Monday Rewrite If only she could find someone else, someone half as good. A man with half the compassion, half the humour, half the empathy and strength. Half the ability to fix things and help people. To listen and smile and reassure. Just half as good. That would be enough. It would be consolation. She listens to the crunch of her steps as she tries to picture what he might look like, but she keeps failing. He keeps creeping back into the picture, as if there just is no room for anyone half as good. But she has to let go, the memory of his body there, cradled in his mother’s arms. The smell of blood curled around those nails. Nothing was ever more real. She slows as she nears the grave. Steels herself for the task, grips the jar of spices tightly, pressing it into her body for some kind of cold comfort. She walks on. Then falters. Something’s wrong. There’s a hollow gap where there should be rock, light where there should be dark, solid stone. She stops and stares, her pulse quickening. Her mind can’t put things together, she’d been hoping for some kind of consolation. Something half as good. But this looks bad. Graverobbers, conspirators looking to do him more damage perhaps. Or sell his body for a tidy sum maybe. She backs away, trips over her feet and steadies herself. She turns, stumbles and breaks into a run. And as she flees the faintest glimmer of light threatens to break into the gloom, though she hardly dare let it in. The savage gape of those wounds, the red watery hole in his side. How could anything good come after that? But she wonders, as she goes, her breath coming in quick shallow gasps, she’d hoped for something half as good, what if… what if… what if… what if the real thing were back?
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