"To die, to sleep, to sleep perchance to dream
And in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?"
"Dream on!"
"I don't, my body doesn't require sleep"
Lies, like so much of his life had been. Once he could manage without sleeping for weeks, even months, at a time - anyone could with practise - but that had been before the weight of so many years had driven him back to the only touch of mortality that remained to him. Pain was nothing after so many seamlessly healed injuries, illness never touched him, food and drink were nothing like necessities, but sleep he had come to depend upon. A few hours each afternoon to leave the night free for the prowling, cradled safely in the arms of the only comfort which remained to him.
Perhaps it was true, that his immortal body did not need rest, it certainly required neither fuel nor care, but his mind needed it, craved the oblivion of it. Many years ago, consorting as was then his interest with a troupe of Parisian performers, he had sat late into the night with their leader. He was, it had seemed, even younger than Dorian himself, with curls of auburn framing a porcelain pale face, and he had told him in a hushed whisper how few men have the stamina for immortality, how it eats at the mind little by little, erroding what was once beautiful into a twisted parody of itself. Dorian had left Paris only hours later by the next coach, the intense blue eyes of the boy still boring into what lay behind the mask of unchangeable youth. He had told himself it was boredom with the decadent Parisian life which made him leave with such haste, but the mocking sneer on the lips of what lay screened in his locked attic whispered the truth. It was fear that drove him back to England - fear that he himself did not have the stamina. It was after that night, when he lay curled in the best cabin of a ship tormented by storms, the clouded haze of a large dose of morphine closing his world-weary eyes for him, that the first of the dreams had come.
That locked attic concealed far more than even the ill-fated artisan of his fate had seen. Aside from the screened monstrosity, it teemed with ghosts, the lingering threads of unhappy hours and days bent over heavy books. It was to that room he had been transported, helpless to resist the hand of Morpheus that drew him through the door, that rooted him to the spot as he watched the scene acted before him.
A small boy, perhaps ten years old, with waves of unruly dark chestnut hair that resisted the best efforts of any comb, sat at the high desk in a shaft of dusty sunlight. His feet did not touch the floor, and swung slowly under the chair. A French grammar lay open on the desk, hard lessons - too hard for a boy his age, especially a slow, dreamy boy who had no interest in his studies. A hard voice through the open door before it is filled with the hideous, hulking form of his grandfather, guardian to the orphaned young creature. The boy's small shoulders hunch in fear;
"Well?"
A single word is enough - both to interrogate and to wound,
"It's too difficult, Sir"
"Stupid creature, you mean you still have not learned your exercise?"
"I've tried!" he knows what is next, "Really I have, but it's too difficult!"
"Then you will stay here until you *have* learned it, and -"
"But -"
"Don't ever interrupt me, you miserable little thing! You will learn your lesson, and you will have nothing to eat until you are done, do I make myself clear?"
A reply would have been pointless, a nod will have to suffice. Better not to let the cruel Lord who has charge of him hear the sobs that choke in his throat. Better not to let him see that the large, dark eyes are bright with tears. Better to appear sullen and insolent than to let anyone ever see how deeply he can be cut. His head aches from the nonsense on the page before him, sick with a hunger that results from not being allowed food since yesterday's supper, punishment for his plodding pace of learning. Better to wait until the door has been slammed and locked before he allows the tears that cut hot rivers down his pallid skin to fall onto the page.
He had woken with the first tears in more than a decade burning at his eyes, shaking off the stupor of the drug with a shudder as he curled further under the blankets. The pitching of the boat, the memory of that childhood hunger his grandfather had inflicted, and the remenants of far too much morphine after far too much wine had conspired to make him retch violently, sick to his stomach with what still lingered after so long trying to obliterate the past. He had thought time would kill what had been, a lethal cocktail of alcohol, sex, drugs and sin would sedate the present, but Dorian had soon learned that only sleep would kill the future.
As he lay still gripped by pangs of remembered nausea on the narrow cabin bed, he had realised that to sleep was the only way he would ever die, the only relief he would ever have from the neverending cycle of years which one foolish wish had damned him to. To be awake meant to face another day with the sure knowledge that he alone would remain, rising from the ashes of destroyed lives and dreadful passions like some awful phoenix. To be awake meant to face eternity, to live in a hell of which he was the sole architecht. To sleep was to return to the comparatively comforting purgatory which his guardian had lovingly crafted for him to inhabit. For the first time in too long, a smile of true happiness spread over his lips as he reached again for the syringe on the table, loading it with a dose of morphine which should have been fatal.
For as long as he could sleep, he would not have to live.
And in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?"
"Dream on!"
"I don't, my body doesn't require sleep"
Lies, like so much of his life had been. Once he could manage without sleeping for weeks, even months, at a time - anyone could with practise - but that had been before the weight of so many years had driven him back to the only touch of mortality that remained to him. Pain was nothing after so many seamlessly healed injuries, illness never touched him, food and drink were nothing like necessities, but sleep he had come to depend upon. A few hours each afternoon to leave the night free for the prowling, cradled safely in the arms of the only comfort which remained to him.
Perhaps it was true, that his immortal body did not need rest, it certainly required neither fuel nor care, but his mind needed it, craved the oblivion of it. Many years ago, consorting as was then his interest with a troupe of Parisian performers, he had sat late into the night with their leader. He was, it had seemed, even younger than Dorian himself, with curls of auburn framing a porcelain pale face, and he had told him in a hushed whisper how few men have the stamina for immortality, how it eats at the mind little by little, erroding what was once beautiful into a twisted parody of itself. Dorian had left Paris only hours later by the next coach, the intense blue eyes of the boy still boring into what lay behind the mask of unchangeable youth. He had told himself it was boredom with the decadent Parisian life which made him leave with such haste, but the mocking sneer on the lips of what lay screened in his locked attic whispered the truth. It was fear that drove him back to England - fear that he himself did not have the stamina. It was after that night, when he lay curled in the best cabin of a ship tormented by storms, the clouded haze of a large dose of morphine closing his world-weary eyes for him, that the first of the dreams had come.
That locked attic concealed far more than even the ill-fated artisan of his fate had seen. Aside from the screened monstrosity, it teemed with ghosts, the lingering threads of unhappy hours and days bent over heavy books. It was to that room he had been transported, helpless to resist the hand of Morpheus that drew him through the door, that rooted him to the spot as he watched the scene acted before him.
A small boy, perhaps ten years old, with waves of unruly dark chestnut hair that resisted the best efforts of any comb, sat at the high desk in a shaft of dusty sunlight. His feet did not touch the floor, and swung slowly under the chair. A French grammar lay open on the desk, hard lessons - too hard for a boy his age, especially a slow, dreamy boy who had no interest in his studies. A hard voice through the open door before it is filled with the hideous, hulking form of his grandfather, guardian to the orphaned young creature. The boy's small shoulders hunch in fear;
"Well?"
A single word is enough - both to interrogate and to wound,
"It's too difficult, Sir"
"Stupid creature, you mean you still have not learned your exercise?"
"I've tried!" he knows what is next, "Really I have, but it's too difficult!"
"Then you will stay here until you *have* learned it, and -"
"But -"
"Don't ever interrupt me, you miserable little thing! You will learn your lesson, and you will have nothing to eat until you are done, do I make myself clear?"
A reply would have been pointless, a nod will have to suffice. Better not to let the cruel Lord who has charge of him hear the sobs that choke in his throat. Better not to let him see that the large, dark eyes are bright with tears. Better to appear sullen and insolent than to let anyone ever see how deeply he can be cut. His head aches from the nonsense on the page before him, sick with a hunger that results from not being allowed food since yesterday's supper, punishment for his plodding pace of learning. Better to wait until the door has been slammed and locked before he allows the tears that cut hot rivers down his pallid skin to fall onto the page.
He had woken with the first tears in more than a decade burning at his eyes, shaking off the stupor of the drug with a shudder as he curled further under the blankets. The pitching of the boat, the memory of that childhood hunger his grandfather had inflicted, and the remenants of far too much morphine after far too much wine had conspired to make him retch violently, sick to his stomach with what still lingered after so long trying to obliterate the past. He had thought time would kill what had been, a lethal cocktail of alcohol, sex, drugs and sin would sedate the present, but Dorian had soon learned that only sleep would kill the future.
As he lay still gripped by pangs of remembered nausea on the narrow cabin bed, he had realised that to sleep was the only way he would ever die, the only relief he would ever have from the neverending cycle of years which one foolish wish had damned him to. To be awake meant to face another day with the sure knowledge that he alone would remain, rising from the ashes of destroyed lives and dreadful passions like some awful phoenix. To be awake meant to face eternity, to live in a hell of which he was the sole architecht. To sleep was to return to the comparatively comforting purgatory which his guardian had lovingly crafted for him to inhabit. For the first time in too long, a smile of true happiness spread over his lips as he reached again for the syringe on the table, loading it with a dose of morphine which should have been fatal.
For as long as he could sleep, he would not have to live.