Witness1 : A Southwestern Gothic Vignette

New Mexico, 1920s.  

Carefully… he pulls his hand back. An axe drives down through the air. Splitting the moss ridden wood in half, as carefully as he could. Damio never believed in the act of destruction. He would quicker watch a guitar collect dust and spiderwebs than ever play it.  How could he? It was perfect. Like a new land of snow forming on the hill. How could he ever ruin its grace with his muddy footsteps? He also spent many dinners wishing he didn’t have to chew his food. Though, he was lovingly reminded by his mother. “A hawk chews the food for their young and I’d be happy to oblige.” He opted not. So when his father passed, and he had to split the firewood in half, he knew he would have another weight to grieve. Innocence.  

     Boso, his fathers gentle donkey, straggling alongside Damio through his daily rounds. They paced themselves through the narrow hint of sun peeking through the cloudy sky, yet warmth still surrounded them. Boso, dragged with them two dry leather canteens and a neatly threaded straw hat, shielding his aged iris from the sun. Periodically they would stop and Damio would cup water in his hands for the donkey. He was too old to raise his head for a pour. At some point both of them knowing these journeys would have to end. Damio, gives him a kiss on the head, replacing his hat and both forge on, trembling an air of dust behind them for the sun to drown in.  

     When they got to the river, the wind had chosen a violent cadence and unpredictable at that. Gone for seconds, alive for minutes, dead for hours, dreadfully aware of its own breath.  

      “The air must have a… rhythm of its own.” Damio speaks. Words pouring out slowly. “Like a dance or song it plays to move like that.”  

      Boso laid at the bank, his body down completely, allowing himself to gorge a mouth full of water. The dry leaves a top floating beside his drying lips. Straw hat dipping itself into the river causing the school of fish to flurry. He looks up, just as a bottle tips his hat and pulls it into the river. Boso, too old to swim, spits at it moving away, like a betrayal happened upon him. Damio leans on the nearest branch, grabbing the hat and scooping the bottle with it. He drops the bottle in his hand and throws the hat on for wear. Letting the cool water run down.  

     “What do you think this is?” He looks at Boso, for some reason, expecting an answer.  

     Damio sits on a nearby log with a tobacco pipe, making a poor attempt at lighting it with the wind dancing about. He gives up after the second match had gone to waste, sparing his lungs from a clogged breath. Ceasing to destroy the world around him and ceasing to treat himself the same way. 

      The bottle sits beside him on the log wavering in the thickening air. Thin branches snap off of dry trees and collapse around them. The sun goes further into hiding, leaving a red hue hurling through the grayness. Rose accented cacti blossom across the water, bees collect in a hive nearby with the scarlet tint praising its worth of honey. A buzz of excitement that even Damio could hear and the wind never settled. He reaches behind him, grabbing the bottle with a piece of stained paper. Stained in black. Stained in a black he had never seen himself before. He stares at the bottle, the red hue bouncing in and out of it, fragmenting into subjects of paralysis. His eyes dilate, letting the light in. The wind now causing the water to move, a partner in a daring performance. Seeing a reflection of himself in the bottle, darkening, twisting, clawing. A shadow of his face staring back at him through an uneasy cloud that contorted his chest. His lips moving. No words escape.  

     The bottle begins to smoke from the top when his eyes return to form, his hand unable to let go. The heat sealing the glass to his skin. He dashes for the water and submerges his hand and the bottle. A surge of bubbling heat blasting to the surface with the violent rhythm of the wind and the waves. Crashing into the cliffside across and peeling the cactus away from the ground. The beehive buzzes out of sync with each other like they don’t remember how. The red light has escaped now, into the bottom of the bottle.  

     When he removes his hand out of the river, he ignores his bleeding agony. He does not look at his hand. He keeps his eye on the pale horizon and on Boso who is pacing in the distance, staring at him or something near him, from afar. Damio swears in his mind, that Boso and his shadow are out of step with each other. The wind now strong enough to push has him struggling to wrap his hand, he can feel it swelling. Now he steps back to admire the strangeness of the moment. He questions what was in that tobacco pipe.  

     Damio begins to walk to Boso who is now crying over a landscape of flying tumbleweeds. There is a loud ring in his ear. Tracing him to a place. Pulling him back into a moment, a warped sense of solitude, a grace with it. He sees now a freeform shadow, following him on the ground. Hiding underneath a rock. Peeking around the corner at him. He walks backward quickly and trips. The bottle sitting beside him, neatly, with the skin of his hand hanging on with a firm grip. Now he feels the pain, what's missing. The wind charges through him, blowing dirt in his eyes and burning his nostrils. Boso yelling for him in the distance. Damio stands and throws the bottle into the log, and it shatters as do basic principles.  

     Damio freezes. Boso stands on his hind legs and wails to the sky for mercy. The trees stop waving, the shadows for every rock and every branch, contradicting each other. Shadows with no sun. Shadows with no reference. Shadows with a pulse. 

     All is silent. The wind fading into memory, a frozen scent, the temperature can’t be felt. The river had frozen just as it was, Damio, trapped in a photograph. Unable to move. He hears his inner voice, calling to his father, calling to his mother, his abuela, himself. The clouds overcome the bright and hunch over the landscape as a starving beast who casts fear for sport. 

     He looks back at the rock with the hidden shadow, no longer seen, no longer peaking. With the overcast it may never be seen again. With that thought, Damio knew, he and Boso had very little time to contemplate.  

     “This is no song, and I am the instrument.” He whispers to himself.  

      The river, frozen still, cracks from underneath. A deep bellowing hurdles beneath the hell beneath him. Then                                                   

A Glint 

Floating 

Down 

Swaying 

Back 

And 

Forth 

Catching  

One 

  Final 

Dance 

  From 

         The  

                   Wind 

Spinning  

Down 

          To 

Safety.  

     The piece of paper falls into Damios hand. No more wound, no more damaged wrap. Healed.  

     Boso lands on all fours, walking back towards Damio. His shadow remains, standing in place.