a resurrection from hiatus!
IT IS A BURNT OFFERING, A FOOD OFFERING, AN AROMA PLEASING TO THE LORD
“What's wrong, Luke? Are you feeling well?”
His mother's cheery voice wafted past him like a breeze, only snapping his attention away from his plate for a moment. Luke’s head dipped in a slight, almost invisible nod. His mother's smile shrunk, growing tightened as she examined the boy, her eyes becoming glossy as she glanced back at her husband.
The silence in the air grew thick and uncomfortable, broken only by the clattering of silverware and the fleshy smack of chewing from the familial actors.
Luke's plate sat untouched. The steam that had caressed the darkened stump of rabbit before him had gone elsewhere, leaving the object of its affection to grow cold under the eye of boyish scrutiny.
He did not know why he despised the meat now, considering how he had aided his father in its capture. Perhaps it was because it looked less beautiful on the porcelain plate, yes, less beautiful and more grotesque.
He poked at the flayed skin with his fork, using its pines to lift up the thing and peer at its underside.
His father set down his water glass with a firm, noticeable thunk.
“Luke.”
The boy's eyes reluctantly traveled up to meet the eyes of his father. He lifted his chin, staring into a face that very nearly mirrored his own- if the eyes were only darker and the face more hardened and shrewd; the hair greying at several intervals.
“What did I tell you about playing with your food, son?”
His father's voice had a smile in it, one that manifested in a strained, snarling kind of smirk.
Luke tapped his knife against the tablecloth.
“It's wasteful.”
His father waited.
“And ungrateful.”
Luke felt a coil of hurt and anger growing tighter in his gut. He was not trying to be wasteful, and he certainly wasn't ungrateful. His father couldn't understand.
He would see only what he wished to see.
“I just don't want it.”
He bleated, looking back down to his plate.
His father’s sardonic smirk birthed a bitter chuckle, and he cut into his meat with more fervor.
His mother swallowed down the last of her water, her dark eyes flicking towards her husband nervously.
“Luther-”
“Oh, never mind him, Rosemary. I'm going to have a talk with him afterwards.”
Discipline was not at the forefront of the woman's worries. Her husband never laid a harsh hand on their children. Still, he was effective, and this disconcerted her more than anything.
SKIN THE BURNT OFFERING AND CUT IT INTO PIECES
“We can't always have what we want, son.”
Luke stood stiffly, glaring up at his father with hatred.
Luther smiled.
His large inky shadow enveloped the dwarfed figure of his son, consuming the boy’s meager shadow and bleeding into the wooden planks of the shed walls.
The shadow flickered out like a dying flame as the man crouched down, getting on eye level with his son. His voice grew soft and probing as he continued on.
“You didn't want to eat your dinner tonight. I'm surprised. We caught it together- and it seemed to me like we were having a good time."
Luke looked down at his toes. His father chucked his chin, pushing it up with a strong hand.
“Come on, son. Why didn't you want to eat your dinner? I just want to know.”
This feigned kindness felt odd. It stank of deception, and Luke felt his nose wrinkle further.
His answer was soon blurted out, leaving all sense of tact behind.
“It was ugly. That's why. It was ugly.”
His father did not let go of his chin. Silence reigned.
“It was ugly.”
He repeated at last, his voice flat and sterile.
The bulky shadow was resurrected as his father drew himself up to his full height. His pale eyes glimmered with malice and a predatory anticipation as he stalked to a far corner of the shed.
Luke remained paralyzed, eyes widening in slow recognition as he espied the alien object that his father dragged from the corner.
“Put your hands in.”
Luther commanded, his voice low and terrible.
The only response was a violent shaking of the head.
Low candlelight gleamed and caught on the flying blonde strands of Luke's hair.
An exasperated hand flew out at last and clutched the face of the boy, stilling it.
“Put your hands in.”
“No. I don't want to. I hate you.”
Luther's hand quivered, tempted to deliver a firm swat to the despicable, defiant face before him.
Instead, the man bit his own lip, and dug his nails further into Luke's skin. A wave of red began to tint his neck and creep into his face.
“Put your hands in, dammit!”
Luke plunged his hands into the grimy white bucket. The foreign curse that escaped his father's lips had frightened him into an early surrender.
Luther's hand faltered, before slithering away from the boy's face, moving to rest on the edge of the bucket.
A squelching noise came from the bucket, thick and viscous, and along with it rose an acrid, ferric scent that stung Luke's nostrils. This bucket was a filthy chalice; little better than being a sepulcher.
Tears beaded in the corners of the boy's eyes. He lifted up a hand to wipe them, out of habit. A reddened, slimy appendage stared back at him, and he instead let his fingers grovel back down into the amalgamation of viscera it had departed from. The mish mash of organs and intestines greeted him with a loud sticky smack.
His father's hands, calloused and sure, joined his in the bloody depths of the container.
“This is what I have to do, son, after you skin them for me.”
He whispered, the hush of his voice cozy and unsettlingly warm.
“But I think you're man enough to really get hands on.”
Luke tried to issue a response, but the only thing that left his lips was a choked whimper.
“None of that.” his father said firmly.
After a while, his own hands withdrew. He wiped them carelessly on the front of his shirt. Red streaks joined the orange and yellow plaid stripes that crisscrossed the pale off-white fabric.
“You can see how silly it is now, can't you?”
He said cheerfully, looking down at his son with triumph.
“It was always ugly. It was ugly before we shot it, it was ugly while I was gutting it, and it was ugly when it reached the plate. Some things in life are like that, son.
Even us.”
Luke remained on the rough wooden floor. Splintery shards pricked at his his knees, but he paid them no mind, his gaze being utterly enraptured by the sight of his bloody hands.
“Son, you know, it didn't have to stay ugly.”
Luke stared up at his father, a silent question in his eyes.
His father's voice took on the paternal twinge that it was supposed to have had.
“If you had just…eaten it, it would've become beautiful again. You know why?”
Luke shook his head. His father strode up to him, one pale red hand burying itself in his soft blonde strands.
“It would have helped you, son,” he said hushedly, as if unveiling some great secret, “helped you to grow big and strong. You don't want to be a little, scrawny boy forever, do you?”
His voice grew biting as he said these last words.
Luke shook his head again.
Luther gave his hair one last ruffle, before heading to the door of the shed. He opened it, staring out into the dark expanse of the woods surrounding them.
A single upstairs window was lit in their house, which stood waiting for them across a sea of feathery grass.
Luther stepped outside.
“You're on gutting duty next time.”