Phantom Knitting Needles

by silver.tongued.serpent

Ernest Defarge reflects on the passing of his wife and his emotions regarding the matter. If he never loved her then he shouldn't hear her phantom knitting needles clicking in the middle of the night... Monsieur Defarge One-Shot

I never thought I would have to miss my wife.

I always imagined that I would perish first, noose tight around my neck, calls of treason clogging my ears, legs flailing as I attempted to draw in a last stuttered gasp of air. But that was before the revolution. Before my wife put down her knitting and I saw the fire of righteous fury that had always burned within her roar to life with a cry of triumph. It took her over, that fire, controlled her every thought and action, burned her humanity to ashes. I would not have thought there would be anything to burn in her but there was, I suppose there always is.

I didn't particularly like my wife; I didn't hate her, but what I felt for her was not love. I go to visit her grave once a month- it's become a ritual of some sorts. I'll sit in the stubbled grass by the marking stone she demanded and we talk. I tell her how The Vengeance has wrested control of the revolution, snatched it up the minute she realized my wife was gone. I tell her how I'm not sure that I even mind because it's almost nice to be powerless, almost nice to not have to worry about how many traitors to the Republic there were yesterday, there are today, there will be tomorrow; they can be just heads to me now. I tell her that I don't know what I'm doing, talking to the rotting corpse of a person I didn't love.

I enjoy the visits because it is the one day out of the month where I don't have to think about Jaques 3 hanging over my shoulder, his sour breath having become a familiar presence, his beady eyes following my every move, waiting for me to slip and fall to my knees in front of the Guillotine. It is the day where I don't think on the Manettes, if the child understands what I did to her family, if Lucie is happy, if they even escaped. For four months I watched every day for a head with blue eyes and blond hair; but every day there were 61, 62, 63 heads all into the basket and none of them blond. Because of this I am almost glad my wife is dead; she would not have been content until all three heads of the Evremonde family were lined up on pikes, hair shimmering in the sunlight until it fell out in bloody clumps.

My wife was not a normal woman, more interested in revenge than romance, but, she was my wife.