3 
I SMELL OF THE EARTH
I know there are others. They smell like it too. Just a faint hint, but I’m fresh. I’m almost warm. There are some who don’t have that smell, who can’t be seen with your eyes. There are some who taste of the cold wind.
I can see stars, but can’t fly up to them. I hover, like a fly, before crashing back down like a small child. Oh, it hurts. My name’s Sarah. I don’t need the ground, and the ground doesn’t need me. I’m in the air, I’m under the earth. I tried to dig my way out, but not a single grain of sand moved. I tried to find my beloved, but I have a lover here. He bites at my toes, at my fingers. Black teeth, as hard and cold as rocks in water. I don’t know his name. My name’s Sarah, but he calls me Sahah, Sahah. His eyes are hollow. His fingers are spread out along the ground, like roots. “Sahah, Sahah.”
My beloved, where is he?
And my boy. Jacob. I say his name, and I hear somebody laugh. Others repeat it: “Jacob, Jacob.” Somebody brushes past me and asks me to tell them, tell them.
“My name’s Sarah,” I say.
“You smell of the earth,” they say. “Fresh and warm, but still earth.” I tell them I don’t. They say I do. There are so many of them. One moment they’re here, the next they’re gone.
I’ll never find my way out. The way’s gone. The light always stops just in front of me. The darkness is honey, sticky and soft. It clings to everything.
My boy, Jacob, has grown now. My beloved misses me, he’s counting the days. Like small, dry twigs lying in rows, that’s what time’s like for him. But Jacob’s different. He doesn’t know who I am. I don’t know who he is. But I listen to Jacob. He stutters and falters. He can’t speak properly. The words won’t come out, only sounds. My lover says there’s something inside my son. Something that will consume him, my lover says. Something he’s put in so my son will rot away. And when Jacob rots, my lover will take him.
“You and me and Jacopp, Sahah, you and me and Jacopp, Jaaacooopp.”
I kick at him, but my lover’s teeth are still there. He laughs, and his mouth is just a wider opening than his eyes. He says he’s going to have a son. My son. A son by his side. A son to join him hunting in the darkness.
My lover.
My beloved.
My son.
My lover is in two places.
Missing me is my beloved.
My son will be destroyed. My son will become evil.
I try to stay in the cold light. But it moves, like a fly. I walk back and forth, forth and back, and every time I stop, I wonder: Is that light all I have?
Time passes so slowly here, but time is rushing by for my son and my beloved. They change, they grow and mature, they travel farther and farther away, and when they’ve gone so far away that I can no longer see them, then they’re here. Then my lover’s waiting for them.
Sometimes I’m torn. My lover takes hold of me with all his body and tears me apart. Like I was when I came here. Like I was when he took me. My first son and my first tear. Jacob’s warm shrieks and my lover’s cold grip. My beloved standing next to me, saying, “Sarah, Sarah,” and then I was gone, and then I was here. Torn apart.
“Thhat’ss how I like you, Sahah.”
I slip into the darkness.
My name’s Sarah. My beloved was calling for me. By the sound, by the sound, I followed his voice. “Sarah,” he called. Sarah. My name.
I was right by him. I could hear him breathing. I lifted my hands. But he wasn’t there. Did he see me? Did he see his Sarah torn apart? Did he see his Sarah rotting? My skin is no longer smooth. My eyes are no longer brown. My hair is just a few shreds, my mouth just a hole.
My lover laughs.
“I’mm yourss, Sahah, and you’rre minne.
“Minne, Sahah.”
I screamed, he laughed. He bit at my feet, and down I went.
“You’rre minne, Sahah.
“Sahah, Sahah.”
My name’s Sarah, I try to stay in the cold light. In the darkness, it’s not quiet, but something else. There’s something scratching away. Small feet through the sand. Beetles, maggots. Scratching, scratching, and Sahah, Sahah.
My name’s Sarah. I have ten fingers. I have two feet, two arms. I have a son, I have a husband. My son and my beloved. The cold wind says my beloved has remarried and remarried and remarried. The ones who smell of earth tell me to listen, listen. They don’t laugh anymore, not even when I say, “I’m warm.”
I must find my beloved. I know about my son. I know what’s inside him.
Light, I need more light, warm light. I have cold light and darkness. Insects and honey. I’m my beloved’s queen.
But how can I get out of here? My lover comes up through a gap. His fingers are roots reaching forth everywhere, searching, searching, for me, for me.
“Sahah, Sahah.
“You wantt to be withh themm so muchh, Sahah, but I’mm nott letting you go. I’mm yourss, you’re minne, Sahah, Sahah.”
He took me down here. He tore me away as I gave my son to the world.
He put something evil in my son and became my lover.
I must find my beloved and tell him how to set Jacob free. From his stuttering and from the rot and from my lover’s teeth. I know my lover’s waiting for mother and son, son and mother. He doesn’t care about my beloved. I don’t know why. Maybe he knows that my beloved will come. Maybe there’s hope yet for Jacob.
My name’s Sarah. I’ve got to get out of here.
Out into the darkness, I now see. I mustn’t follow the cold light. Just open my ears and follow the sound.
My lover searches through the cold light. He’s waiting for me. I’m in the honey. Stuck, stuck.
The darkness has a color. Not black, not blue, not gray. The darkness has a color, like a starry sky that’s been beaten, beaten, beaten.
There are sounds everywhere. Women washing clothes, boys calling to other boys, girls giggling, skipping, and crying, husbands talking to sheep and to donkeys. The heartbeats are short and soft. They go thump, thump, thump, thump.
I walk and walk, but where’s my beloved, where’s my son?
“Hey, you,” I hear a voice say. I stop. There’s a man there in the darkness, I can see him. A man, and he can see me. I hear him sniffing, breathing through his nose.
“I’m blind, and yet I see many things,” he says. “I’m what stays in the shadows while the light falls elsewhere. And you smell of earth, but you were so warm, I almost thought …”
“Thought what?” I ask.
“I thought you belonged to the living,” he said, “but the way you are now, I have no use for you. You’re earth, you’re soil, you can’t rot anymore. You’re nothing to me, the dead are useless.”
“How can you say such things?” I ask.
He stops sniffing. I can’t hear him anymore. Where is he?
“Hey, where are you?” I call out, but there’s no answer. I shout out.
“I need help,” I cry.
I hear a soft whisper, asking what the matter is.
“I’ve got to find the way,” I say. “The way to my beloved. I need to find my son.”
At that same moment, something pierces my side.
“There you go,” says his voice. “Be still.”
“What did you stab me with?” I ask, and he smirks.
“You’re so fresh,” he says. “You could’ve been mine, but somebody else has taken you. You’ve got a lover, haven’t you? He took you down here. I can smell him on you.”
“Let go,” I say.
“Your son,” he says. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Let go,” I say. “It hurts.”
“Listen to me,” he says. “I can help your son.”