Darl

(I thought it would be interesting to write the next chapter in As I lay Dying. I have found it challenging to write from Darl’s perspective, and so I did not even try to write in his vernacular dialect. I think Darl is the most intelligent and sympathetic person in the story and his ability to understand different perspectives allowed him be closer to the people around him.)

     Now that I am dead, I have come to the realization that my mother died long before Cash began to build her coffin. I am dead like my mother, and my own family made me this way. My head is frustrated and confused, but I forgive them for what they did. It hurt the most to discover that Cash was in on my demise. But I forgive him, he said “sometimes I aint so sho who’s got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint…one  of us had to do something.” I was just putting everyone out of their misery, especially the people who were lending us their tools and things. My mother’s wish didn’t need to be carried out because she couldn’t feel anymore. I wonder what killed my mother. Maybe my mother died when she left Jefferson, kind of how Vardaman’s fish died. Or perhaps my mother obtained my father’s empty heart from being around him so much. My father has moved on with his life. And the Bundren life won’t change much until Dewey Dell’s surprise arrives.

      I suppose this is how my mother felt when she died. The only difference being that I don’t have anyone with me to avenge. My mother only communicated through words with Jewel. She couldn’t even communicate with her husband, my father couldn’t feel her revenge. It’s funny how my mother’s plans for revenge, just allowed my father to buy new teeth and pick up a new wife. I think everyone but my father suffered on our trip to Jefferson. But my mother was right when she said “sin and love and fear are just sounds that people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words.” Words don’t mean anything until there is some kind of action to move them. But I still hope that Dewey Dell stops worrying so she can feel love. Maybe Cash’s leg will heal properly so he can make some money for the new baby. Vardaman’s mother will always be a fish and Jewel’s mother will always be a horse. And so it’s like I said, “It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That’s how the world is going to end.”