Charlotte died a fortnight after we first met. She had complications during childbirth, her sixth such labor, and her usual doctor in Cassel had taken ill himself, so I was called from Vellmar to monitor her condition.
We began with prayers, trying to praise the medical miracle of laudanum. We hurriedly switched to the deity of dreams, morphine, when her pain increased. But after three days, she rejected all drugs, all medical treatments, and asked for something not Latin or Greek.
“Bring me something German,” she said, not knowing that two Germanic men discovered those medications. “Something I can wrap my tongue around.”
I suggested natural remedies, foods thought to ease physical troubles, and even a bath in water from the Rhine.
“No, no, Herr Doctor. Something that Jakob and Wilhelm would put in one of their folklore books or even those linguistic tomes they’re fond of publishing. But yet not one of their books. I couldn’t stand one of those stories in my condition. They try to make them more palatable, less gruesome, but those of us who know the stories, even a little, know how dark they are. I need light, Doctor. Some kind of spark. Something to uplift.”
I knew a great many Grimm stories, grim ye they be, and I knew all kinds of other stories. But she had planted a thought in my head and all I could think about were sad stories without happy endings.
“If you haven’t one handy…” she said, but before I could counter, she found her own.
• • •
When I was 13, the Holy Roman Empire finally dissolved. We no longer had to bow to an emperor on a throne in some country we’d never been to. More than 1,800 years before, a man died, Julius, killed by his friends, giving birth to a regime change that lasted until I came of age.
Most will agree that the HRE did more harm than good, but it did have quiet, significant moments. Some morphed into wiser civilizations elsewhere. Or gave hope to those without any. Or shared spoils with those who never knew such fortune.
But what if Caesar had never died. Or at least hadn’t died while dictator. Or what if he died long before then. In fact, that happened—or so it was thought. As a young boy, he had gone hunting with friends, probably for some loping creature that could be caught with hands rather than pursued and killed with a weapon of some sort, and they were found to be trespassing on some noble’s land. The punishment was deemed to be death.
They were tied to the wheels of chariots, horses were whipped, and the frenzy caused the animals to be confused and they crashed into each other not long after leaving their starting spots. All seven boys were crushed by toppling horses, chariots, or wheels—or more than one. Two horses died, a small sacrifice for a statement the noble hoped would find its way into ears throughout the region.
All the boys had some vague identification on them—whether a family symbol or a coin or dagger with their names etched in them—except one. Six boys were bound in cloth, only their heads and feet exposed, and left in front of their families’ homes. But the seventh remained among the ruins, the sun and the wind and the vultures—human and feathered—allowed to pillage his flesh.
When the families of the six boys chanted their sorrow among their neighbors, some of the residents wondered about their missing boys. Most were likely off in battle or were kidnapped or ran away for better adventures. Some close friends of the dead learned where the boys had died and the mothers pleaded with the nobleman for the return of their sons, dead or alive. Only one other is part of the guilty, he said, and the mothers were gifted with a look.
He wore no shirt, giving a full view of his developing torso, and with his face bloodied and the noble refusing any cleaning, identification was nearly impossible, but in turn, each mother looked into his open eyes and knew right away it wasn’t her son.
But Aurelia didn’t need to see his eyes. In her hazy vision, she saw the birthmarks on his chest, the dots connecting to form Taurus, the bull, a sign of strength in her son, and she pushed everyone aside and pulled his hands to her face. She felt them move, pull at the curls in her hair, trace her lips, the fingernails careful not to slice into her cheeks. The nobleman rushed forward, whip in his hand, but the mothers grabbed their dead sons’ daggers and clawed him to death. Aurelia carried Julius to her cart, putting him on soft hay, and they rode slowly, cautiously home. He had a couple broken bones, but otherwise, he was alive. That was all a mother ever needed to know.
• • •
“That story was a bit dark, wasn’t it?” I said, remembering she said she didn’t want anything dark.
“Everyday life is dark. We have to look for the light. Aurelia looked for her son, her sun, and she found him. She found that ray of hope all mothers long for. I wonder what my children will look for, what they’ll find, when I’m gone. I don’t know if mothers think about that enough.”
We tried again with the Greek and the Latin, but she got no relief from them. She fell into a dream, into eternal sleep, and I praised her for sharing this wisdom with me, for saying my name, her daughters reminded me years later when I helped birth their children, as part of the last prayer she whispered.
Christopher Stolle has many roles: writer, uncle, partner, music aficionado, and baseball enthusiast. His writing has been published by Indiana University Press, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Coaches Choice, Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, and Plath Poetry Project, among many others. He has three Pushcart nominations and he lives in Richmond, Indiana.
Modern Flash Fiction 