Reflected sorrows

Chapter 22

Memories echoed painstakingly in her mind as the piano played the first note, her finger placed upon the key and forced down by a voice inside her that knew, seep down, though she couldn't remember, she had danced this waltz before – though every bone trembled as she took the first step into a light that burned ominously like a fleeting candle. They keys held her by the noose and told her lies and truths in the wind that battered the window, and in the terrified notes she let play into the cavernous shell of chaos around her, strings pulling above that held her by the rope she had once loved. They pulled and pushed and saw her whimper, trying to squirm away like a child taking first, fearful steps – the child saw the candle and tried to flail away, but something urged them to go toward the phlegmatic candle – the ashes gathering were hidden, but they moved in the dark, every memory tossed through the cavern of their mind cast into a flame that devoured it. Every note was simply the ash falling beside the raging, seething flame, echoes of a smile that once was. And as soon as the second, tentative step was taken, her hands aching as she tried to resist the chains that claimed her hands for their own, glaring down at her reluctance and lashing her with a cruel whip; the child fell, the next memory burned painful to the mind that wandered, trying to reach that intermittent light, scrambling, but never finding it after every agonising step. They took another moment, and the next ash that fell was decisive and merciless, grinning light flickering hot and tormenting. The rain fell in ashes of memories; of past forgotten and burned at the flame that would never die. A few notes were all, but the child knew that, though it seemed a candle, it was of a wax that never burned through. So, at every moment as the ash fell and the grip on the vessel's hands from the ropes that clung tight and dragged her phlegmatic gaze away from joy tightened, the child simply took surer steps. And every day they saw that light. It was there. They knew it.

She felt the melody burning in her veins, and it called her name. In a child's tongue. She choked out another note – but now the tendrils had claimed her. They had devoured every sense of controls she had ever known. The child who walked now wandered through dark streets with a mind full of those floating ashes, simply melodies of sorrow – they sometimes sought to hold them in a tight, desperate grasp and gaze into the intricate glass of the echo that whispered through the air, carried in the wind. They sometimes stumbled toward the light, seeing its dim flame and wishing that it could just perish, but nothing was gone. So the melody began to diverge and writhe in a cruel vigour that prompted shudders to the mind, shivers down the spine – it was dissonant and merciless, yet melodic and remorseful to the ears at every ash caught in the air by the young, yearning child. Every feather of grief caught and forgotten once again. It was the same unrelenting sound of a dinner bell for beasts. And the thought was snatched away and devoured by the tendrils of flame, making the crimson flame roar in glee – but no one else seemed to hear a thing. No one else knew. The tendrils were the rasping notes that were etched by the slightest feather of ash onto the keys, and the melody began to wither. Rotting like wood still perfect, lest you take away its mask of ancient awe, and leave it to decay and wither in the rain. Dissonance beyond dissonance. Rain still poured against the windows. But surely the flame would never be put out. Surely. She felt the grip loosen, but she could still, out of her throat now bruised by the incessant strings of a puppet, rasp and cough a single note – it was a whisper of rattling, scraping teeth against the cruel rope, freeing her yet trapping her in another cage. The poor child knew the rain would never cease the single, incessant lullaby of ashes of memory falling beside the wax, held in the glassy frame until obscured. And as the last note was drawn out of her jaws, she panted and dragged herself away from the imperturbable chains that held her. But they wouldn't let go. They dug deep ravines into her skin. And as she pulled away, she was thrown onto the floor. Her throat ached. There it was. A path, a light glimmering at the top intermittently before perishing, consumed by darkness.