A Shrine for Daisies

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The clock had just struck five. The moon’s silver monocle hung low in a sky of endless navy abyss. Rain rampaged down, yet, Ken Blunt stood as he did every evening; at the end of his garden, leaning over the fence, and peering across the field to the spot where he buried it.

Every-day he questioned himself why he did it, why he buried him there. Why don’t you just tell her? He thought, glowering at the spot beneath the apple tree where the daisies and daffodils pushed up more than any other spot on the field. They were his enemies, those fatal flowers, those twisted, tainted white and ugly yellow heads; of course, only nature could betray him.

Every-night he dashed across the field. Creeping up to the burial ground, he cut of their innocent white and sickly yellow happy heads, and for good measure ripped their roots out of ground which clutched to the brown earth like a baby to its mother’s teat. But every morning just as the sun rises again, so did the flowers. How? He did not know, but he knew that nature always ran against him, and nature didn’t forget.

Ken knew that if he didn’t move thing, this could go on forever. So, he decided, that tonight would be the final one, he would get rid of it for good, and release himself from the suffocation of his memories.

Just as the night he did it, he walked through his living room, the source of his malcontent. The wallpapered walls, patterned with vines and petalled bouquets, curvingly drooped down into branched vines, holding at the end of their grasps two ruby-red apples, reminding Ken of ovaries. Various artworks clasped to the walls, threatening to fall way at any moment. There were black and white images of children playing on beaches, though the sea was covered by thick layers of black tape: a replica of Picasso’s ‘Mother and Child’, and another replica of Raphael’s ‘Aldobrandini Madonna.’ Ken’s vinyl record player sat in the corner, in a blood-red basket by its side sat several records, including his favourite track; John Lennon’s ‘Beautiful Boy.’ Dual emerald leather chairs sat against the wall, the larger for Ken, the smaller for Mary, in the corner a matching sofa remained unscathed, almost brand new; for they never sat together anymore, not since that day.

Though the final wall revealed why this was not the conventional middle-aged living space. Looming behind the door, lay a great shrine to their dog who disappeared twelve years ago, Daniel the dalmatian. Daniel’s shrine consisted of a large wooden table, painted white with black spots in his memory, even the four legs were painted to appear like paws. Over a hundred photos, stuck on all sides of the table: Daniel running at the beach, Daniel hanging his head out of the car with his tongue out, Daniel sitting with a birthday hat on his head. The shrine’s centre featured the focus of all worship of Dalmationism – Daniel’s unchewed chew-toy, a squeaking ball, which Mary squeezed everyday once she came home from work, and before she went to bed. Once, Ken had tried to hide the ball, drove ballistic by the routinised squeaking, but Mary’s maligning cries soon put a stop to that experiment.

Often Ken argued about the shrine. “Mary, why don’t we get you a new dog? You know you can get your old dog cloned in Korea, now right? I am sure they could get some of his DNA off of the ball.” He would ask.

“What do you mean get a new dog Ken!? You can’t replace a dog like Daniel, not even with a clone! You only get one chance at having a dog like that.” Mary would scream in defence, adding the deft reminder that always shut him up, kicking him in the stomach with the force of a horse. “He was like a son to us!”

Ken stood there, contemplating as he did every-day, whether to take this stupid shrine outside, and burn it. He would love nothing more, he had long decided, than to watch the photos crisp up like autumn leaves, and the ash to drift away on the wind, gone forever. He almost resigned himself to finally doing it, and relieving himself from all this pain, for that was all he truly wanted.

Then she walked through the door from work.

“Hiya love!” She sung. “Are you remembering our little Dan Dan? See didn’t I tell you the shrine was great. It’s almost like having our little boy here.” She added before squeezing the chew toy and patting the table.

“Yeah something like that.”

After dinner - Daniel’s favourite meal of spaghetti Bolognese - Ken and Mary sat in front of the television in their separate seats as they did every-night. Mary sat and knitted dalmatian spotted sweaters, always in sizes far too small to fit over Ken’s growing beer belly, they were perhaps better suited to a young teenage boy. As she knitted her spots with furious fingers, Ken watched Mary. She was still a beautiful woman, even now as she entered her fifties. Her long auburn hair remained untouched by silver streaks, giving off a bronze glow from the shrine’s candlelight. Her face, since that day, had almost not aged, not a single cavernous crack appeared on her face except around her mouth from her perpetual smile. On the surface she seemed happy, but there was something about her that smile that spoke of insincerity, the type of smile a child gives when gifted a Christmas present one did not want.

“Do you think somebody stole him?” Mary looked up from her knitting to ask.

“Maybe love. Who knows what happened to him.”

“Well I hope they are looking after my boy, whoever they are.”

“I’m sure they are, dear.”

Upon the television an advert showed a pond with an island in the middle, rain reflected off of its surface. From the right of the camera a man walked around the pond with his head bent downwards towards the floor, cranked, as if some invisible weight was noosed around his neck. A slow, sad piano note sounded out in a minor key.

“Have you experienced some kind trauma in the past that you can’t get over? Perhaps you were involved in a military combat situation, a car accident, a sexual assault, a death of a pet, or even a death of a loved one.” Came a voice which didn’t even sound real, an emotionless voice talking about emotions.

Ken saw Mary look up again from her knitting at the mention of pets.

“Well if so, have you ever thought about if you could ever just make those memories go away? Make them disappear into the deep recesses of your mind, and convince yourself that they were merely a figment of your imagination? Well come on down to Forgetech, where we can dispel of any lingering worries, fears, and lasting melancholy.”

The scene at the pond changed from one of black-and-white drenching rain to one of pastel colours and sunshine peeking from behind the clouds as if God were hiding there. The man with the weight around his neck, changed from a figure of slumping sorrow, to that of a jovial jumper, as he started to skip around the pond in leaps and bounds.

“John Wilder used to have two daughters and a wife, but they were killed in a horrific car crash three-years-ago, throwing one of his daughter’s heads….”

Ken turned off the TV.

“Hey, I was watching that!” Mary cried. “Perhaps I could go to them and get them to help me forget about Daniel.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Ken said, before turning around and walking up the stairs to bed in solemn silence.

***

Ken and Mary lay in bed, side by side, like two planks of wood, not touching. This was just the way it was between them now. Love, but no love.

Many times, Ken had considered leaving, closing the door on decades of marriage. Though, he thought, what would have been the point in all these years of pain otherwise? It was for her sanity’s sake that he had buried it, but it was for his that he wanted to dig it up and return things to normality. What was he to do, when the woman he had long depended on for comfort no longer held in her head the things he so desperately needed?

Driven by lost memories, he reached out to grab her hand. It was cold. He latched on to it like a scared child in the face of some terrible monster. Mary’s hand lingered there, she did not pull it away, but she did not hold it back either. It just hung there; limp as a corpse. This was the most intimate moment they had shared in years, yet he dared not try to go any further. He was sure that she wouldn’t mind, but that was it, she wouldn’t feel anything, physically or emotionally, so what would be the point? Well, he thought, at least from tomorrow, she will feel something again.

***

Ken waited an hour, until the clock pointed its fingers towards twelve. Making sure she was dead asleep beside him before climbing out of bed, quiet as snow hitting the winter ground.

Ken opened the back door as he did every-night, locking it behind him – the final time he did so.

Rain ran down Ken’s head, and lightening cracked the sky like concrete in an earthquake. First, Ken checked that nobody was watching, then crept across the field like a fox towards a shallow grave of stored buried bones. In the moonlight, the grass glowed like a field of silver hairs, sharing Ken’s stressful station. He saw the tree, a sentinel standing guard over the lost thing, the wind shaking its blowing branches, excited that its tenure as Ken’s faithful watchman was over. Standing underneath, shaking and dancing, giggling their sickly yellow and off-white grins – the flowers, Ken’s death defying foes. Ken fought the urge to laugh, fearful that the vibrations would carry towards the house where Mary lay: tonight, is your final resurrection, my Adonis-like friends, he thought.

Ken approached the tree: blood-red apples littered the ground surrounding the flowers in a ringed womb, its branches touched the grass, and its bough bowed like a faithful knight retiring his sword. Thank you, old friend, Ken thought while patting its bark, your faith and loyalty are matched only by a prince’s hound. He bent down to start his ritual of removing the flowers’ heads from their emerald green necks, when he stopped. No, he thought, I want you to watch, watch as I resurrect him, and kill you.

Ken turned his gaze towards the egg-shaped patch of grass on the ground, its hairs shorter than its surrounding blades, reminding him of a monk’s cut. The moonlight shone down upon Ken, as he took a knee upon the damp ground. Ken sat awhile gazing unblinking at the pale short egg, until he started to feel insects crawling up his back towards his neck; he tried to swat them away, but the itch remained. The itch continued to writhe, it was under his skin now, thousands of fleas pattering their tiny legs against his brain, sucking his conscience dry. He scratched and itched: dragging his claws against his body, rolling his body against the tree’s bark, and gnawing at his hands. Thunder struck its booming hammer against the black blue anvil, drawing a jump from Ken, and returning him to his course.

He began digging away the oval earth marking the burial ground. Using his huge paw-like hands that had served him well during his years as a welder, he flicked the earth behind him towards his tail-end. I am the only knower of this field, Ken thought, as he felt himself draw closer to the round rock he placed all those years ago to close off this tomb. His head was almost buried in the hole now, his tail-end risen high towards the sky, and his hands began to bleed and blister, his nails cracking like the lightening in the skies above. Then he hit it, the Son of Dog’s tomb.

A whelp built in his throat, as he lifted away the rounded tombstone. The stone was heavy, twelve years’ worth of heavy; but Ken hauled it away as if it had sat there for three days. Underneath the coffin lay, the box for the thing that he buried. The pearl-white box, sheened with protective plastic, somehow remained undusted with dirt – there were no black spots on this white coat, only a childhood innocence remaining unchanged. As careful as a new father holding his new-born for the first time, he lifted the small white coffin from its ditch; a tear of joy drifted down his face, joining the rain on the wet grass. Finally, he thought.

“What are you holding Ken?” Came a familiar voice from behind him.

Ken leapt from his skin, clutching the cold coffin to his chest. No, he thought, it’s not time yet. His chest thumped, threatening to burst through his chest. He turned to face his disturber, his wife Mary, standing cross armed in a rainproof coat as yellow as the watching daffodils.

“Mary, it isn’t what it looks like.” Ken whimpered.

“What does it look like Ken? Is that my Daniel?”

“Yes. Yes, it is our Daniel.” Ken sobbed, tears drained from his face again, though this time with dismay.

“You killed my poor pooch!” Mary screamed. “You killed him!”

“Shh, Mary. The neighbours might hear you.”

“What do you mean shh, Ken? You murdered my dog, and you want me to shh!? You are a murderer, you killed him. You killed me!”

“No Mary. Please, don’t talk like that, I was trying to help you! You were so obsessed, crying all of the time, you eat nothing, you didn’t leave the house. Please remember! I was just trying to get my wife back. I couldn’t bear it anymore, you got so small, I couldn’t watch you wither away. For months you didn’t even look at me!” Ken cried even more, his tears fell to the coffin as they had done those twelve long years ago. “I just wanted my wife back!”

“What are you talking about?” Mary replied.

Ken pushed the pearl-white box towards her, like an offering to the dead.

“Open it.” He said.

“No! I will not look upon my poor dog’s bones. How did you do it Ken? I hope my poor boy did not suffer, please say you did it quickly.”

“He drowned.” Ken spluttered through tears and rain.

“You drowned him?” Mary was crying now too. “My poor boy.”

“No, Mary. Daniel drowned at the beach. You were there, remember? Open the box and it will all be clear as day, I promise.” Again, he pushed the box towards her.

Mary took the box gingerly this time, as if receiving a ticking bomb. She opened the box. Staring down at the contents, her mouth was aghast, open so wide as if to receive the years of information returning to her.

“What is this? Some kind of trick?” She said, pulling a photograph from the box. “These are the pictures from the living room, except, instead of my little Dan Dan, there is some boy. Look.”

Mary showed the picture to Ken, who burst into more tears as he gazed at the small teenage boy at the beach. The boy had Mary’s face, and was short and stock like Ken, and even had the thin curled tawny hair that Ken had before it faded away in his twenties.

“Dan. My Dan.” He spluttered. “That is our son Dan.”

“What are you talking about?” Mary protested. “We have no children! We tried so many times but failed. That’s why we got Dan Dan in the first place!”

“No Mary. Dan was our son. Remember the Forgetech advert we watched earlier? You had that operation after our Dan died twelve years ago. He was just thirteen… thirteen. We should never have taken him to that beach. He never was a great swimmer. You went to grab us ice-creams, mine was a vanilla, you had chocolate-fudge, and his was a double mint-choc-chip, that was his favourite you know. I was supposed to watch him, but I was distracted. We hadn’t made love in a long time, you see, so I was watching others instead of him. I didn’t even see him dragged under, though when I think about it, I think I heard him crying out to us. They never found the body, it’s almost as if he never existed. I guess… I guess I did kill him. I’m sorry, Mary. I never should have taken you to have that operation, at least we could have lived with the pain together.”

Ken looked up towards Mary, who was stood flicking through the photos, discarding them as she went. He shuffled towards her, prostrating at her feet.

“Please Mary, please, forgive me.” He pleaded.

Mary bent towards Ken. Ken rose to meet her face but was met only by the round tomb rock, risen high above Mary’s head.

“Good-bye Ken.” Was the last thing he heard, prior to a thunderous crunch smashed his head, before blasting out a cry capable of coming only from a mourning mother:

“Daniel!”