She wept.
On the pulpit steps, she turned her face to the coloured sunshine streaming like hope through the iridescent mosaic window. The vast emptiness of the chapel descents, and draws in tight around her shoulders. There was an ominous moment of d j vu, like that day of her rebirth which she tried so hard, and failed, to discard. A whisper of nostalgia, the voice of those once-loved gently cupped her ears.
She wept. The tears rose up in her like a tide, breaking the frozen mirror of stillness and crashing against her soul. It caught her by surprise, that the long silent years had not bleached her empty, after all.
There was anguish, but it was entwined with ecstasy. They meld into each other in a perfect union of polar opposites, only rivalled by the unsurpassed act of cruel benevolence that she was the sole witness of. The world will weep for its own joy or grief, maybe two souls will weep for his demise, but only she can weep the tears he could not shed. The transcendental aesthetics of this single visionary act is known only by the two of them who have trespassed beyond human existence. The witch and the warlock, he had promised. She do not know whether to call it a promise fulfilled or betrayed.
She held on to that agony, that wonderment, that divinity, and wept for him -- his weary resolve, his translucent gaze, his crisp white shirts, the way he picked up her strewn clothes and pizza boxes by reflex, and the softness of his hair against the crook of her neck. And perhaps, she wept for the bits of human sentiments left in herself.
When she felt his life flicker out, she finally relinquished her battered self to oblivion.
If only the story stopped there, at this perfect climax of a great tragedy. If only.
But it did not, for he was devil incarnate and she should have known better. But she wept her heart out, surrendering herself to the suffocating mourning.
And then she woke, tresses plastered to her face and neck by dried tear, only to sense a new pulse of existence, so similar to her own, slowly gaining strength.
In the length of a short afternoon s nap, she was awash with more emotions, raw and burning, than the past hundreds of years put together. The grief, the incredulity, the elation, and much more than she could name, swarm into a huge whirlpool, and drained to leave a puddle of bitterness.
How absurd to think of it now, that she actually fell for it.
To think that she actually wept for him -- cried like the foolish young girl she almost forgot she had been, acrid tears burning a track down her pretty porcelain cheeks, and her heart crushed in a moment of religious fervour as though she really held it between her clenched hands -- that very thought thrusts a sharp blade of seething vengeance between her ribs, oh her delicate ivory ribs.
Nothing was enough to pacify her; though perhaps pizza for eternity might just be enough. But no, she must not let bygones be bygones, and allow herself be toyed with, not again, and not by him, especially.
She regained herself, composed her face back into the exact image of ethereal temperance, slowed her mind to a pace of nonchalance, and made her way to the inner palace courtyard, where he had indicated that he would prefer to lay after death . Sometime in the long walk between the chapel and her destination, it occurred to her that she alone woke from his grand scam. It salvaged her spirits, lifting them a little above where they had plummeted to.
He was there as expected, amongst a mattress of white roses melting into the white of his robe. They had left him there, wept to their hearts content, and left to pick up a new beginning. She trudged and trampled her way through the petals whiter than virgin snow, and stood beside his chest where vermilion blossomed in stark contrast to white. There was a ghost of a smile at the corner of his lips, and his effeminate eyelashes fluttered in the breeze like the gossamer wings of insects.
She poised for a moment, beholding his angelic tranquillity, then raised the pointed toes of her right boot, and kicked him hard on his side.
Gods be damned, the air is still as death, without even the hint of a breeze.
He yelped louder than needed, curled up and rolled away on his side. She watched in satisfaction as long-fingered hands flew to press against his bruised side and his face contorted in a grimace. After letting lose a string of familiar curse, he turned on his back again, and threw a smouldering glare at her.
She smirked, contemplating another kick, then changed her mind at the last minute, and plopped herself down on him, hard.
And she wept like a child.
.
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Wrote this last year, fresh from the shock of that spectaculous ending. I appologise for another crashing tide of wordiness. I grasp and claw for meanings, only to be left with so many close misses that i can't bear to part with -- thus that convoluted writing.
It is as though I'm slowly groping my way around to get a feel of writing stuff, and after such a long exodus into science on top of that.