Demise For Two
The dream came. It was of death and smelled of putrid decay. So real, it came to me. I was walking on the dusty path that led to the Usher house, my house. The path was now slick with midnight dew so my steps were cautious. Inside of the gloomy house now I can feel Roderick Usher, my sweet twin. Downstairs he is inside the catacombs. I sense his sorrow. The feeling leaves my eyes sore and my chest pained, as if there is a fist inside squeezing the life from my heart. Roderick is feeling great sorrow.
I make my way down the cement stairs to the catacombs to bring my twin comfort and as I take each step the putrid smell of human spoil gets stronger. Turning a corner I spot Roderick hunched over an open coffin. Rodericks tearing and swelling face looks up in my direction. He senses me, I know it, but strangely he cowers and slams the lid on the coffin closed. I began to realize why his action was so as my eyes flicker open. The inhabitant of the coffin is I!
“Roderick! No! Don’t leave me! Please, don’t leave me here!”
I could hear his crazy screaming sobs and his leaden footsteps pounding as he ran frantically up the cement stairs. How could this be happening! How could I be dead! Why is this happening!
My breathing became raspy because of the small amount of oxygen in the coffin and I began to panic. Clawing and kneeing the lid as hard as I could I began screaming for Roderick again. The coffin began to sway a little bit and an idea came to me. The coffin swayed back and forth until finally it fell to the floor and the lid burst open.
I crawled out noticing my hands were bleeding as well as my knees and face. The aching became a throbbing as I walked toward the cement stairs. And as I made my way through the house and spiraled up the stairs to Rodericks room all pain diminished and I became cold and numb as if my body had died without my hearts permission, but in my chest I did feel a pulse. Of course I am not dead! How could Roderick be living yet I be dead!
When Rodericks eyes lifted to meet mine his frantic screaming sobs began again. Their idiocy made me laugh out loud. What is wrong with him can’t he see I am fine?
“Madeline…” He sobbed drawing out the ‘n’ sound at the end of my name.
I ran over to him and pressed his trembling head to my chest. My twin, he felt the last beat of my heart and so did I when his heart failed to keep a rhythm of its own. And there we fell upon the floor entwined together as we once were in the womb.
Roderick and I were walking hand in hand down the dusty path that led to the Usher House, our house. The path was now slick with midnight dew so our steps were cautious. Inside the house now I felt nothing, so did Roderick as an enormous crack plunged through the center of our house making bits of its brick crumble like cookie crumbs. The two halves that were left separated giving way to show us a beautiful yellow, luminous ball in the sky against the hills. And crumbling, these two halves, the House of Usher fell.
