At the beginning,
in the shadow of his box, he'd stare at her unabashedly as she sang. He'd wonder, very often, if she knew how he'd watch her every performance. How he'd sit still in pure paralysis while the rest of the audience stood and clapped and showed their delight and awe at her singing; how he'd stay still even until the theater is dark and quiet. In his own shadows, he would shamefully relish in her light.
How they must have wept, he'd think of angels and men. How they must have marveled at that voice, like he does. Crystalline, like a prism against the light. She was truly as pure as her voice. He would watch her touch her neck while she sang, almost as if she was in disbelief at the music that she gave voice to. He'd think of his hands against her neck, then. He'd imagine spiders on their soft, white webs when he would give himself the rare moments to imagine his hands on her skin.
He'd disgust himself very often during these moments. He was a husk of a monster, not even a man. He often believed he had ceased to exist-he was a ghost surrounded by ghosts and sinewy, thin shreds of memories. And yet, he had the audacity to love her. He let himself embrace that blinding and most exquisite kind of emotion. Only if it was her.
He sees her in white-in light, in purity, in death. He wonders often why black is the color of death-death is not an endless darkness. The endless darkness is the life he lives beneath stone and wood. White is her-his freedom from all the red ropes, the hanging corpses, the slide of his fingers against a two-way mirror. His death from his darkness was his birth with her light.
At the end,
he thinks of the hem of her dress against his lips; his knees on stone, his shriveled heart at her feet. How they wept! He marveled that he, an abomination of the dark, didn't burn at her white touch. Christine-like the beginning of a prayer, he cried: Christine, Christine! So giving is your heart, yet how selfish is Erik's!
At the end of the world,
all he recalls is a glint of light in the darkness and, like the last note of a song, the quiet sound of her lips against his skin.