Life in Paintings

Chapter 3 - Saturn Devouring His Son

Chapter 3

Saturn Devouring His Son

My hands are still clutching at my throat when I open my eyes again, and they’re not sticky with my blood anymore. I run them over and over the skin of my neck, trying to feel the cut, trying to touch the scar, but there’s nothing there, only smooth skin.

For a second I’m filled with so much joy and so much relief that I can barely breathe.

I’m alive. I’m okay. It wasn’t real.

It isn’t real.

But it’s all dark around me, and it’s all wrong. There is no burning building in front of me, only darkness. And a sound. There’s a sound further away. It seems to echo off invisible walls. I don’t think I’m in a room, but it does feel like I’m trapped in here.

With my fingers still pressed against my neck, I sit up, and I breathe slowly.

That’s when I notice the awful smell. I can’t quite name it because I’ve never smelled anything like it. Well, that’s not quite true. It kind of smells like a morgue.

I don’t like this.

I get up and look around.

“Hello? Anybody here?” I ask faintly.

I’m only answered by the weird sound. It seems to be getting louder. Like some kind of crunching. Like someone is eating a carrot into a microphone.

I take a few tentative steps towards where the sound is coming.

And just like that, a faint light shines on a humongous figure.

There’s a man sitting, completely naked and slowly chewing something. He’s giant and absolutely grotesque. He has white hair and a bear which makes him look like he has a lion’s mane. He seems like a Neanderthal, like he’s un-evolved and out of place.

He just sits there and chews, without a care in the world.

What is this?

I frown and take another step forward but then I stop because the giant moves. His hand reaches towards the darkness, out of the beam that lights him, and when his hand comes back he’s holding a man firmly by his torso, a man probably my size, who is struggling to free himself.

The man screams and scream and screams, but the giant doesn’t seem to care.

“YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS!” the man yells to the giant while the giant lifts him towards his mouth. “NO, NO, FATHER I BEG OF YOU, PLEA—” he doesn’t end his sentence. He can’t because his father tears his head off with his teeth.

I choke on a frightened sob. I’m not crying because I never cry. I didn’t cry when my parents died. I didn’t cry when my grandmother got sick. I never cried while cleaning up Jarvis’ wound he got from one of his father’s daily beatings. I was always strong because that was what I needed to be. This strength is what’s kept me going on.

But for the first time in my life, I feel absolutely powerless and I’m shaking and I can’t feel any of my limbs and I fall on the ground.

What the hell is this? If this is really a painting, then who was gruesome and awful enough to decide to paint such an atrocity?

The giant just keeps chewing away at his son, like some kind of brain dead useless thing, just sitting there, naked and chewing and the blood drips from the body of his son, and the giant, the father, eats him, going for an arm, grabbing the dead torso with both his hands.

I try to crawl away, but I can’t control my arms or legs.

The sound—the sound is so awful. I can hear him crunching the bones and tearing the flesh with his teeth and I feel sick. It’s a kind of frightened sick I’ve never experienced before. I thought it was bad before, with the army of Death, but this is something completely different. It’s everything about it, the darkness and the horrific giant and the dead headless son in his father’s hands.

The giant chews his son’s other arm away and I choke on a frightened scream and automatically I regret not having been able to be stronger because the giant sees me.

I don’t think he noticed me before, too preoccupied with his dinner, but now he does. He’s seen me.

I think I’m going to faint.

I can’t get up on my feet to run. I can just lay there, helpless, while the giant crawls towards me on his hand and knees, tossing the lifeless corpse aside.

He catches me quickly. If things end up the way they did before, I’ll be okay. I try to remember that, but I can barely form any kind of coherent thought while the giant wraps his hand around me, his beard dripping with blood and little pieces of flesh and bones. I can only shout and shout and shout. When he lifts me towards his mouth I find myself pleading god for mercy and I try not to breathe the smell of death from his mouth right before he crushes my skull between his teeth.

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Saturn Devouring His Son by Francisco de Goya