The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Marimba’s Song
by Amanda Worthington

Marimba rises at dawn

Ties another rod into her elaborate bun

Regards the corpse at her feet

With a mixture of awe and defeat

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This curse has lain waste to nearly a dozen;

Fierce men conditioned by the hunt

And she bears the weight of them

Carries the lingering scent of their want

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Her burden is eased only by the song that emanates when the bars are struck;

Each sweet note plucked from their pain transformed

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The men grow cold as swarms of maggots feed

But who holds the mallet? Who makes them bleed?

Is she musician or instrument? Commander or mouthpiece?

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She who refused to serve,

Preferred a curse to a curtsy

Sacrificed lasting love

For these spider dreams

Webwork rife with Anansi’s schemes

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And what does it mean that she seeks the melody

Even as they crawl in the dirt like beasts

Begs the wind to rise up on its invisible wings

Even as they call out with their dying breath

Even as they fall upon their knees

Entreating reprieve from their agony

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Yes, even then something conjures the song

Vibrations echo through her immortal being

And she knows that it could not be this way

If she were not gourd-empty

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She is a vessel waiting to be filled

By the will of something more powerful

Than the whimsy of men with their flimsy spears

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That night Marimba dreams of the mallet

And the hand that wields it, how she fears it!

It is rich chocolate

A velvet whisper of movement, panther-swift

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The gold bangles adorning those wrists!

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She wakes with the silken strands of the weaver

Still drifting behind her eyes

So much dust caught in a sunbeam

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She turns to a more comfortable position

Catches her breath and then nearly screams

With all of the strength she’s got left

For she hears the jangle of fine jewelry

She knows she’s removed, set in its tray

Golden with turquoise inlaid

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Marimba shivers then, smiles reluctantly

Caresses the bright gem

Marvels at the interplay of the blue and the green

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And as the dawn sun breaks her reverie,

She rises again and she begins to sing.

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Fiction © Copyright Amanda Worthington.
Image courtesy of Pixabay

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