AHMM, December 2010 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dell Magazines

Fiction: MY HEART'S ABHORRENCE by Marianne Wilski Strong

* * * *

Edward Kinsella III

* * * *

G-r-r-r—there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do!

—Robert Browning, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister"

The monks, sandals scraping over the stone tiled floor, filed in holding the coffin up high.

No one wept, or if they did, the hoods draped over their heads and the gloom of the crypt chapel with its dark ceiling hid the tears.

One monk sighed.

The others seated near him turned their heads slowly, guardedly, to look at him.

Brother Leo was not weeping. He was staring at the coffin as if willing the occupant to rise and speak to him.

Abbot John held up his staff and motioned to the space in front of the steps before the altar. The six monks carrying the coffin set it down gingerly. The red tendrils of the tile design seemed to seep out from beneath the coffin like rivulets of blood.

In the past several months, many a coffin had been placed in just this spot, its now forgotten occupants newly blessed by Abbot John, then sent to a resting place in the new cemetery on the slope of mountain whose bare, rocky peak stood out in sharp relief against the deep, unremitting blue of the southern Arizona sky.

But this coffin was different. It held the body of one of the monastery's own.

Brother Luke was dead.

When the funeral prayers were completed, the monks filed somberly out of the dark crypt into the bright sunlight. Only Brother Leo stayed behind, staring at the spot where the coffin had been. He traced the design of the floor tiles: Red tendrils snaking out from intricate vines curled around the edges of the quatrefoils in which stood clawed animals, rising on their hind legs and twisting their heads round to glare at each other.

The tiled floor was actually quite beautiful: an intricate Gothic design in glorious reds, blues, and golds. Brother Leo recognized the beauty. But something about the tiled floor disturbed him. When he had arrived at the monastery two years ago, he had been told that Abbot John had had the original floor of native design retiled. Abbot John had exquisite tastes. Still, the floor disturbed Brother Leo.

He shook his head, made a sign of the cross, rose, and left the crypt church.

* * * *

Abbot John snapped his missal shut and stared out the leaded window at Brother Leo.

"Again,” Abbot John muttered to himself. “Again, he is working near the entrance to the old cemetery. Closer and closer with his vegetables and flowers. Why? What is he up to?"

His eyes followed Brother Leo as the monk moved from plant to plant, from the lemon and lime trees to the lettuces and squashes.

Abbot John hated squash. He hated Brother Leo too.

Does he hate me as much as I hate him? Abbot John mused, unconsciously rubbing his hands over the soft leather of his missal cover. He does; he must. How could he not? He lacks what I have: my position, my knowledge.

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