The Water Curse

Prolouge - Sixteen Years Ago

Listen up. I'm not going to be here for a while.

My story is one you've heard before, a story that was been joyfully murmured at bedtimes, inserted into a DVD player and watched over and over and over again like those who watch it could never grow tired of it.

Like any story, there are many versions. Maybe the girl doesn't get the guy, or maybe the guy ends up falling or the wrong sort of girl. Or maybe he doesn't like girls, period. It really depends on who's telling, and who's writing.

I'm telling. And I'm writing. This is my version of the tale - it's not right or wrong. It's just there.

Let's start. My voice isn't as strong as it once was.

****

Sixteen years ago

The new mother lay on top of the bed, doctors and nurses surrounding her. Her hair was damp from labor and she was still breathing heavily. Her eyes, tired but alert, watched the doctor wrap the squawking newborn gently in a blanket. She held out her arms for her son.

"You're beautiful," she whispered to him, taking him in her arms. "You're perfect."

"He is healthy," the doctor told her. "Congratulations."

"Callin," she whispered to the baby. "My perfect, beautiful Callin."

She looked at her son's tiny face, wrinkled and pink. Her heart swelled with pride - there is nothing quite like a mother's love for her child. Then she grew sad. The baby reminded her of that fateful night, hearing the crack of a gunshot and the heavy sound of a body falling to the ground. Only four months ago had Jody Day thrown back her sheets and ran to the door. Only four months ago had she clutched at her husband's body.

It tore her apart - the one person she had, dead and gone from her, stolen like the autumn when winter came. It crushed her, made it hard to breathe and think and process what she was looking at. Process that it was only her and the cold, empty street in a cold, harsh world where she now had no one. The anguish bit into her, sank its relentless claws into her heart, shattering it. She would never ever feel the weight of grief lift from her shoulders until she died.

Fifteen minutes after Callin Day was born, his dear, loving mother took one last shuddering breath, the tears not yet dried on her face. Her hands, even in death, held onto the baby. She had poured her last bit of life and happiness into her son - giving him the strength to overcome her sadness.

She was buried four days later at a small cemetery next to her husband. Exactly sixteen people attended - half of which were family and the other half friends from work that were secretly happy she was dead and gone, for now one of them would get her position as a Vice President, and the other her work space. They said farewells, and as the gravedigger heaved the last mound of earth onto her coffin a terrible cry came up from Callin, like he knew his mother was gone and he was to be confused and desperate for the next sixteen years of his life.

And as he cried, the sea behind them seemed to wail too.