Willow Locke - Anarchist Detective

Melpomene

She stumbled on the street and clung to the brick. The night was growing cold and she had no coat—she shivered. She tripped over the toes of her fine black boots and fell into the alley, landing heavily into a pile of garbage—the rats fled in every direction. Her hair was matted with some paste and blood dripped in her eyes. She wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her torn dress, smearing red over the pattern of little blue flowers—what were they called?
The girl couldn't control her laughter. She knew that there was something she was supposed to do, but the laughter forced it from her mind. If only she had written it down—was there a list? She brushed her hands along her hips to feel for the pockets in her dress, but there were none. She was searching for someone—someone so familiar—like another self, but smaller, sharper, cold blue eyes. A poor likeness. Who was it?
Debris fell from the sky. Little cubic wooden fragments clattered down into the alley and burst into flame as they struck the street. The flames were little candles, illuminating the mounds of garbage. She heard an immense creaking sound and threw her head back to look up at the oblong rectangle of effulgent stars framed between the buildings.
The Mal'akh—the angel's—wooden wing stretched out, bisecting the starry geometry, obliviating the little patch of sparkling night. She looked up through the shower of debris to see the angel's face come slowly into view. The angel held a brass arrow to her wooden breast and scraped deep furrows over her heart with the bladed head, prying more wooden pieces free. A massive subsonic tremor shook the cobblestones—its voice. Her terror consumed her, hollowed her out, left her receptive to the cataclysm washing over her. She looked up, awestruck. Seismic waves shook the buildings—it spoke—indecipherable streams of pure force. Trash cascaded down. She began to understand it—the quaking in her chest. The rhythmic tremor somehow coalesced into words.

"Little child lost, whom do you seek?"

"I don't—I don't know," she answered "I can't remember." She was overtaken by laughter again. It was absurd to be sitting here in the garbage pile, when there was so much she had to do, so much still undone. If only she could remember her appointments. The Mal'akh stretched its wings and another hailstorm of wooden fragments fell to the street and ignited.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, her hands folded in supplication.

The tremor began again.

"I am Melpomene. Once I was the Muse of Song,
the most revered of my family of nine.
But I was changed. I am destruction incarnate. I am Tragedy. My song has only become more beautiful."

She stretched out her arms, holding the brass arrow to flash against the sky, and began to sing. There were no words. There was no sound. The music had no discernable structure. It was a an unearthly polyphony. It seemed to the girl that it was composed of thousands of voices, their resonance multiplying, exponentially increasing until it shook solid matter into instability. She wasn't hearing the music, she was feeling it with every particle of her body. Her spirit was a multi-faceted jewel, she felt all of her emotions glimmering within the framework of one crystalline structure. Her anxiety became joy. Her happiness became fear. She felt transparent—permeable. She was made of glass. Her spirit ascended to merge with Melpomene's song. Her vision blurred and the bricks began to disassemble and move, tearing loose from the buildings. The cobbles vibrated and shattered—the fragments ground themselves to particles. She lost her balance and fell sprawling. The garbage levitated in the air, rectangular leaves of newsprint shredding themselves. Steady flames burned from the wooden pieces Melpomene had shed. They was a field of miniature fallen stars in the alleyway.

Then it ended. As the world began to coalesce and reform, a bright spark of clarity glimmered in her mind. She traced a thread of distinct memory—a sharp, taut wire—a catgut harp string. She felt it in her fingertips—the touch of a man's hand, a stolen kiss, an indigo flower crushed beneath the heel of a fine leather shoe. Who was it? What had happened? She had seen Melpomene before, but where? Suddenly the image stabilized, and she knew.

"The theatre—you were in the theatre—why did you leave?" she was weeping without knowing why. "You shouldn't have left. You're out of bounds. You're ruining everything."

Melpomene's voice boomed through the alley. Wooden fragments fell from her face and hair as she spoke, leaving square gaps.

"I had to leave, I am falling apart. The glue is dissolving. My sister Thalia knows how to make glue. She is Comedy—she is Joy. You saw her at the theatre. I was with her then. She held on to me. She held me together. I need to find my sister Thalia. She makes the glue!"

Melpomene's voice was a concussive subsonic basso roar. The girl futilely covered her ears. She could feel the words resonating in her very bones. Her chest was a drum that reverberated the terrible sound. The torrent of wooden fragments rebounded chaotically off the walls—a tempest of broken pieces. She covered her head with her hands—felt the thick matted surface. Was she wearing a hat? None of the fragments struck her arms, though they were flying thick through the air. The alley was carpeted in flame. There were thousands of the little burning wooden blocks, each with its own blue light. She worried that the trash would catch fire. She worried that the rats would be burned—she reached for one that darted towards the fire—but it scurried through it unharmed—a fireproof rat.
The roar ceased suddenly and the clattering torrent subsided. She looked up again at the rectangle of night sky between the buildings. It was empty. Melpomene was gone. She had fallen apart completely. The girl saw only the whirling stars above—singing in the infinite void.