Blood Be Thrown ✷ Aaron Hotchner

You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you.

CHORUS
Woman, be sure your heart is brave; you can take much.

CASSANDRA
None but the unhappy people ever hear such praise.

0. My body is a temple.

         Laurel Atwood is six years old the first time that the age old question tumbles from her lips: What does it feel like to die?

She is sitting on a small stool in her aunt's kitchen, watching as her parents try to comfort her aunt after her husband's passing. Her knees plaster against the plastic stool, and her head spins slightly from the heat that has completely devoured Washington state all summer long, bringing people to their knees in front of water fountains and dipping in pools until their fingers prune and skin wrinkles and their one more sniff away from imbedding the chlorine infested water inside them.

When her mother comes to her side moments later with a small finger sandwich on a plastic plate and places it in front of her, Laurel grabs her arm tightly, the same way she does when she's scared at night during a thunderstorm and crawls into bed between her parents, each grasping onto her and hauling her into the bed between them with eyes still bleary from sleep. Her mother bends down to her height, and asks her what's wrong, if she wants something else, if she needs something to drink.

The words tumble out of her lips before she can stop them, eyes wide with absolute, sheer and unwilling curiosity.

"What does it feel like to die?"

There is silence on her mother's part, and she chokes — as though she didn't expect such a heavy question to tumble from such a frail, innocent child's lips. Her mother shushes her, telling her to eat her sandwich because they have to leave for the funeral soon, and how they could talk later, much later, when they got home. Laurel obeys, silent as she eats her sandwich, silent on the walk to the car and silent as she sits on a pew in church, a place she had been to only twice in her life.

But between the sobbing and the eulogies and the pastor's sermon about life and death and dust and return, the question still itches in the back of Laurel's mind, begging to be released, to be satiated, begging to be heard.

And so, when her parents step foot into their small house much later on in the evening with Laurel following behind them diligently, the question tumbles from her lips again, this time louder.

"What does it feel like to die?"

Her mother sighs, as though she's unsure of how to give such a small, curious being such a big, heavy answer. Her father parts his lips in shock, swallowing roughly. The two share a look that Laurel has seen them share time and time again, something between questioning and ruminating and adoration all mixed as one. They sit her down on the couch and kneel in front of her as one entity, explaining that nobody really knows, that it just depends on what you believe in, and that Laurel shouldn't worry about things like this because she's still young and has so much to live for.

But something sticks with her when they say it.

Death is inevitable.

It cannot be outrun.

It scratches at her the surface of her brain wherever she goes for the next four years. Death is inevitable, and you never know when it's coming for you next. Laurel knows that if she prepares herself, nothing can surprise her.