The porcelain urns

The sound it made when it broke proclaimed the sudden turn my life would take. Though not sounding anything like a starter’s pistol it managed to convey the same sense – begin. Now!

Through the window I could see the sky graying with clouds. The air surrounding me was becoming thicker, heavy with increasing humidity and the assurance of rain.

The streets grew quiet.

The world stilled with a sense of premonition.

The silence of anticipation was broken only by the soft tread of Beth’s footsteps coming down the hall.

I thought I heard a faint roll of thunder but could not be sure if it was really there or just my anxious imagination.

When the door opened I turned and watched as she stepped into the room.

Her shriek was like a quickly jabbed dagger into my skull. Or perhaps it was more like the sharp thrust of knitting needles into my ears. Yes, it was like that.

“What have you done?” she then whispered, staring with horrified fascination at the ruined antique porcelain urn, one of a pair. The other contained the ashes of her father. It rested above the fireplace on the mantle. The one I had broken was intended for her mother who lay peacefully at the funeral home.

There was little I could say so I answered simply. “I broke it.”

“How …?”

“I was just holding it. Looking at the detail and it … it fell.”

Thick angry drops of water began slamming into the window, slowly at first as the rain began, then the downpour came and with it the claps of furious thunder.

She looked at me and I was surprised by her expression. It wasn’t the anger I had expected. It was fear. She was terrified of something.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “You’ve no idea what you’ve done.”

I nodded and said, “Yes. I think I do. These are very expensive urns and I’ve broken one. And making it worse, they were a pair and were meant to hold your father and mother’s ashes. So I do realize …”

An enormous crash of thunder interrupted me and as it faded a sharp crack came from the mantle.

Both of us turned to the fireplace. It was as if time had been stilled. The other urn had a crack running almost right down its centre. It remained that way a moment then a large piece dropped from it, shattering on the floor, and the ashes of her father spilled out.

“Oh God!” she cried. “It’s him!”

“What him?” I asked stupidly.

“Him!” she shouted as the window suddenly exploded with a monstrous gust of wind. Glass showered me and I fell to the ground bleeding.

The wind died almost immediately and the skies quieted into a steady rain. As I rose to my feet I saw her, akimbo and face up on the floor, five shards of glass lodged in her, including one in her neck from where the majority of the blood was spilling.

The look of fear and horror remained on her face.

Then there was another, different crash. The larger portion of her father’s urn had tumbled off the mantle and shattered. Somehow it had broken amid the pieces of the urn I had broken earlier. The two, in breaking, had mingled and it would be impossible to separate them, or put them back together.

Just as it would be impossible to ever breathe life back into Beth, who had no urn of her own.

(This was for Flash Fiction Friday #32.)

Tag: Fiction, Flash fiction, Sunday stories