Risque Alamort

by Vanessa Gugenheimer

TW: Suicide, Death, Grieve

When told to look around one time

You see me there, were once he stood

So shining, glancing at your foot

So beautiful at midnight sky

Tell me ‘yes’ and you’ll be forever mine

I’ll bring you what you desire

Helping your mind to make it quieter

Follow me until the tree line

Once we risk death’s destiny

We never have to grieve again

For we used to always feign

In the eyes of the graveyard’s entity

I was finally here. After years of dreaming of this place, I could finally say that I did it. And yet I felt nothing. I should have been excited, ecstatic, finally seeing the melancholic beauty of this place and appreciating all of these historic buildings. Looking at them with awe. But the only thing I could think of is when the days will finally pass and I can take my bags back with me.

I felt sorry for the person beside me. Someone who told me how beautiful it was here, how we both always dreamed of it. How comfortable the person felt here. I tried to smile at them. Always nodding in agreement. Hiding the exhaustion I felt in my body.

The leaves were falling from the branches. Bright orange and red colours. Rain was dripping lightly from the sky. It was cold and windy, like we imagined it to be. I always thought of this place as something mystic and magical. Maybe I would feel the past slowly haunting me while being here. However, I felt more like my body was crumbling with each step I took.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? My goodness! Look at the monument!”

I looked at it. A grand black statue that reared up in front of me. I saw multiple pictures of it. Always imagining how it would be to stand right here. I could see the sparks in her eyes. I was almost scared she would start tearing from the realisation where she was standing.

“Yes.” I tried to sound as excited as she was. I hope I did.

She was still surveying the monument when my glance wandered off and I got lost in my own mind. I imagined being somewhere else. Being alone with no one around me. I didn’t have to pretend to be happy or that I’m trying to move on. I didn’t have to walk with a mask on my face.

Our room was small and smelled of freshly washed bed linen. We had one window that opened onto a residential area. The buildings were all white, with each door having a different colour. One of them was bright blue. I liked that door. Two pumpkins were laid in front of it, and a branch decorated the porch.

She almost immediately fell asleep. It was a long day, and although I could feel the tiredness overcoming me, I couldn’t shut my brain off. My thoughts have kept me awake before. It was usually for that reason that I didn’t sleep for days. At night, all the thoughts I kept locked in, in a small drawer in my brain, come out. I read, trying to distract my thoughts with other people’s words. Trying to imagine different things. Different worlds. Worlds without me being in them. Though the fear of being in this place makes it worse than ever.

I looked to my right side. She breathes loud and deep. She is fast asleep. I get up and quietly put on my coat and shoes. I wrap my blue scarf tightly around me. I know it will be cold.

The wind blows hard in my face, and I can feel my cheeks getting hot. It’s dark outside. Only two lamplights are illuminating the neighbourhood. It’s quiet. I’m walking down the street. It’s past midnight, but some people still have their lights on. I’m asking myself what they are doing right now. Are they maybe talking to their significant other? Sharing today’s events? Or maybe they are suffering from insomnia like I am right now.

At the intersection, I turn left and walk till I reach a gate in front of me. It’s a graveyard. We wanted to visit the graveyards tomorrow. Or today, later, I guess. It was one of the things we wanted to see here. But it was probably not the one I reached right now. On some other night, I would be scared entering a graveyard at this time, not to speak of being alone at that. But something in me changed. I didn’t care about it. There were some lights on these grounds, casting mysterious shadows of the trees on the ground. The tombstones were big and had all kinds of embellishments. They seemed very rugged and old, not like the smooth, minimalistic ones nowadays. These tombstones all told a story from long ago. I wandered through the graveyard. Sometimes stopping at some tombstones, trying to read whose they belong to. There was one which arose in front of me. It seemed to be one of the biggest ones. Two lights were hanging on each side. On the left and right where two statues without their heads, each standing with one foot on a skull. In the middle, it showed a skull and two heads, shaking their hands in the centre. Above the skull, it read “Risque Alamort”. It sounded like French.

“It says risked death, we all have to risk death every day, don’t we, Adaline?”

The voice I heard came from behind me. A voice I haven’t heard for almost a year. A voice I would always recognise. But I know it couldn’t be true. I can remember seeing his lifeless body. How his heart stopped beating. How his skin got cold.

I could almost hear my own heartbeat. It felt like it would jump out of my breast, and it would still be beating, even faster than before.

I slowly turned around, anticipating something that could never be true.

My eyes filled with tears. If I have ever felt fear before, it has never felt like this. The apparition in front of me looked exactly like him, although my rational part of the brain could not fathom what was happening here.

“N…Nathan?” I stuttered. 

I slowly came closer to him. He looked the same. His dark blonde hair was ruffled and he had the same clothes on that he did that night. His brown trousers and a dark green sweater. The collar of the white shirt he wore underneath stood up. His blue eyes observed me. Like he examined something he had always dreamed of having, but never could. There was a big sadness in them. When I came closer, I could see the wounds on his face. The dirt over his clothes and his ripped trousers. He looked just like he was when I last saw him. Except that he was standing and breathing.

“Hello Adaline”, he said. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Did I look like that when agreeing with Harriett today?

I wrapped my arms around him and swore to myself to never let him go again. Everything I held in for the last months, every tear and emotion, I could finally let go of. I was able to feel and touch him again. To hear his voice. His hand was slowly and steadily caressing my hair.

“But I lost you. Please don’t leave me again,” I was sobbing.

“I won’t ever leave you, Adaline. Just come with me. Will you please come with me? I feel so lonely without you”

His voice was soft, and I could feel his warm breath in my ear. I couldn’t say anything. My Nathan was here with me again. I won’t ever leave you, Adaline was all I could hear and what I was holding on to. I nodded. I wanted to be with him again. This was the only thought I had for the last year. Being near him.

“Yes? You will come with me?” he asked again.

“Yes,” I said.

*

The next morning, Harriett woke up without Adaline beside her. She informed the police about her missing friend. They searched for two days for her. Harriett knew her friend was sad; she had thought maybe this journey would help her. Maybe she would find enjoyment again and see life as she used to, but it was in vain.

For over a year now, Adaline has been in deep sorrow. She used to be someone who always smiled, even when she was sad. She would never admit to you that she felt bad or angry. She tried to make everybody feel welcome and comfortable. Harriett always admired that about her friend. She knew Adaline was never happy at home. She had to keep the peace in her family. Her parents screamed at each other day and night, and her mother always complained to Adaline about her father. But then she met Nathan, and Harriett’s oldest friend, was finally cared for, and truly loved. Adaline didn’t use to talk about Nathan a lot, but Harriett could see how good he was for her. But one unfortunate night, Harriett received the message that Adaline and Nathan had been in an accident and were hospitalised. When she got there, it was announced that Nathan had passed away, while Adaline survived. Harriette knew that her best friend would never be the same again. On the one hand, she was of course glad her friend survived, but on the other hand, she wished she hadn’t, because she knew that she had lost the person she had known before Adaline had met Nathan. She was ashamed of that thought and would never tell anyone.

On the third day, they finally found her dearest friend, Adaline. Her body was found in the woods near the graveyard of their residence. An elderly man was taking a walk through the woods when he noticed something in the distance. Adaline was hanging from a tree. A beige rope around her neck. The police found the phrase “risque alamort” carved into the tree. They found splinters under her nails, which indicated that she must have carved it by herself. They asked Harriett if the phrase meant anything to her, but she had never heard of it before. She told them how sad her friend was, and they immediately dismissed it as suicide. At the station, she overheard some policemen talking about how strange it was that she was found with a smile on her face and her eyes closed, it almost seemed like she was sleeping and dreaming of something nice.

“It’s the phrase from the big tombstone, that creepy one.” One of the police officers whispered, “Something is going on there.”

“What do you mean?” the other one replied.

“There was a similar case, ten years ago, you weren’t here yet. A man lost his wife, and after some time was found at the exact spot hanging from the tree, the same thing carved into it.” He said. “An elderly woman, who visited her son’s grave, saw the man standing in front of the tombstone before. I was the one questioning her back then. She told me that it was rather strange; she could have sworn she heard him laughing, and it looked like he was dancing with someone, even though he wasn’t holding anyone in his arms. Like he was dancing with the air. I told her that people do weird things when grieving, but now I’m not so sure anymore.”