The Sacrificial Lamb

A flash fiction piece inspired by Viggo Johansen’s Lamb's Head on a Plate (1880)

I wasn’t startled when my mother and father entered the room. The draft that clung to their tattered chore coats crept across our wooden floors with a sullen countenance. Their faces mirrored that breath of cold air, horror tugging at their crows’ feet, digging deeper into those worn lines of worry.

Their hands were bloody—fingerprints smeared across the floral china plate they carried it in on. The plate had been a wedding gift, a family heirloom bestowed upon my mother by her grandmother. They rested it on our weathered wooden table—another family heirloom, this one a gift from my father’s side.

There was a dull thud as they released their grasp from the fine china. My mother stifled a sob with the back of her hand, leaving a speckle of crimson on her pointed nose and upper lip. Red was her colour.

With a sigh, my father turned to look at me. World-weary and tired, time had weighed on him. Working a farm with just one offspring, after having lost so many—both born and unborn—changed a man. But the labour of shepherding had its demands. Being a daughter, the eldest of the lot, did me no favours. I was as useless to him as my mother’s uterus.

But he was looking at me now. Looking at me with those eyes, rimmed red from crying.

I straightened my spine, pulling my shoulders back, and clasping my spotless hands behind me. I did my best to organize my face into a mask of pleasant naivety. I was his daughter, his good little girl.

The lamb deserved it anyway. They all did. Demanding so much, bellowing to their mothers into the wee hours. It was pathetic and time-consuming; there were so many mouths to feed. So many bottles to prepare each night. The farm needed culling. Needed something to bring us all together again. My father had been spending too much time in the meadow with his flock. My mother was too weak-willed to confront him, but I knew. I knew what he was doing. It’s why his seed goes sour inside her. Why I’m the only survivor—well, partly.

My father’s hands shake, his mouth bobbing open like a fish stranded on the rocks. Shock makes a person ugly; it contorts the face, leaving their expression stupefied.

My mother has turned away from me now. Her little bird-boned body shudders with silent sobs. Her hair is in its usual tight, low bun, the streaks of grey winking like tinsel in the late morning sun.

I don’t know if I pity her or hate her. She, of all people, cannot claim innocence. She had to have known what I was doing. She had to have seen. I was her little cuckoo bird. Wasn’t that what she always sang to me as she lulled me to sleep?

They don’t understand the jealousy. The sour, acrid taste it leaves in the back of my mouth—the burn of bile.

I am their firstborn. Their daughter. Their one and only.

My father tries to stutter out my name. Fails. Clears his throat and tries again. It comes out as a barely audible whisper, as a puff of air choked out of empty lungs.

I take a step forward, and he steps back. A giggle escapes my lips. How humorous to see such a large man weary of his own creation. I cover my mouth to stifle any further outbursts before recomposing myself.

My mother’s shoulders stop shaking as she turns to stare at me. There’s a mix of horror and discernment in her eyes.

I move towards the front door, pulling on my chore coat. Twisting the cold doorknob with one hand, I pause for a moment, taking in my mother and father and the shack we call home. Every cuckoo needs its nest. Every god needs a sacrifice.

I call out, “I’ll see you for supper!”

The front door closes with a solemn click.

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Viggo Johansen, Lamb’s Head on a Plate (1880)

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