We put them on the galley and pushed it out to sea. After the sun set we saw no sign of the ship and thought the deed done.

In the morning the galley sat offshore against the wind, becalmed in the shallows. We rowed out, attached, and pulled her into deep water. Small hands waved over the gunwales. We set her adrift, returned to shore, and by midnight she was gone.

In the morning the galley sat offshore, gentled in the rise and fall. We rowed out and bored holes below water line. We didn’t wait and we never returned.

So what did he whisper in the night, sodden with alcohol, distracted by lust? Sweet nothings? A declaration of love? Or was it a statement of intent: grasping panting blood penetration? With you demure and pale beside the vein-ribbed muscles of his thighs. No chance.

But one. One moment to smile, be the coquette, pour more wine. Lips eyes promise passion submission. Finally, ragged breathing as sleep enters the pavilion. And you with your slender blade so skilful. A slit here, a drawing there. Then the maid carries your virtue (and the city) away, a weight in a wicker basket.

She climbs into the car, wasps struggling in her hair. The door closes and she stares ahead at the glovebox. I start the engine. She smells of urine and sweat and I can see the cuts on her hands and wrists. I roll the car forward and soon we are on the highway passing broken rocks and dead trees.

“What is your name?”

She half opens her mouth and a new wasp appears, crawls to the edge of her mouth, and shimmers on her ruby lower lip. The wasp is black and perfect. Blood sings.

He dialed 911, skeleton bones clacking. Waited. Someone answered. He explained where he was and what he needed. The person listened, bored, distracted. They weren’t impressed by his emergency, said a few words, hung up. He tapped at the phone like it were faulty, threw it on the sand. He looked about. Desert and a blue-white sky were the world. Overhead a black speck circled. It was joined. After some minutes they wheeled away. He lay his bones down on the hot ground and exhaled tiredly. Some sand spilled into his empty eye sockets. He considered calling again.

What we planted at the bottom of the garden will rise. And it will not live like living men. It may seem and move and breathe, but inside it will be hollow, an empty vessel filled only with loneliness regret and failed dreams. Having fed dark life into it we will have created a monster, and it will play its part well. Brother friend mentor lover. It will engage anger succor and breathe loamy cold into all it encounters. And at the end of its life we shall mourn, tip it back into earth, and wait for the next Spring.