Shadowed Realms Issue 8

IN MEMORIAM

By Matthew Chrulew

Swallowing road under her pedal-to-the-metal machine, Molly remembers.

She always remembers; she is a living breathing thinking driving monument to the lost. She remembers now, as the scrub flashes past her and the tar flows under her.

She devotes herself to keeping alive the lopsided gait, the sweaty smell and dirty smile of her passed husband Jack.

She approaches the spot and pulls into the gravelly emergency lane. It is still there, like always, in the traditional place to the side of the road—her husband’s memorial crucifix, attesting his memory in some little way to the passing drivers. Still bearing the wreath of carnations she left last week.

She visits at that interval. She remembers his life, his weekend surprises, and his stupid jokes.

And she remembers his death, as it must have happened—that shrieking scratch of metal, that infinite slide, that smash into the tree.

That speeding lunatic bastard driver who skimmed Jack’s car and sent him spinning to his death; who kept on driving, unhurt, barely a scratch on his Torana.

The old pine still remembers, Molly is sure, as she gets out of the car and walks over to finger its superficial scar. It remembers the passing that occurred with the sudden slam into its trunk. If it was cut down, she knows the mark of an unjust death would be found in its rings, a black karmic passing invisibly marked there in that natural record.

Molly takes her flowers over to the little white cross. She replaces the old ones and tidies the surrounding dirt, remembering Jack’s clothes on their bedroom floor. She stands back in reverence, remembering his scratchy chin and snorting laugh.

She weeps, but does not let go; she swallows and tries to take in and embody what he is.

She tries to be the memory of Jack.

The sun has almost bled out when she drives off again, speeding away and eating up the miles. Half an hour back towards town, on the same straight road, she pulls over again.

She knows this spot.

It is behind some sparse shrubbery, and down a shallow ditch; she makes her way, carrying tissues instead of flowers, until, beside a little rock, she sees it. The small black crucifix planted upside down in the dirt, swarming with flies.

Molly remembers. They told her to forget about him, that it was all he deserved, but Molly knows—he deserves to be remembered.

He could never be truly punished; but she has this commemoration.

Shedding another tear, Molly shoos away the flies, lowers her pants, squats down, and shits on the black memorial.

She wipes herself and remembers, remembers driving home numb from Jack’s scene, the ‘hit-and-run’ as they called it, crying and trying to concentrate, having to pull over in an information bay. She remembers being flabbergasted at the blue Torana parked in front of her, bearing fresh scratches on its left rear panels, thick with red paint like that of Jack’s ute. She remembers waiting quietly in her car for the hoon to return from the bushes, pull up his fly, and speed off; she remembers struggling to keep up, flooring it until finally she managed to overtake and swerve in his way, sending his car spinning off the road and rolling into the ditch.

She remembers the fifteen minutes she spent watching him die. He looked out, lungs crushed, from his squashed vehicle, unable to talk through his smashed teeth. This is what she must keep alive, embody, to properly memorialise the death of this scum.

She remembers being questioned by the police. But she had been sure not to actually hit the hoon’s car. His scratches matched Jack’s. She remembers when they eventually, grudgingly put both accidents down to his driving.

Rearranging herself, Molly returns to her car and drives away, committed to return again in a week and remember.

* * *

Author Biography:

Matthew Chrulew has too many degrees and children for his age, though he has reached his legal quota of wives. Having attended the inaugural Clarion South, he now frequents the SuperNOVA writer’s group in Melbourne. You can find some of his fiction in the latest Aurealis (#33/4/5).