> inspired by piano recordings/xylophone played by Huanjian777
it is
like lone church bells tolling the midnight hour,
of every creeping thing slinking through the darkened corridors,
secreted in every slip of shadow,
the moon, the haunting moon fragmented in shards above that nobody has bothered to collect...
because there is no one left-no one left to care in the witching hour,
where most are taken captive by the realm of deep slumber, unwilling to be released,
but some awakened by fitful dreams,
unable to to rest even in the deep of night, tossing in turning in their supposed place of rest.
the Stars glint coldly, colder than a January eve, and the night--the night is alive.
..
Shadowed footsteps echoing through the corridors of a hallowed cathedral, its stained glass cracked and coated with a veneer of dust from neglect.
Every step brings up a plume of said dust, motes scattering akimbo in the stale, recycled air, colder than an evening in December.
The light of the inconstant moon spills into the floor, washing your skin in milky white light, exposing what lies within its previously shadowed alcoves.
The pews have long since been abandoned, but the church organ--or rather, piano--has never stopped since.
Over and over, the same haunting melody, the haunted chords echoing through the empty silence, like a chasm not many would dare traverse.
But here you are, listening, watching the piano's alternating smooth white and black keys be played of their own accord, with no pianist in sight.
You don't dare come closer, for fear of..something happening to you.
The piano is a glossy black, like that of the deepest of inks, or feathers plucked from crows, cruelly and callously, the brand name far too tarnished and chipped off for you to make out from the distance you are from the instrument itself.
It's on the stage in front of you, but you warily wait in front of the pews, as if the pastor or reverend of priest or religious leader of some sort would admonish you for taking a seat at the instrument.
You let out a sigh.
A crisp exhalation of air in the tensed atmosphere, and a dissonant chord is loosed from the piano, a new anomaly breaking through the previously unbroken pattern.
You feel a chill--even colder than you have been before, why hadn't you brought your jacket?--like a thousand ice-cold fingers trailing down your spine, an invasive, crawling feeling, inherently wrong.
And you turn, slowly, surely----behind you there is a girl with eyes the color of winter grass, or rather, the hot chocolate you'd rather be having. Hair in slight waves of charcoal-black, smudging on your fingers and all over your palms, dusty, blurring.
She smiles, and gestures towards the piano, her figure ephemeral-flickering, inconstant, for a moment, and you hesitate, wondering if she is a remnant of someone left behind.
A spirit, a soul.
Against your better instincts, you....a) follow her to the piano bench, or b) ask her her name.
..
b) You ask her for her name, politely, quietly, and a she hands a slip of paper to you she slips in your pocket, as if she wants you read it later, putting a finger to her lips as if telling you a secret.
Then she grabs your hand--colder than ice--and skips along, dragging you over to the piano, and you listen--oh, how she listens.
it sounded so very beautiful, like all the ghosts of the night, whispering, calling, the barest bluest wisps, midnight flames flickering before sputtering out.
extinguished by the barest of breezes, glacial gusts, gone---yet leaving an echo, a remnant of what had been left behind.
silk, like silk smooth on your skin or flowing like water and echoing against the cramped confines of an underground cave, echoing, the steady drip of stalactites a constant metronome against the already damp rock, eroding away until nothing is left.
..
you fall into the inevitable depths of slumber, and when you awake you're in the library records. you check you pocket for a name, and a name it is that you find, in a scrawl of writing in faded pencil.
Astoria Grissom.
What a pretty name for such a pretty face, you think, shaking remembering the sensation of cold fingers against the racing pulse of your wrist.
you skim the shelves by year and alphabetical order, and you finally find the volume you're looking for.
excited for a breakthrough, you skim through the pages to locate the name for looking for to find---
to find that the girl
had passed away...
a hundred years ago.
YOU ARE READING
a litany of ruminations
Поэзия{poetry collection} s c a t t e r e d dreams and drifting thoughts, oh, not everything is what it seems... (not necessarily from my own thoughts)
