Monday, February 15, 2010
Dance IV: The Price of Dreaming
"We who dream, salute you", bows a disfigured creature in the shadows of the external corridor climbing the citadel of night. Two red eyes between massive black scales of an ever-furrowed brow, is all the man could see.
"We who dream, salute you", curtsies a seductive young woman clad in alien black and scarlet clothing, sadness in her eyes.
"We who dream, salute you", a spry, small childlike demon grins.
"We who dream, Captain Leo Leone, salute you", nods a large man, dressed as a barbarian of sorts, with a greatrifle slung behind him. Arms akimbo, he stands before the rest.
The captain strengthens his nerve, always put out of ease from the Dreamers, clicks his boots together, stands tall and adresses them all. "And what are the names of these four?" A sentry in blue steps foward, pointing from a list the creature is named Calus, the woman Leah, the demon Rio, and the man Tintagel.
"Tintagel and Rio, I will have you two take one side, and Leah and Calus, the other. Pitted up against the neutral party tomorrow, the survivors will be granted freedom, I can promise you." With that, he turned on his boot heel, and the four beings were directed by more blue guards back to their chambers.
Dance III: Delerium, the Beautiful
Nothing. The building, the whole building, is nothing but a great shell, with no ceiling but the roof dozens of stories above, the floor nothing but the grass and dirt path continuing, with the occasional dead tree, matching the harsh landscape outside. At first you will notice the remarkable silence, the complete cancelling of the storm outside. At the end of the dirt path inside, leading to the far wall over by the cliff side, is a shack, with a warm lantern glow inside... Strange music fills this air, inside the shell mansion, and a strange fog lifts from the ground, a beautiful, familiar feeling mixed with trepidation and trespassing.
Violin music, a soft sigh... Inside the shack of plank wood, colorful fabrics, and other miscellanious brickabrack, sits a curious creature playing the violin, looking out the window at the edge of God's creation, with waves of oblivion beating against the shore. His face, strangely fabric; his hair, more perfect than a wig. He smiles a kindly smile as his obsidian eyes warmly crinkle in the corners, with all the recognition of some favourite childhood toy.
Gepetto.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Dance II: The Man with the Colored Mirrors
Within the panes of glass, in his mind, there lies a memory of his past, looking through the window at him, from the eyes of another. From the jade pane on his wrist, shows his mother's eyes watching as the small child cries, hurting from a scrape on the knee... From the amber pane on his necklace, the eyes of Rosanna meeting Dmitri for the first time, as he shyly looks towards her, barely making eye contact... You look beautiful, miss-- He looks away hurriedly. More painful, perhaps, from the midnight blue circle on his bangle, again his mothers eyes, as the young man, still the small child in her eyes. Dmitri limps down the hallway on his crutches, finally showing the pain he is in, believing he is unobserved. The bandages and braces from so many wounds, all obtained from playing the hero... he turns around and smiles shily at his mother, looking through the glass right back at Dmitri...
He stops looking through the glass, seeing from the fire orange pane on his strap the view of some dark creature in the shadows, gazing at him this very instant...
Dmirti now stands with his shirt and jacket tied about his waist, his pale skin covered only by the shards of glass he wears underneath. They have given him warning he is being watched. Continuing towards the darkest regions of the town, he continues to keep watch for any sign of whatever is calling him forth, while the city sleeps endlessly.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Dance I: Eunuch Holiday
Half mad by now, Dmitri continues his nightly wanderings, never ceasing.
For upon half the year Conrequiat will bask in endless night, an half the year endless day.
The waking shift has come to a hault, and the dreaming shift had begun. When the city slept, it was dangerous to go outside. Things are changing.
The androgenous eunuch monks begin to pour from the temples, in their blackeded robes, by the hundreds and wander the white maze of midnight in perfect silence, to keep the people indoors, and the demons of nightmares out of doors.
Things are changing indeed.
Monday, January 4, 2010
CONCERTO OF ONE HUNDRED DANCES
You're playing with fire! You're going to be singed! Life is too beautiful a thing to let go unspoiled so indulge in our show!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Plays With Matches (The Duelists)
The Duelists
A last dance
One last goodbye to the lover, one final kiss
And the piano and the saxophone lament goodbye
The people file out into the wet neon city
A wave farewell
The cab drives off through the yellow street lights
You slosh through the puddles, coat pulled tight
The chill augments as a red siren goes by
A phone call
“Hello?” As he speaks, silence; your voice would tremble
From all the hatred, all the sibling-akin love long ago
The time has come, you feel your firearms fastened close
A final walk
Screaming, crying, arguing, moaning sounds
The city’s life-blood is the people inside of it
You are but a virus in floating through the vein
A cemetery
Your final journey through a dewy night graveyard; you think
For every soul who dies a new one takes up arms
You suppose another soldier will be born in the morning
A stranger
A familiar silhouette blots out the lights of a bar
On the sidewalk you finally stop under a light
No traffic disturbs the stillness
A reuniting
It’s been a while I know You haven’t changed You have
How’s life been I missed you Me too Some things never change
I hate to do this We have no choice Let’s finish this
A showdown
The click-click BANG zoom BANG BANG
BANG BMM BANG -thud- -thud- -kack- thud-
Tck-tck-tck -thud- shatter…
A new morning
One pair of eyes close and the red turns to grey
One grins like a devil, one rests like an angel
One new soul is born into the world to take their place
A lesson
The survivor doesn’t matter, whichever one, be it him or you
They stand tall in the morning by shattered glass and blood
Over their enemy the duelist can still find no solace or peace
Saturday, December 12, 2009
OVERTURE to Nocturn, Second Movement (Part Ten)
For the first time perhaps ever, he realizes, a fool contemplates destiny, standing in the sun upon a boulder in the shade of a canyon. For the first time perhaps ever, a fool is solumn.
Friend continues to walk through the desert and stare at the grooves in the sand. A fool no more.
---
Days later he happens to catch up to a wandering soldier, the puppeteer of the strange men. He wears the beginnings of a white beard, and his dust-filmed uniform's coat is slung over his shoulder as he marches onward.
"Where are you going to, might I ask?" Friend asks as he tugs on the man's belt line.
"To a perfect world... wherever it may be." His eyes are shut.
"A strange way to get there, might I say."
The man kneels down, opens his eyes and looks up at the humanoid's face: "I can take myself to any world, all I need to do is but imagine... but I may only go to one more place... and they I may never, ever go anywhere again. My travels will be over."
He stands up, and nobly looks down at the creature. "I remember you. You seemed a loyal thing. You may... come with me."
Charlemagne is worried, truth be told. For the first time he is depending on the company of another for protection. All his powers are spent, all but two. The rest he has lent to soldiers on the field of battle, in return for their autonomy, their souls, while the others have been wasted away. His gifts are no more. He has one shot to imagine himself into paradise, and to decide what that paradice is. The final gift? Nobody may know for certain.
