The Rape of Proserpine

The Rape of Proserpine Chapter Thirteen

His jaw clenched, the way I did whenever I restrain myself. “I love her.”

I imitated him, as if either of us was looking at a mirror. We played this game a lot when we were kids, outgrowing it after a couple of years. And here we were, teens, doing it again.

“That’s the dumbest, most idiotic, moronic-”

“I love Colleen, Darrel.” I was struck speechless. His declaration of his love for her was a declaration that Marel loved her more than he loved me.

That simple statement pushed me to taste my first weed. It made me high, lifted my feet off of the ground literally. My brother…why did it hurt so much inside to hear him say that? Why?

I forced myself to get up, to move, to go on. I groaned, feeling my muscles ache in alarming pain. Marel was too young to die. He didn’t deserve to leave this plane yet. Tears and rain pricked at my eyes as I stumbled onwards, my fingertips getting numb. I followed the footpath, and in a few minutes I reached the edge of the clearing, the pine tree at its axis.

“Hello?”

“It’s me, Darrel. Did I wake you?”

I smiled and crept out of bed, glancing at the clock on my nightstand as I did; 11:30 pm. “No, I was awake. Why are you calling? How’s New York?”

“Fun, I guess.” There was silence, save for our breathing. Marel was in a tour for aspiring medicine students sponsored by Appleton Gen, separating us for about three days. It was the first night. “I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah? Me too,” I chuckled, opening my window to let the cold, humid breeze from the woods to come in my room.

“I’ve gotten so used to your snoring I couldn’t sleep without it now.” We both laughed at our own inside joke. God, I sorely missed him already.

“Marel.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re full of shit.”

“You too.”

We both fell asleep at the same time, our phones pressed tightly on our ears, listening to each other’s soft breathing.

He didn’t deserve to just vanish like a litter in the streets. I didn’t deserve to lose him. He didn’t deserve to get torn away from us.  Marel and I…I didn’t even get the chance to say I loved him.

XXXX

In the beginning, Appleton was not Appleton. The whole place; half scrap land, half marshes  full of mangroves, frogs, and towering trees as ancient as the earth itself, was called ‘The Grove.’

No one liked to inhabit it, and those who dared were considered lunatics. The summers were scorching hot, enough to kill anyone of heat stroke. The winters were as cold and wicked; the fine, powdery snow capable of blanketing the whole town, including its residents. But the seasons in between the two extremes were glorious and blissful. A perfect lure to our ancestors. Moths attracted to the brightness and promise of the flame.

As time passed by, civilization blossomed; families grew and ruled the soil of The Grove. But what the early settlers of Appleton, its founders, didn’t realize was the fact that success breeds evil; that the penalty of raising The Grove into something of value could be severe.

As I walked up to where the mighty pine tree stood, I couldn’t help but remember the stories our grandparents told us by the porch while watching the setting of the sun on the horizon. Stories I thought were phony and crap. Stories that brought chills to run up and down my spine whenever I glimpsed at the massive tree.