Bonelake

A lake of bones. Cranium, clavicle, pubis, rib, humerus, sternum, mandible, tooth, bone by bone. No, not a place for fish or boat, not a place for the living. The lake of bones is the final resting place of all that lived, the place where life very own waste will rest till the end of times. Far beyond eyes can see and minds can imagine the lake of bones reigns. Some say it has no end. Some say the bottom of Bonelake is where hell begins. A realm of darkness, starless, skies covered with clouds of desperation, waves of death underneath an eternal storm, lightning and thunder binding hopelessness to overwhelming frustration.

“We have arrived,” said Batar. He spread his enormous bat wings excited. The wings protruded from the upper part of his back where shoulder blades are, black like onyx.

“So this is Bonelake,” said Siáh. “I never imagined it was all so literal.”

“It is a lake of human bones, my dear,” the winged man answered while Siáh smiled. “How are we going to cross it?” Batar asked as he picked up and examined a femur from the banks of the lake, with a piece of dry tendon still attached to it.

“You will fly,” Siáh answered. “You will continue without me, you go home.”

“I will not abandon you here. I will carry you,” there was a bitter tone in Batar's voice. They had traveled together a very long way. Not an easy way that was, a way of self-hatred, of colorless sadness and solitude, of black tears shed in silence, of pain and blood. He would not abandon her here, he would not arrive home alone. Yet they both knew somewhere deep inside that it was the end of the road.

Batar’s body was not corpulent at all, it was the body of a man that had known famine and starvation. Very thin muscles covered with a pale gray skin that turned black on the bat wings, a skin never touched by any clothes. His hair was like molten gold never touched by any comb and never caressed by any hand. Blue inexpressive eyes decorated often with the rain of sadness. His penis most of the time was coiled like a dying slug; from time to time it rose up with the sun to prove that it was still alive. The black wings were the only trace of a mighty being condemned to a sepulchral body, large, strong, and tireless as the heart of a generous mother.

Without muttering a word Batar slid his arms around Siáh's torso and embraced her tightly, his chest against her back. He flapped his wings violently and so they flew over the lake of human bones.

Perhaps what some said was true and Bonelake had no end. Perhaps the planet and Bonelake were one and the same thing. Perhaps such place called home never existed at all and existence was only a hallucination. Perhaps Bonelake was infinite, the graveyard of hope.

Batar flew and flew bearing Siáh in his arms for a thousand years, but bones was all there was to see. Exhausted at last, he lost all height and their feet were almost brushing against the bony surface.

“Let’s walk, you need to rest,” said Siáh breaking a century old silence.

“You know we can not walk, we will die consumed by the ocean of bones.”

“This is the end Batar, we always knew!” she screamed while tears burst out of her eyes.

“We can not die, we can not!” the winged man exclaimed resolutely. He inhaled deeply and a surge of strength flowed through Batar's soul.

It was too late though, a wave of bones rose up furiously from the surface, the harbinger of death. The wave of bones opened a gigantic mouth and in a single bite cut half of Siáh's body off. Siáh did not scream of pain, she was strong.

“Leave me, fly away home. Leave me please,” she said to him and then died.

“Don't die, don't die my friend!” He cried refusing to believe her fate, refusing to let her body go.

The wave of bones opened its mouth once again and devoured him entirely still holding what remained of Siáh's body in his arms. Their meat was consumed by a myriad of hungry skulls, muscle by muscle, fiber by fiber, organ by organ. Only bone was left.