Orpheus Descending
If Ronnie had been allowed to keep her baby she likes to hope that she could have been a good mother. Away from her father's manipulation and her own self doubt, that tells her she would destroy the tiny life she had somehow, miraculously created just like she destroys everything close to her, she likes to dream about the banal day to day life of a new mum and her beautiful child.
She would tell her daughter stories, when her daughter was a little older it would become a bedtime ritual. Ronnie missed the stories her own mother used to tell her when she finds herself lying wide awake in the dead of night missing the woman who had not cared enough to stay.
Her mother had so many stories, so many foolish stories with princesses and happy endings. If she ever found herself face to face with her mum again she hopes that she can tell her about how much she ached when she learnt her daughter had died (the first time when her father had lied) and that fairy tales were not real. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, as if nothing important or interesting happened here and now.
Green light catches in dark glass as she swallows, liquor sweet and burning. The last empty bottle slips from her fingers: at this height she'll never hear it hit the ground (And maybe it was drunken wisdom that gave her the idea in the first place. Drinking while balance on some nondescript block of flats roof makes everything small and grand all at the same time) In a land far away, a man lost a lover, and refused to let her go.
It had been a story her mother had told only once. One she had read in a book. She had stopped reading when her husband mocked her for considering anything slightly intellectual. Like always her mother did not say a word, she simply smiled sadly and put the book carefully back into its place on a shelf to gather dust.
Wind breathes strong and cold against her face, carrying the smell of primitive industrial smog. Not just any man, but a singer and a poet, whose voice could move the very stones to weep. Eyes half closed, she can see her mother's lips quirk, amusement at her captivated young audience.
He refused to let her go, travelled alone to the Underworld, to the land of the dead, to find her. Her mother had shaken her head at her daughter's wide eyes, waved a hand before she could start asking questions.
A three-headed monster guarded the gates of the Underworld. The poet sang to it and it slept, and he passed through unharmed. She remembers her mother singing, tuneless but joyful, nonsense syllables loud enough to wake little Roxy from a sound slumber.
He wandered the halls of the dead, calling for his love, singing her beauty, her strength. He played his lyre and the darkness lifted, hope returning to the damned. And the king of the dead pitied him.
The guardian of this underworld has only one head. He was human, and twisted everything she had ever believed into a suffocating mess she does not think she will ever escape. She loathed the way his voice tore at her insides. But she could not even keep the man she loved let alone save her baby. She had no music for her child (Amy/Danielle, it does not matter the child is hers), no words of beauty or strength. A child's story and a fool's hope - how could the greatest poet sing, his throat closed with tears?
Lights flicker through grey night below her, cold and remote, vanishing in endless twilight.
She made me better. Futile words in a halting, broken voice.
Four words to encompass so much, but these were all that she could find. She has words to build a wall, to isolate herself, hide this weakness of emotion. She has words like acid, twisting like a barbed knife, words to tear a man open and leave him bleeding on his knees.
She has no words to describe Danielle.
Lead her back into the light, the King said. As if it would be that easy. Running lights glitter in the depths, far and cold as stars in space.
Lead her to the light, and she will follow. But it could never be that easy. The sun is rising, glowing orange through the smog, but dawn here brings no warmth.
Do not look back, the King said. A moment's hesitation, and all will be lost. But he was afraid, and he could not hear her footsteps behind him. He turned to look for her, saw her falling back, through a long and twisting tunnel. So close ... and then to lose it all in an instant.
You lose them ... everything ... instantly. And suddenly nothing can replace them.
Silly stories from a strange ancient world, and she cannot bear to think that she could ever have hope again. There is no one standing behind her, and the voice she hears is only in her head. She cannot handle the false hope. The door slams shut behind her, and she does not look back.
But no one follows.