clad.
“Who are you?” she whispered to the aqueous mirror. The liquid glass rippled lifting the cheeks of the visage into a serene smile. The eyes of the goddess glittered. Arachiane cocked her head forcing an anatomic question. Her divine twin mimicked her with a sardonic flash in her eyes. Smile widening on crystalline circles, the divine reflection initiated the next movement. Arachiane felt her lips pursing in response to the mirror. Horrified, her elbow bent swiveling until she duplicated the divine reflections actions. She found her finger touching water completing the symmetry as the other's finger seemed to be joined to her own. Once again, her lips formed the soundless syllable “you.”
“Me,” she gasped. The eyes in the wood enshrined pool calmly blinked assent. Arachiane upon regaining the use of her gnarled limbs pushed the bucket away in fear. The water sloshed. When Arachiane had the courage to glance in once again she found the fey creature had left. The circling water further distorted Arachiane's sunken uneven eyes and twisted her already gorgon tresses. But this face was the one she knew . . . . She started baffled at the bucket. “Was it a dream? Am I crazy?” she exhaled plaintively. She shook her head, as if trying shed the accumulating illusions clinging to her consciousness.
Magic gone, she looked at the yawning sky. “Oh no . . . ,” she whispered pouring out an unholy mixture of sorrow and dread. The sun was racing towards the open arms of the western horizon. Arachiane reflected on the punishment she was sure to receive. She had no way to account for the time lost. Surely, the magic of the days events would not be a believable excuse. She rose from her prone position, letting neck go slack so that her chin felt the very first sobs rack her malformed ribcage. Swinging the bucket in her right hand, she caught the tears escaping her dower eyes with her left. Her stronger right leg dragged the rest of her atrophied body towards her home and her pain, leaving the circle of yellow roses broken.


The frankensteinian house was reanimated from the bones of abandon homesteads. It was an abomination celebrating the dead dreams of its neighbors. Nothing was plumb. The warped angles of the disparate constructions made it impossible. Each seam looked like ominous mouths filled with splintered teeth. The wind infiltrated every seam wailing. Bathing the current occupants with all the failures of the previous homesteaders.