Jocasta, Away in the Night
by D.H. Lane
Content Warnings: Mentions of Self-Mutilation, Death
For the brainsick wench, the dishonored former Queen of Thebes, twice-failed wife with three departed children to show for her efforts, there was no solace that came easily. For the version of herself that went through with her emotional, stricken impulses, there is no life either. Having refused to give in to the easiest option, Jocasta had watched, utterly terrified, as her husband and son—damned either way—plucked out his eyes and fled, blood on his face. On his hands—certainly under his nails—the fine point of his elbows, his tunic. Her eyes, very much still in her skull and perhaps too much so, rake the floor, littered with drops of blood.
She did what she knew, what came naturally. Jocasta wet a cloth in water from a nearby situla and scraped at the floor until it was impossible to fathom what had happened here. A woman was trained to look upon disaster with optimism and promptly fix it. A queen was trained to take it all in stride and step over it with graceful feet, leaving no evidence there was ever a mistake in the first place. No. She had not managed this art without coming away with shards in the soles of her feet.
And perhaps in accordance with her family line, she ran. In no less than an hour, she was a great distance from the room in which everything had occurred. Where she had started, oblivious, and ended, painfully aware. There weren’t buildings anymore so much as stars and the occasional, spiteful tree. Alongside her, in foggy tendrils and cold spots, was her Oedipus, shaped like his father but much more gentle. His eyes were vivid in the aftertaste of her memory, though now they were surely unseeing. She could never quite get past the depth of worry in them; age, like he had lived other lives that all ended in tragedy. It had been a long time, but he did not look nearly as burdened as a small child. There was Laius, the father in question, stern, stony, grave. A neat culmination of order and perseverance she found to be suitably attractive. On her other side was Antigone, hand wrapped in that of Polynices. She loved him, she really truly did. Jocasta would always be sorry that she was only ever allowed to show it by dying. Both of their bodies were caked with dirt. Polynices looked sad, but not sorry. Her outcast would blanch upon seeing her now, in the same state of infamy as he was before his untimely death. Eteocles trailed behind them, similarly unkempt and serious. He was the most like Laius, Jocasta thought. Ismene, she privately considered, was the most like herself. She hoped that dark-haired daughter of hers with too much love and care for her own good would remain safe. She did not believe they would ever cross paths again. Jocasta regards the ghosts with a sorrowful, but no less attentive, prideful eye. Her capacity to love them would never end, but her capacity to tolerate the grief they had created would stop here.
In the landscape behind her eyes, she traced a hand over each of their foreheads, regretfully leaving a kiss there with lips that had forgotten their skin. At the press of her mouth, they were gone. She gazed at the insistent sparkle the stars blinked down at her with and sent a prayer to the Gods that they would be received without derision and instead with understanding. Being a daughter, mother, wife, and queen, she had fought many battles. She would forfeit now, her surrender being not a surrender at all but a win for the only participant she could trust: herself.
Jocasta sank to her knees and felt grains of sand, infinitesimal stones, pick at the fabric of her dress. She shoved at her sadness with hands that were less womanly and more unceremonious. Next, she shoved at her dress until it was in shreds and allowed for the evening winds to cool her skin. The moon above ceded judgment. Faces far removed, she did feel hands grace the newly exposed skin. A fingertip under her left rib, a knuckle along one of her calves, a hand steady under her chin, and an insistent kiss upon her forehead. Perhaps, she thought, they wished her a goodbye as well.
A wife in pieces, she expertly weaved the reanimated remains of her dress into a flexible garment that allowed her the degree of modesty and agility that she preferred. Jocasta, with only the company of fragmentary recollections of family, the undemeaning night, and the merciful breeze, breathed for the first time in her life. When she exhaled, she released the years rubbing against her bones and pulling her taut and towards the ground. Jocasta breathed in the night, breathed out a new beginning. Under the moon, all pretenses of the past could be buried and left behind.
There would be no children, no husbands, no death. She would venture to the civilizations she knew well were just south of here and make a home again without any curses at her back. It was within her power as a seasoned mother to reject nuisances, and from now on Jocasta indulgently decided that any problems that would arise from the Gods were burdens for others to bear. She had undergone more than her fair share of cutting-edge cruelty from the divine and come tomorrow, would cherish nothing more than a handful of olives and a harmless touch.
D.H. Lane (he/she) is a linguistics and creative writing undergrad at Syracuse University who is working on her debut novella. You can find his works at Beloved Zine, DOG TEETH, Spires, Bullshit Lit, swim press, BRAWL, and on Substack at delightfullyunhinged.substack.com. She can be found at (twt) @schrdingersdyke (or insta) @del.pdf.