by Sam Richard
Praise for TO WALLOW IN ASH & OTHER SORROWS
“A punch to the soul. I mean you can really feel how difficult this was to write. ‘To Wallow in Ash’ is a bleakly profound - and on occasion uplifting - expedition through grief-induced mania (and without ever succumbing to mal du siècle). Richard offers us an authentic, raw document of depression and loss; and to have moulded the stages into artful monographs while staring the abyss right in the eye every step of the way is truly commendable.” – Chris Kelso, author of The Black Dog Eats the City
“This book is grief weaponized.” – Emma Alice Johnson, Wonderland Book Award-winner
"Witches and rituals and weird gods but most terrifying of all is a sense of deep grief that stalks the pages like a predatory beast. Sam Richard has gifted readers his private terrors but also his heart and soul. Violent, weird, and compelling work." – Nicholas Day, This Is Horror and Wonderland Award-nominated author of At the End of the Day I Burst into Flames and Now That We're Alone
"With To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrow, Sam Richard has crafted a book of stories that will rip your heart right out of your chest... and it's absolutely worth every moment. At turns brutally raw, incredibly beautiful, and always unexpected, this is an unforgettable ode to a love lost far too soon, and a collection that is absolutely worth seeking out." – Gwendolyn Kiste, author of The Rust Maidens and The Invention of Ghosts
To Wallow in Ash previously appeared in Strange Behaviors: An Anthology of Absolute Luridity – published by NihilismRevised and edited by S.C. Burke
The Prince of Mars previously appeared in The Junk Merchants: A Literary Salute to William S. Burroughs – published by Nocturnicorn Books and edited by Dean M. Drinkel
I Know Not the Name of the Gods to Whom I Pray previously appeared in Teenage Grave – published by Filthy Loot and edited by Ira Rat
The Verdant Holocaust previously appeared in Hybrid Moments: A Literary Tribute to the Misfits – published by Weirdpunk Books and edited by Sam Richard and Emma Alice Johnson
We Feed This Muddy Creek previously appeared in Dark Moon Digest #29 – published by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing and edited by Lori Michelle and Max Booth III
Nature Unveiled previously appeared in Zombie Punks Fuck Off – Published by Weirdpunk Books and Clash Books and edited by Sam Richard
Those Undone previously appeared in Fucked Up Stories to Read in the Daytime #2 – published by Filthy Loot and edited by Ira Rat
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
TO WALLOW IN ASH
LOVE LIKE BLOOD
THE PRINCE OF MARS
I KNOW NOT THE NAMES OF THE GODS TO WHOM I PRAY
THE VERDANT HOLOCAUST
THOSE UNDONE
WE FEED THIS MUDDY CREEK
NATURE UNVEILED
DEATHLIKE LOVE
ABOUT THE STORIES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
On August 13th 2017 my wife, Mo, died suddenly from an aortic aneurysm due to an undiagnosed connective tissue disorder. It was five days before my 35th birthday and a month exactly from our 3-year wedding anniversary. She was 31. I know I will never stop missing her. Never stop loving her. I’ll never not be in pain. She was, to put it simply, the most amazing, talented, hilarious, beautiful person I have ever known. I can honestly say she is the person I have loved more than everything else in the world; probably the only person I have truly loved more than myself.
Seven of these nine stories were written in the wake of her death. The titular story for this collection, To Wallow in Ash, was written 16 days after she died. I was in such a state of shock that I barely remember putting fingers to keyboard. The sixth story in this collection, Love Like Blood, was written the following day. Of this, I also have little recollection.
But what I do know, and what I’ve been saying since she died, is that there have been a few major forces keeping me from ending my own life. The first is my dog, Nero. Mo and I had been raising him since he was 12-weeks and every time I thought about running my 8” chef knife across my throat, I wondered what would happen to him. I couldn’t handle the thought of him losing the both of us. Maybe that sounds silly, but we didn’t have kids – didn’t want kids – and Nero is as close to a son as I will ever have.
The second is writing. Being able to explore and express the deep sorrow and seemingly unending shock and pain of her death via this creative outlet has, at times, been the only way I’ve been able to cope and understand my own emotional state. If I didn’t have this, I don’t think I would be here.
The third are my friends and family. None of this would have been possible without you all.
I want to direct special focus on the final story in the book, Deathlike Love. This is, easily, the most emotionally difficult piece I have ever written. It’s harsh, unpleasant, ugly, and raw. This story was not just a struggle to write, but also a struggle to allow to be read. Writing it was an exorcism, a purge. It’s still uncomfortable to even talk about, much less think of people reading. Here it is, ugliness and all. This is one of those, Mom: you simply shouldn’t read it.
Finally, there are two stories that I’ve included that I had written before Mo died, The Prince of Mars and The Verdant Holocaust. I opted for their inclusion, as Mo loved them both. The Prince of Mars was her favorite story of mine. When she was alive, she was always in my corner, supporting my writing and pushing me to do more. In spite of her death, I’m trying my best to keep going, as she would have wanted. She’s why this book is in your hands.
Thanks, darling.
For Maureen (Mo) Richard
10/7/1985 – 8/13/2017
“And when we die, whether it’s through the eternal damnation of hellfire, the black and total nothing, or soaring through the unending cosmos, remember that I will find you and we will be one again.” – an excerpt from my wedding vows.
TO WALLOW IN ASH
When my wife of 2 years and 11 months died of an aortic aneurysm at 31, my entire world crumbled. Obviously. Grief, loss, sorrow, rage, pain. These are all just words, roadmaps. They are not the actual territory of suffering that they symbolize. This, too, should be obvious enough to anyone who’s felt true loss.
I’ve read all the literature and all the condolence cards; I’ve listened to the stilted, awkward voicemail messages and stood face-to-face with well-meaning people who have no words. Nor should they.
Occasionally the conversations are clumsy, and I try to fill the void by giving them something. Sometimes they are already wanting, expectant that I have something for them, that I can, by virtue of sorrow and brokenness and grief, give them the opportunity to comfort me. People can’t handle a widow, or widower I suppose, who stands in front of them and sheds no tears, or doesn’t ask for help. It’s not that there aren’t tears; it’s just that they’ve all been used for the minute, or the hour, or the day. So they stand there, slack jawed, like a fucking rubbernecking gawker watching a car accident, and they don’t leave until I’ve broken off a piece of myself and handed it to them so they can give it back to me, symbolically making me whole; or, as whole as I can be.
But the literature, Jesus fuck. “When my husband of 43 years died of brain cancer….” Not to diminish anyone else’s pain, but fuck you. I wish I had 43 years. I would trade all of existence for one more goddamn day, much less 43 years.
There is no playbook for when your partner dies five days before your 35th birthday. It just doesn’t exist. Grief counselors exist, but you have to have insurance, or money, or both. When you don’t have any of those things, and when the most immediate and intimate source of your comfort is torn out of your life one
random fucking Sunday, well that’s the moment when you are forced to improvise.
Mona and I talked often about death and the eventuality of our own deaths, almost as if we knew we wouldn’t have that much time together. She told me that she either wanted to be cremated and then returned to nature in whatever capacity seemed fitting, or have a green burial, likely with a tree planted atop her. I went with the cremation, as it always came first in these discussions. Three days before my 35th birthday, which would be the day of her funeral, I spent a good amount of time trying to find an appropriate urn for her ashes. Not an action I ever anticipated doing within the broader context of my life at the time.
I wanted something culty and witchy, something that screamed “Mona,” something earthy and dark. This was immensely difficult, but after a few hours of looking I managed to settle on a Himalayan pink salt urn that would dissolve in water when submerged for four hours, or dissolve in the earth in about a week, depending on how damp the soil was. Nothing seemed a more perfect vessel for a witch. To be purified in salt before returning to the earth or the sea.
The days following the funeral were a blur. I hugged and pretended to know more people than I am able to count. Her extended family was so big that at one point I confused my own aunt for one of hers. It was overwhelming and I felt numb to the condolences and sympathies of those that came. Not that I didn’t appreciate it, but that I couldn’t appreciate it. It felt like I barely existed.
This reality no longer felt real. I found myself envious of myself for a life I once had. I sat in an empty house, ignoring phone calls and messages, hoping that the world would just shut itself off and let me drift into nothingness. I would do anything, sacrifice anything, become anything just to have another day. The only thing I wouldn’t do is trade places with her. I couldn’t do that to her, I would never hand her this pain. I will live with this because there is no other choice.
Two weeks to the day that she died, I sat on our bed and sobbed. This was not out of the ordinary at that time, obviously, nor is it now. Before she died, on days that I was depressed – which happened often – I would sit at the edge of the bed and try to convince myself to get up, to not get beaten down by the darkness. To comfort me, she would stand in front of me and I would hug her torso. My head would rest on her chest between her breasts and she would rub my head and my neck. This always made me feel better. In my grief, on that two-week anniversary, I found myself reaching out to hug the vacant spot where she once stood. Just as I find myself, even now, reaching out emotionally for comfort in the places left vacant without her.
I spent a lot of time going through her emails. Just reading her words about tattoos she was working on with clients made me feel close to her. I tried everything to keep that feeling of closeness to her. I didn’t change the sheets or wash her clothes. I made no changes to the house and I watched her favorite cartoons. The smell of her was largely gone from the house, but when I caught whiffs of it I felt so close to her that I could see her.
I fantasized about her and all the fucking we did. I dream-fucked a goddamn ghost. I got off on thinking about the ass of a now-dead woman. Doing so hurt, but it was all that I had.
Eventually the closeness began to fade. The house became a tomb, not a home. What bits of her energy that had remained finally drifted off. Or I became less sensitive to them. For a while, it felt like she was occasionally in another room, but that too faded. Her presence was still here, for a moment. It all seemed lost to the vaults of memory and distorted by time, and I don’t think I’ll get it back.
They never talk about the boredom - the grief pamphlets, that is. Loss, pain, anguish, sorrow, anger, depression, it’s like they’re discussing music or literature. No one talks about how boring this grief and loss is. You find yourself without the one person who made you feel on a daily basis, the partner who made the dull exciting and shared in the ritual of mocking all the dumb shit in the world. Now who was I supposed to be an asshole with when someone did something mildly annoying?
The boredom made for an interesting time, to say the least. I tried to fill it as best as I could. Hanging out with friends and family, focusing on projects, saying yes to almost any call to hang out. But there were times when I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone or felt I couldn’t reach out – or just wouldn’t reach out. It’s in those dark, lonely, bored moments where the strange ideas trickle into your brain and consume your mind. They started out pretty regular. Like, does the dog know that she’s dead? Or, what do I do with her butt-plugs? And, when is it ok to seek out sex in the name of numbing a small portion of the sorrow? These, at least I thought, were fairly regular questions and fixations when one is engulfed with grief. It’s a little while later that they become desperate.
Mona’s friend Chris asked for a little bit of her ashes, before I returned her to nature. He talked about getting them tattooed into him. I hadn’t thought of that before, but I immediately purchased a small cache of mini-urns, to give a few close friends and her family a little bit of her to keep, or spread wherever they wanted.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the tattoo idea. Four days after she died, I got a tattoo of a Satyr and a Dryad dancing on my leg. It was the image that had been on our wedding invitation, an old illustration from the 1920s. We always talked about having that as our couples tattoo. We joked that it was us: her, ever the ethereal and earthen and me, often seeking the sensual and excessive. Initially we wanted a gentleman devil dancing with some sort of sprite or nymph, but that image eluded us. The moment we saw this one, we knew it was perfect.
They never tell you that ashes in an urn are also in a plastic bag. They really never tell you that getting them out of the bag but having them remain in the vessel is a pretty tedious and messy process. Her ash got on the table and all over me. She was fine but gritty and almost had no smell beyond that clean, burnt scent. This was the first time I had tasted my lover since she passed.
I supplied the small group of friends and family with their vials of Mona, for them to do with her what they wanted. I took a small amount and had it added to the ink upon my next tattoo session. I thought that, Amy, one of Mona’s former coworkers, would be slightly resistant to the idea, but they took it in stride and didn’t really even comment on it. The artists at the shop were all going through their own dark nights, and I think they understood this grief in a way that few others could. Mona was their sister. They all said that none of them were each other’s favorite, that they loved each other equally, aside from Mona, who was all of their most favorite. It felt good to bond in pain with them, and to be bonded in blood and cinder to Mona. It felt like I was making it impossible for her to slip away.
Haunted by the knowledge that her being a part of me would force the memories to stay, like a donated organ receiver taking on behaviors and mannerisms of the donor, I desired more of her to unify with me. So I tasted her again, this time on purpose. I licked my finger, dipped it into the ash, and pulled it out. A light grey coating stuck to my skin, clouds of it dusting off as I moved my hand. Lifting it to my mouth, I said a mental prayer to her, asking her to stay with me, to not leave.
The ash was salty from the urn, but also bitter and burnt tasting. It coated my mouth and left me coughing, gasping for a drink. Pouring myself bourbon, I washed it down and let the alcohol numb my parched tongue. I felt awful. How had I landed at this place? Trying to consume a bit of my deceased wife’s ashes in the name of keeping her memory close to me, what the fuck had happened? I spent weeks hating myself, wondering how she would have felt about it. But the honest answer was that she would have thought it was sweet. I know this for a fact.
After we first started dating, just over five years ago, she read a true story about a couple who decided that instead of exchanging rings, they would bite the tip of each other’s ring finger off, at the small knuckle between the bones. She told me about it, not knowing that I too had heard the story and had been fascinated by it for years. Apparently, the
y soaked their fingers in ice for a half-hour and then bit on the count of three. He bit cleanly, but she tore a little of his skin off. Due to this, while the baffled doctors were able to stitch her finger up neatly, he had a little bit of bone that was showing, forever.
When Mona told me this, I told her how sweet I thought it was, but that the one thing they got wrong was spitting the fingers out. It would have been more romantic, to me at least, had they swallowed the bits of finger, as a sort of blasphemous communion. This is my body, broken for you. For you, and you alone. Instead of looking at me like I was crazy, she agreed on the romantic nature of the situation. She thought I would be weirded out by it. I thought she would be weirded out by my reaction. We were both wrong.
After the initial waves of guilt and shame subsided, I kept coming back to this story, to her urn, to her ashes. It was sitting on a shelf in my dining room, awaiting the day that I would finally decide to illegally bury it in the Mississippi River at low tide. I wanted her to be able to make it down to New Orleans, a city that lived in her heart, and then out to the ocean to be one with the whole world. What if I kept a little more of her? Would that be ok? Not just one vial, maybe I’d buy two or three, just to have her around. And I kept waiting. Maybe I didn’t need to bury her at all. Maybe she could stay with me forever. But that made me feel worse. She wanted to return to nature, not be cooped up in our house forever. How much was enough to give to the earth?
More ashes got added to the next session on my tattoo. This time we were doing shading, so I made Amy add a pinch every time they dipped the needle. I think it started to annoy them a little, that extra step and all, but they were gracious about it, as always. We did four hours that session and almost finished it with just background left for another day. My skin was swollen and angry, oozing plasma when there was no more blood to push out. The throbbing sensation reminded me of her, for some reason, like the after effects of primal, passionate sex: out of breath and panting but still rippling with energy. It made me feel closer to her, but with that closeness came the sorrow of her true absence.
