Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Down the Rabbit Hole

I've been sick for a week. It started with - well, it probably started with the rabbit, but I'm not going that far just yet - flashes, hot and cold ones. Flu fluctuations; one second I was ice cold and the next I was uncomfortably sweating buckets beneath a thin bed sheet. I couldn't get warm so I had a bath, I couldn't get cold so I slept naked. When Italics brushed up next to me in bed we both could feel my body burning up as I became weaker.

It was two days before my period; way, way too early to begin feeling the affects of the monthly routine. (Now a days I'm a "hot body, upset stomach and occasionally crampy" sort've woman, and these suspiciously flu-like symptoms seemed like amped up period symptoms.) I lost a lot of fluid the first day, in fact I've lost count how many times I performed THAT one person ballet in the bathroom.

(Tensely posed on the toilet, toes digging into the decorative rug beneath, calves flexing and straining as sweat ran down my naked, shivering body as my bowels peristaltically contracted again and again. I had red welts where blunt nails scratched and groped, desperately holding onto the fleshy anchor of my stomach with every undulating wave of internal movement.)

The show went on for almost a week. Encores lasted throughout the night, so when I slept it was for one, maybe two hours before repeating the performance. Some nights there were black kelp-like strings and I thought "OH, GOD, PLEASE DON'T LET THIS BE BLOOD" (black blood in your stools, V. bad, red blood in your stools, not so bad) because I had nothing better to do than be pessimistic while sitting by myself for 20 minutes on end in the bathroom being sick. (I can't even remember a time that either equaled or trumped this bowel related episode.)

Eventually my period arrived so blood - fresh, red, beautiful blood - was added to the mess. And then, after a day or two, I began suspecting that my cunt wasn't the only thing staining white porcelain red, but it took my period ending before I realized that the kelp-strings had been replaced by something less worrying (and more decorative!). As of today, a week after the first stomach flu symptoms appeared, there's no blood (from any orifice, thank you very much) and, further more, semi-solid stools.

I quietly suspected the rabbit all along, but didn't want to say anything.

(After finding the rabbit I pocketed a weathered deer bone. Being the retard I am I forgot I jammed the fucking thing in one of my pockets so when I reached around to scratch my ass the bone got me - first across my wrist and then across the back of my hand. One of the scratches drew blood and I thought "THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED, AN OPEN FUCKING WOUND WHILE CARRYING A DEAD ANIMAL" - the last time something significant scratched me and created an open wound (on my tonsil) I was hospitalized for nearly 48 hours.)

(Keeping "CARRYING DEAD ANIMAL NEAR OPEN WOUND" and "BLEEDING SCRATCH CREATED BY FOUND BONE OF DEAD WILD ANIMAL" in mind the first thing I did when I got home - OTHER THAN STUFF THE DEAD RABBIT IN AN OPAQUE GROCERY BAG AND SHOVE IT NEXT TO THE OLIVE OIL SPREAD AND PITA BREAD IN THE FRIDGE - was wash the area thoroughly and apply an antibacterial cream.)

My mother-in-law saw me the morning after the first round of fireworks. "IT'S THAT RABBIT!" she insisted, but it seem far-fetched. I ate something bad, or caught the stomach flu. (Although no one else in the house displayed the symptoms I did, and we had all eaten the same thing(s). Not to mention that one instance when I succumbed to the maenad need for period sex and despite exchanging body fluids with Italics he never - and still hasn't - shown any signs of a delicate stomach.)

Unlike my toxic tonsil which turned green and swelled to the size of a well-fed golf ball I didn't have an obvious infection. The two scratches from the deer bone never became irritated or swollen, they never wept any body fluid. "It's just a bad period, or you've eaten something," Italics said, but by day 5 (or 6?) he was asking if I thought I should see a doctor. And then, immediately after, "I THINK IT WAS THAT RABBIT."

Sigh.

It was a storm I knew was coming. It was the deer in the middle of the beaten down track that ran perpendicular to the trail we were on creating a wooded crossroads. It was the freshly killed rabbit practically dropped at my feet by a hawk. It was the hawk, it was the deer bone, the scratch. (ESPECIALLY the scratch. Drawing blood always leads to some sort of fight or battle.) It was knowing that in order to use blood you have to know blood, because if you haven't fought the battle and experienced the pain, suffering and war how are you supposed to inflict it upon someone else?

To draw blood, you need to know blood. (Simple. Primitive. Intuitive. Don't make it any more complex than it needs to be. It's perfect as it is; childishly uncomplicated, but fiercely testing. Victory leaves you bloodied and weak, but stronger, smarter...experienced. Pain, She said, is the absence of death. You hurt, you live; be grateful for pain, it means you're still alive. Harsh words of compassion, but We aren't Mothers, We're fighters.)

So a week was lost, and the weather went wild. (That's the problem with Sovereignty - when you're divinely connected to the land the weather sometimes becomes a reflection of your state of being or mind.) For two or three days straight inexplicable fronts came crashing in - one second the house shuddered beneath driving rain that threatened to flood out the streets outside, the next second featured the sun gloriously shining down on deep puddles of rainwater.

On the second day I woke up from a delirious sleep and shambled to the patio door to watch a Fox's Wedding through the heavy glass partition, the sun blearily glowed behind a translucent veil of mist and rain. A winter wind howled when I threw back the door, warm air and cold air collided as the stillness of the backroom sucked in the volatile weather outside, pelting me with rain and frantically tearing at my nightshirt.

"OH, SO IT'S THIS GAME," I thought, half-amused and half-weary, smearing rainwater across my forehead when trying to dry my face with an equally wet forearm. Wind blasted through trees, shaking and whipping the hedge into a frenzy, breaking limbs and stealing my summer fruit. I watched for as long as my stomach cramps would let me, taking in the bizarre contradiction of Winter in Summer; Death and Sleep grappling Life and Growth in my beloved little garden.

Little rabbit, I followed you down the black rabbit hole, first cradling your body like a child, a pet, a silent, beloved companion, then dismembering you like a surgeon, a hunter, a chef, an opportunistic witch. Every step loving, every step careful. Every step with a hand on your back, petting, stroking, whispering you and I, my beautiful gem, we're one - I see what you see, I hear what you see, I feel your life and death in my veins.

After pain, discomfort, suffering, sickness, illness, death, dismemberment, butchering, mutilation, nightmares, sweat, darkness, dreams, rain, sun, wind and hail what did I walk away with? THIS. (And God fucking help you if your name ever gets etched on any one of those organs cause, baby, I know blood.)

...and, also, I should probably use a face mask when pawing through the intestines of a day old dead wild animal. (I REMEMBERED THE LATEX GLOVES - TO KEEP MY SCRATCHES COVERED - BUT CLEARLY IT WASN'T ENOUGH.) Live and learn, right?