Turmoil

'Might be better than what I can achieve with a goat.' He thought while looking again at the woman.

She had shoulder-length blonde hair, chestnut eyes and long legs, her apron was attached above her hips. The bloody mess on it didn't hinder Oswald's ability to stare at her shapes.

He stayed over two hours at the butcher's shop. He learnt how to properly use a knife and the cutting pattern to avoid spilling the guts. Now that he had a rough idea of how to not ruin a pelt, he wanted to kill anything that supposedly had a great taste. A wild goat from the mountains? A boar from the forest? It did not matter.

He came back from the village with no money, but plenty of projects.

"Why did you come back empty-handed?" Meryl asked while crossing her arms.

"Mother, next week we'll have money. I'm selling most of what I'll hunt, this way we'll have less worries about the herd's newborns' survivability. We'll survive this year, the next and tens more!" He said with a wide smile.

It was this simple. Hunting allowed his family a lifetime worth of comfort. Besides it was no work, Oswald needed to walk few hundred meters around his house to magically start his night hunt and bring back dead animals.

Seeing her tapping her foot, he added. "I met someone." However Meryl was furious.

"Now? For the three years I've tried to find you a proper wife, and you found one yourself now that you are sleepwalking? You must be joking!" Her rejoice was eclipsed by her fears, anguish and stress toyed with her since her youngest age.

"It's okay mom, I barely got her name. She has a job and already two children. I just need to get closer progressively."

"You mean she's married? Oswald you got to be kidding me! You need one younger than you and a robust one that'll work hard! Not one that already has experience in-"

Oswald was frustrated, he cut her short when she tried to oppose his ideas and projects.

"I said. She has two kids. It means she's better at being a mother than you." His tone was stone cold, he realised his mistake too late, tears filled Meryl's eyes, her pursing lips added complexity to her face.

She ran upstairs and locked herself up in the bedroom.

"That's not what I meant! I swear! Forgive me, I know I should've never said that." He ran after her, but when his hand touched the door knob, he had no strength to force his entrance.

Thud.

Both fell to their knees, each on one side of the door.

"You can't say that. You're being unfair." She cried.

"I know. This wasn't me. I didn't mean it. Our luck was terrible. I had a long day, I'm sorry."

She chose to punish him by blocking the door with her weigh, and ignoring him. Her silence shook Oswald deep and the boy flew away from his house.

'I never intended to hurt her feelings. I can't blame her for loosing the most precious things she had. How fool have I've been to blather with such disregard.' He held his hair and pulled hard, the skin on his head moved along his hands, he tried to muffle his growing headache with the one he created.

The veins on his forehead appeared, pumping blood and flooding Oswald's mind with a distant feeling of agony. 'Why did I say that? What if she rejects me? I'm stupid. Stupid!' He believed his mother's wounds were still fresh, and his words added salt to the injury. Because she spent her time taking care of him ever since his father had left home, he felt guilty.

The little contradiction he received from her triggered his inner thoughts. He knew his malicious thoughts by heart, but this time he let few escape.

'How devastating.' Thought his mother, she did everything she could to have her son at the top of her priorities. Nonetheless his bad habits took over his speech and revealed part of his thoughts, she had the right to disagree, but not to stand against all of them.

She mourned only a minute before rushing out to catch back Oswald.

Alas, he was already deep in the forest.

He walked an hour toward the mountain before realising he had left his coat and knife in the living room. There, in the middle of nowhere he sat on a rock and lamented. Surrounded by pine and oak, the sound was far from muffled. The sun was down and the woods came back to life. The nocturnal fauna drastically contrasted from the calm ambience of the day.

When animal traces started to appear one by one, the usual spectacle unfolded anew. The minuscules glowing particles connected each mark to the other and their color variated depending on the shape of the trace, be it a lizard or a mouse.

Even though the trees covered the sky, he still had spaces to check where was the moon. The grand crescent moon seemed to hum each time he stared at it, but the noise kept increasing and corroded his mind. The spectacle he craved for was attacking him.

He fought against himself to stay calm, shoving snow in his mouth to literally cool his body down.

The signals sent by his five senses were overwhelming. Time slowed down while his suffering intensified.

Subconsciously, he wished for his heart to hurt, for the piercing pain to impale his torso and let the other him take over. Yet the headache spread like a wildfire in his spine and to every of his organs. Up to the tip of his fingers, the burning sensation broadened with each beating of his heart.

Oswald felt like he was sinking in the abyss, it was the end of the world to him. His eyes were bloodshot from his herculean struggle.

When he lost hope to receive his divine relief, he stopped suffering in silence and let a deafening shriek shake the woods. It echoed in the intire valley.