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Cain has the dream often, even now, amongst the starless skies of Hell.
He has the dream that he is standing in a field. A hot, hot field with the air steaming and flowing like water, no clouds rolling over distant mountains, the red sun beating down like a drum upon the plentiful earth. Mosquitoes buz in the air. Worms churn underfoot, the river gurgles too distant to hear, where their mother gathers water to boil. Late spring crop gathering season.
Cain dreams, as he lies restless in bed, about the grass that went all the way up to his adolescent knees, and about how he would stand in the middle of that circle field, as if in the middle of madness, waiting for someone, always waiting. He dreams he can see the other walking towards him, that he screams at him to leave, screams until his voice pools out of his throat like red ribbons on the Earth, but the figure comes slow, as if through molasses, as if it is walking backwards away from him. That he is both in front of Cain and far away, over some distant Garden, that he is both standing right in front of Cain, (shorter, still hints of boyishness, so soft as if smushed, as if sheepish), and lying red underneath him, seeping out into the soil. He does not see his brother's face. He only sees his fragile skull peeling away from sinless grey matter of the brain.
He wakes up, burning arctic fire all over his body.
Sits up, coughs, rubs his eyes- goes to the kitchen, glass, hand, takes a sip of the dubious tap water, shaking. Stares out of his tiny grimy window at the rocky sky. Goes back to his room, stands at the edge of the bed, staring at Awan. Eventually his body overtakes him and he gets in next to her, curls up as small as he can, and tries not to breathe too loud.
The field. The hot air brushing across his face, the midday sun burning down on the top of his head. His brother looking up at him, large eyes shining gold like barley seeds, hair like sprouts of thin wool, like their father's.
"Qayin!"
He smiles, each tooth like a bright, shiny seashell underwater. Abel smiles, and the scalding wind blows through his hair, and behind him, their Father stands at the edge of the woods, readying his hunting bow.
"Aren't you coming with?"
The vultures circle overhead. Their father stares back at him, the serpent child, with black eyes that overtake his face and bleed down his cheeks and jaw, and get matted in his stubble.
"No." Cain forces himself to smile back even though his lips hurt. His hand on his brother's head, ruffling so gently the exact spot he would bash in with a rock not two weeks later. "Don't worry about me, šeš-tur. I will stay back and help mother cook."
"Oh. Alright!"
And then he floats away into the watercolor background like a specter, both up onto the slicing white of the sky and down into the Earth, wavering in the hot air and the moisture evaporating on Cain's cheeks, He turns back and raises his freckled hand.
"I love you!"
Cain stares, and shakes, and stares and shakes. The trees have begun to bleed.
"I love you t-"
He wakes again.
This time water does not subdue the sick. He stumbles out of the room, gasping for breath, bile rising up his throat and he can't-
He throws open the bathroom door, collapses in front of the lavatory and throws up, throws up everything he ate the night before, all the meat and butchery, the only thing his body knows now. He watches bile disappear down the drain, and wonders if God might let him drown this time, if he tried, or if his curse will prevent him. He decides against wasting the water.
Collapses on the rug of his bathroom, staring at the wall. Many cracks in it. Cracks in plaster, like in a skull.
His eyes drift close.
Field. Air. Heat. Pressure. Bugs, flying everywhere around his face, sensing rot. Blood in the air. Blood on the ground, seeping into the roots, and on Cain's hands.
Abel, right in front of him, so painfully small. Abel, smiling, the worms burrowing out of his lips and maggots laying on his eyes. Abel, in the Earth, in the red Earth, the coloring of an evening tide, the color of Cain's hands. And Cain cries, and cries, and tries to shake his brother awake again, as if from a fever, but nothing can change death, nothing, not even the death of the murderer, not even the fact he killed both of them with one swing, like two canaries.
Cain holds his baby brother in his arms, and kisses his ruined head over and over again, as he hears his mother scream behind him.