Cold West
Description
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Accents
British (General) North American (General) North American (US Midwest- Chicago, Great Lakes)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
They say when a man meets the love of his life, all the mean goes out of him sometimes in small bits like venom, leaving the blood. Sometimes in great rush is like an open artery. I don't know about that. I do know when that person's gone. It starts to slip back in a knife in the heart. I can vouch for the fact that came back when I lay Jenny in the ground and drips and drabs and not right away, but sometimes the world pushes and it pushes a little more and a man's got a little choice but to push back what they say about me when I'm gone, then not much likely he was a ******* and a liar, rotten thief, a killer. Mostly I was fed up and a fed up man's got a lot of moral leeway. It started in 72 when the wind blew cold from the other peaks, snow snapping at its heels like a dog eager to please its master. Jenny had been sick. Kind of gets deep in the chest, digs around in there, puts his fist into your lungs and squeezes when she finally went. It was a relief for me and the boys, they weren't much older than I was when I lost my pa. He'd been taken by the wasting something they let loose during the first war. He made a man's insides in slow fashion, reduced him to skin and bone weakness of the body and the mind, the heart and the liver or no medicine for that sort of thing. And in the end he was a little more than a skeleton. I wanted to spare my boys seeing their mother like that. But sometimes the world's got a different way of thinking from yourself. The earth was hard and stubborn. Little more than clay and rock. We had a hard time breaking. It took us most of two days to cut the grave into the earth while Jenny lay in her bed under a shroud. I made from one of her favorite sheets, sewing her up in it like a caterpillar in a cocoon. No butterfly promised here though. Just long sleep in earth clenched like a fist. When we were done, we brought her out boys at her feet. Me hit her head. She was like like a bundle of twigs. And for a moment, I was worried we might break her into 1000 fragments. The boys were brave to their credit. I don't know how I was nearly broken inside on brittle and hard winter ice on a pond. Fallon only sniffled carter blinked away, missed from his eyes. And that was that we lowered her gently. The body turning in our hands, despite ourselves, she twisted once, hit the side of the grave and slid into the hole. I coughed out a sob. And the boys nearly wailed. I should have let him, but you let feelings get free and it's like to run away with you. Instead, I shook my head and nodded toward the shovels. Gather those up boys. We'd cover this before the coyotes come calling. They did so. And we shoveled dirt over my dead wife in earnest. Hoping to beat the scavengers when it was done. I tapped the surface down and threw the shovel to the side and gathered up rocks. We placed them on top of the grave and at its head, a slab of wood. I carved simple and easy. Jenny Carter 39- 69. I stood and looked at the boys. You want to say something? I asked, they shook their heads and nodded. Go on inside then leave me with her. The boys shuffled into the house and I stood beneath the gray sky looking up. Finally, I took in her grave. Not much of one for words. I said I loved you. I hope it was enough.