A/N: Written for an English class, minimally edited and put up here because I liked it.
As The Willow Weeps
Panic. This is a dream, a nightmare like the ones I had as a child. What would my moth sing? Oh, willow, willow...
The pillow covers my face. I am trapped underneath the very arms I admired, cherished. Do I struggle? My limbs, they twitch, but...
Oh, Othello. My sweet Othello. Had I played you false I would ask – nay, beg! – for a punishment such as this.
I struggle to breathe through the silk. I manage to draw, with difficulty, a few labored breaths. Othello, Othello... oh, willow, willow...
My eyes are not shut; they sting as the cloth rubs against them. Even now, I cannot help but wonder at his strength.
I pray.
Oh, Lord. Have mercy on my soul.
What holds his arms to me, still? He has changed much. What gentle caress becomes a harsh burn, a soft touch o' the lips, a violation of what he already owns... perhaps I have wronged him; I do not know.
What monstrous strength is needed to kill one's own. Unflinchingly, to hold the noose at the neck until all struggles have ceased, the very breath of life stopped... what betrayal.
Emilia, Emilia, you were not wrong. Oh, but Emilia. I cannot believe you were right, that Othello... oh, Othello. Alone he could not have wronged me so.
Now I think. What are the duties of husband to wife? Of wife to husband? Above all else a singular love; this, a fact I know deep in my core. I have been true. I have been true. I have been true.
Unbidden, my father comes to me. Papa! I do not know how I call out, whether I am alive or dead... I feel Othello's grip on my body, and I feel safe. Yet still, I call out to my father. He turns and I see his smile, one that I often missed. He is holding a trinket out to me – what is it? Ah!
It is a handkerchief.
I am young, for I am looking up at him through untied braids. I can no longer feel my Othello's grasp; my mind is not where it should be. The napkin grows before my eyes, simple cotton stretching and turning till't engulfs my father with its girth.
Anxious, I strecth out pudgy fingers. I call out – I do not know what – in pain, in a sudden bone-chilling fear. Suddenly, I see my Othello.
I quickly realize, however, that this is not my Othello, not the one I remember. He holds the napkin firm, in hands I recognize (I trace them softly with my own small counterparts, smiling with nostalgia – had I not held them just so, on the eve of our marriage?), yet his face had a duality that frightens me. He is menacing and foreign, yet I can clearly see the despair in his features. Around his feet lay the coils of a monstrous snake, twining around his ankles. My eyes are fixed on my Othello.
He lets the handkerchief flutter to the ground. I expect him to stretch his arms out and welcome my younger form, but he twists away.
I pray.
Oh, Lord. Have mercy on his soul.
The snake is now coiled around me, as well. I see its vast length, stretching across my field of vision. I cry out as it constricts; I am almost engulfed in its coils. As my vision clouds, I see my mother's face.
Who? Her anguish is blatant. She looks to Othello's convoluted form. Yet she, too, does not condemn him.
I see. Even in my honesty I could not change the tide. I could not save my sweet Othello from the clutches of the monster tracking his movements, striking and latching onto his psyche like a predator to prey. The coils tighten around me, and I let them. My gaze falls slack.
I have failed.