He told me it was really quite pleasant except for the smell.
There was a time when I was younger, much younger, when I drove past a corpse on the side of the road. I remember distinctly the white poppies by the body, sprayed a dark, deep crimson. I remember the pieces of skull growing from the ground, sprouting into beautiful, twisted flowers with smiling petals.
That was the first time I'd ever called the emergency services. They told me they'd come and remove it. But I'd see it, now and then, down different roads. Its head would track me as I went past.
I still see it, even now. In empty fields, in concrete parking lots, in the corners where our eyes barely see. That same, sad body, lying amid the bloodstained poppies.
And every time I smell it. The overwhelming, decaying smell. The smell of rotted cavities of flesh infested with maggots. The smell of internal intestinal processes becoming external. Of rot and ruin, I am acquainted.
It reminds me of my Dad, the day he came home.
He didn't look the same. I expected that much. I didn't really know what to expect after 6 years of war took their toll. I would toss and turn at night, seeing a gaunt, pale face smiling back at me whenever I tried to imagine what Dad would look like when he finally got home. He didn't see me graduate, nor did he ever teach me to drive, nor did he even get the chance to meet my first girlfriend.
But when he walked through the door that day I still regret the way I looked at him.
Could anyone blame me? When I met eyes with that gaunt, pale face, strips of skin peeling in great, long ribbons that reminded me of the inside of a cheese-grater. Eyes shrunken, ill-fitting in their sockets, further to the back of the skull. His ribs pierced his thin skin. His face didn't fit right. Skin drooped, dragged, hung limp, all stuffed into standard military garb, beret and all.
I was told it was a nerve agent. That he had some time remaining, how much, they didn't know. I was told he was offered death but would not take it.
I was told he wanted to see me.
And his face lit up when he did. When he smiled, revealing bleeding gums and crooked, rotted teeth, the smell was all I can remember.
He greeted me as he always did. He opened his arms for a hug. I saw bones poking out from his freshly-pressed uniform, decorated in uncountable medals and medallions. I'm sure he would have loved me to tell me about the glories he experienced.
But when he tried to speak,
I choose not to remember.
So I took him to his room. He took my hand gladly, leaning against my shoulder. Each breath was shuddering, weak, difficult. Black dust floated from holes in his neck.
He gazed around it in wonder. The poppies by his bed, that I had watered every day, caught his eye. He worked up the energy to smile once more.
At first, though, I didn't hate him. It wasn't that bad. He would sit in the armchair, as he always did, still in his uniform with a pipe between his teeth and the newspaper quivering in his hands. I sprayed down the house with a different cleaning product every time I got home. I got used to removing flecks of skin from the chair.
Since he had been gone so long, he had a huge backlog of newspapers to get through. At the front, he told me, they only had the official radios. They only told them good news, and he wanted the truth.
The first few weeks weren't that bad, I insist. He would wake up, put on his uniform, make a cup of coffee, and read the daily paper. He would tend to the garden at noon, have a late lunch, nap, and be up for dinner. He was conversational as ever, or tried to be. It clearly pained him to speak. But he insisted on hearing about me, my life, my adventures. He got to hear about my first girlfriend and my graduation and my grades and my career prospects. When I told him I planned on going into aviation, he was overjoyed.
It was really quite pleasant except for the smell.
But it didn't last. I noticed he'd begin to read the same newspapers. He'd drink yesterday's cold coffee. He'd stop changing his clothes. The plants began to wilt.
Since he got back, he didn't sleep with Mum anymore. She couldn't stand the smell. But she still loved him. She does her best, Mum does. But she's not a patient woman.
Then he started screaming. He'd wake up at odd hours, screaming, crying, voice breaking.
She divorced him and I hated her for it, but once you understand the depths of the depravity I experienced, you may forgive her the same way I did.
I had to help out around the house more and more. My friends wondered why I wouldn't go out drinking anymore. And Dad worried about my grades. He'd insist he could take care of himself.
He couldn't.
Soon he wouldn't even read the newspapers. I don't know when he last changed his uniform. It began to degrade, bodily fluids spilling out of growing cavities and staining the fine royal greens. Medallions began to rust. I'd find teeth between the cushions.
I'd find fingernails in the rugs.
Then I'd find fingers in the sink.
He'd begin to walk around at night. Said he couldn't sleep anymore. He'd walk in circles around the house, slamming his head over and over into the walls. His skull would fracture and I didn't know how to fix it. I stopped crying after a while.
I had to skip classes to keep the house even vaguely clean. And even that wasn't enough. His hair began to fall out and it was a bitch to get it out of the drains. His face peeled like a bad sunburn. I watched him tug at a piece of exposed flesh and tear half his face off.
The screaming soon became a constant of life.
Some days he would wake up. Some days he wouldn't. He would grab a mug, if we even had an unbroken one left, and stare at the floor. Or at newspapers from before I was born. There was nothing left to tend to. The plants were dead.
I think I was expelled around a year after Dad got home. I told him, because I had nobody else to tell. He sighed, and told me what he always told me. He said to keep a stiff upper lip and carry on. He told me he wasn't angry, because he knew I was a good kid.
I don’t remember what day it was his arm fell off. But it was the only time I’ve ever heard him cry.
The house rotted. During a heavy storm, part of the roof caved in. I didn't know how to fix it, or even who to call to get it fixed. At this point I'd work various odd jobs when I wasn't tending to Dad. He didn’t know what day it was. And soon he didn’t recognize me. The screaming wasn’t an issue anymore. He didn’t have working vocal chords. I know this, because I saw him hack them up into a bowl.
Soon he couldn't walk. The sheets were soaked in blood and feces. His eyes shriveled into little raisins. His stomach acids ate away at the blanket.
I tried to sleep as best I could. But I woke up to him staring, standing in the corner of the room. I remember, in the dead silence, the dripping of guts onto the floor.
I didn't start the fire. I don't care what the authorities say. As the heat stuck the soles of my shoes to the floorboards, I carried him into the garden.
I laid him on the bare dirt and got up, feeling stickiness on my chest and fingers. As I stood up to grab the family axe, a sickly, slow rattle sounded from his hollow chest.
The starlight glistened on the dewdrops.
He smiled, and told me he missed the poppies.