Creatures of Kindness

CHAPTER ONE: WINGS

Beneath the rows of velvet seats and the wooden planks of the stage; beneath the stretch where, nightly, audience members chattered merrily and gasped and laughed and applauded; beneath the places where actors stood waiting for their entrances or delivering their best to the anticipating eyes of the crowd; beneath this brightly-lit world of fantasy layered upon reality, lay a different world.

This place, hung low with heavy wooden beams and columns, was thick with levers and pulleys, ropes, cables, and chains, wheels and platforms, switches and handles. This place was cramped with lumber and tools, stored scenery and props, costumes and makeup, and all the many crates and barrels of all the many magic-making devices theater required. And in this place, along the far brick wall, was a dingy little space dimly lit by a single lamp, the meager glow from a tiny iron stove, and a small, dirty, grated window looking out on the filthy street. An old, stained mattress with a threadbare blanket and sad little pillow lay crumpled lumpily near the corner. Above it was visible a little shelf crammed with books of poetry, beneath which were the necessary artifacts of minimum required hygiene and human upkeep. By the little stove, from a large, rough nail in a broad, wooden beam, hung a long, thick, black, double-breasted greatcoat with a high collar, worn and simple, but serviceable and much treasured by its owner.

He sat in the quiet of the night on a little stool, leaning his back against a column, facing the brick wall. Sighing, he let his eyes go out of focus as they fixed upon the glow of the lamp on the wall. The audience had long since departed, and he had finished all his chores: resetting props and scenery for tomorrow's rehearsals and performances, his portion of cleaning the stage and auditorium, and checking all the lighting and fixtures and mechanical wizardry he operated during the shows. Very distantly, he heard the last of the actors and crew disappear, laughing together, out the backstage door, undoubtedly on their way to their warm, cheerful homes, or out to make merry as they did every night. Without him.

The whole world moved without him.

And he would sit in this solitary silence until the distant sounds of their voices hours later indicated their return as those who resided at the theater headed to their dormitories, high above his shadowy realm, in the upper floors of the building, where the light of the sun would kiss them awake each morning.

They were bright and beautiful creatures, these people who gave life to the theater, and under the leadership of Vincent, who had rescued him, they formed a merry, lively company. It was his great pleasure and torment to watch them from the shadows as they went about their existence, wholly absorbed in their own doings, largely unaware of his yellow eyes following them. It was as if they existed in another world, and he could see them through the veil, himself all but invisible behind it; though it was only through the mighty twist and pull of his muscle and sinew, the quick workings of his agile mind and inhuman body, that the magic of their performance was ever given true life.

Vincent understood and appreciated this, if no one else did, and it was Vincent alone who would sometimes converse with the lonely creature, would sometimes invite him to join in a simple dinner or a drink. And Vincent alone seemed unaffected by the sight of his monstrous, pale, scarred face. True, many of the cast and crew paid him little mind, accustomed as they were to all things bizarre. But many others would simply avert their eyes, avoid his presence. Precious few cared enough to show him anything beyond the most basic civility. Worst, however, were those who looked upon him, even in this place full of oddity and strangeness, with contempt, disgust, even hatred. These, he tried to avoid, but in that tightly-knit world, their interactions were inevitable. Yes, in all the cold world, only Vincent had ever been a glimpse of true warmth.

But it was not Vincent's step on the stair across the basement that he heard that night. Still facing the brick wall, eyes still fixed on the glow of the lamp, he stiffened, his ears perking up as the first sound of soft footfalls reached him. He narrowed his eyes, focusing his entire self on listening.