The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Drowned Ones Belong to the Earth 
by Alina Măciucă

Their souls flow and cascade with the water, faster or slower

Than their bloated and disgraceful bodies. They caress rocks, and

Moss and tree roots, each soul broken into myriads of pieces

Entwined with bits of other souls: a drunken millman,

A bunch of suicidal young women in their early twenties,

Some kids who went diving in the wrong spots,

Lots of people who were already dead by the time they

Ended up floating down the stream, buffalos, horses, cats and dogs,

And birds and fish pouring into the earth, and blessing

All riches that belong to the Lord of the Underground.

There, in cemeteries, and forests, and under the cities,

They meet the ones that died on land, and even

A few of those that died in the air, resting in caskets,

Or random places meant never to be found,

A good percentage burned and then sprinkled into a crevasse,

And merge into everything that will ever be.

.

Fiction © Copyright Alina Măciucă
Image courtesy of  Pixabay.com

More about Alina Măciucă:

Alina Măciucă enjoys reading, writing, buying odd trinkets, and taking photos of beautifully decaying buildings. She has formally studied religion and hermeneutics at the University of Bucharest, and really has a thing for the Greco-Roman mysteries and Gnosticism, as well as for Renaissance magic. She lives in Bucharest with her very supportive boyfriend, their two cats, and an ever-expanding vinyl and book collection.