The Debt
Idea 5 from JF Danskin’s April Prompts:
Someone is out of money and assets, and starts to sell or barter their possessions. Any setting — your choice (historical, dark future, etc). What are the last things that this character is unwilling to part with? An heirloom or magic item, perhaps?
The first thing to go was my hair. To tell the truth, I’d been looking for an excuse to let go of it. Long, pale threads that hung off my head like the spindly tendrils of some poison ivy, but less alive. They gave me no more pain than they did pleasure, but to the eyes of the debt collector, they were made of gold.
So I took my shears (the sheep had been long gone, and needed them no longer) and in three fell swoops, my hair fell to the ground by my ankles. The man left, sated for now, but on his sneering lips a reminder that this wouldn’t pay my debt just yet.
I walked along the lake’s edge, its glassy surface still and nostalgic, as I wondered what to do. I thought of the fairy tales, of the witches who would do away with a first born and be done with it all. How simple were those olden days, a baby could be sourced anywhere, but they were more trouble than they were worth. These days a witch would bargain to get rid of one sooner than to acquire it.
Next I lost the food off my plate, the clothes off my back. Soon after that, the light from my eyes. Lanterns in the dark no longer demarcated the corners of my room. I started to shrink, but every evening I walked along the water’s edge. The foam ringed around my feet like anklets, suds like pearls fidgeting between my toes.
He came for those, too.
My beauty lingered past the hair and past the pearls, past the clothes around my skin, silk remained in the form of soft knees and shoulders. Then the sun grew vigilant, and burnt the softness out of me. The debt collector smiled when he came back, to see my beauty peeling off in blisters. He spoke no words, and turned around, satisfied for the day.
The strength bled out of my bones, the air trickled out of my lungs, the hope out of my ears. The last song my mother sang to me was lost among the swill of memories, notes drowned out by wind.
And when I thought I truly had nothing else, he came to stand beside me, and started eyeing up my lake, my sky, my trees. My final respite, and I polluted it with his blood before he could name his next price.
Now I pay a debt of gratitude, and offer the year’s length of my hair to the reeds that clothe me. My poetry feeds the wildflowers that grow over his grave.
He pays his debt to me with his silence.