Just short snippets that popped in my head...years later.
A/N- This was simply the product of my own frustration with a new computer composition program. Made me wonder how Erik felt in the time spent (in ALW's version) composing his Don Juan Triumphant. So there are no chapters here, merely episodes where I hope I made sense of his state of mind. Then again it is Erik...there are many times he makes no sense at all.
Enjoy and Happy Halloween.
Prologue
I am incensed...
Raging, pounding... Fury the likes of which I had never thought to reach...
My soul is blackened now, beyond love, beyond repair. That lying, traitorous girl is no better than the deceitful Eve; indeed the same downfall of all man could be traced to the lowly and deceptive female of the human species. And the boy...the boy is like the serpent with his false tongue spewing promises of safety to her.
But...there is no safety to be found here... not anymore.
I do not care how you try to run, or how long you are gone from this place. You will return Christine...I know that as well as I know every horrid detail of my face.
You will return.
But there will be no angel waiting for you...
Never will I masquerade as an angel to appease your childish heart, your foolish dreams...
No angel dear Christine...and the devil will need no disguise.
Episode
Music...
There is simplicity in genius at times. I had no more than sat foot upon the shores of my humble shrine when it came to me.
Music would be the tool...the only one that would suffice. It had been a comfort to the child, a ritual of training to the diva, the one place where it was safe for both of us to delve into feelings of romance and love that would never be able to surface.
Now it would be my revenge.
I had written darkly morbid works before, proudly my Mass Macabre still sits upon its music stand. I walk over and thumb through the score, the blood red notes driving the melody back into my brain. There was no Dies Irae that could possibly compare to this piece. But it is not enough...
No. This I had written in a furor, but it was against a Maker I no longer believe in, for a Heaven I no longer desire. It is dark, and quite horrid in content, but it is not enough.
I throw it down, and began perusing the piles of music. Anger spreads in my mind as I realize all the trivial fluff I wasted my time composing for Chri...for that worthless piece of feminine temptation. No, it is time for genius to become useful once more. I sweep the manuscripts upon the floor, more than satisfied to walk over them now. (I make a note to burn them at my earliest convenience.)
Now sitting at the majestic instrument, my fingers slam the keys an octave apart, but on two horrendously different chords. The harsh dissonance echoes off stone and fills my ears as well as the blackness fills my heart.
Yes...this dissonance is the beginning.
Episode
No. no no no no no...that will work! Damned idiotic fool...
I want the F#...it has to progress from the Ab to the F#...the phase will not work if it doesn't
Phrase? phrase? You haven't written the lyrics and you are worried about a phrase?
LISTEN TO ME! This will work...it will slide from the minor to the diminished it will send spears to the aural orifices of that complacent audience.
Since when do you worry about the audience?
Leave me alone goddammit!
The sound of shattering glass makes me aware of my mental state, more so than the dripping of blood from my hand. The goblet, its ruin complete by my action, is now letting its contents free. The burgundy liquid flows freely, covering manuscript, keys, and clothing until the remnants puddle upon the floor.
I grind my hand into the glass, speaking aloud to the shadows, "I take it that is my signal to begin anew?"
Silence answers. I clear the organ in one sweep of my arm, leaving the mess where it falls. I forget the F# and start again, wondering if the blood smearing upon the keys from my wounded hand might appease the gods. Perhaps they will gift this malformation of humanity with at least one completed aria tonight
Episode
"I have no need or reason to explain anything to you." My eyes remain coldly focused upon the figure on the opposite shore.
"You have been...strangely quiet Erik. I was concerned."
"There is no need for concern Madame. I assure you I shall rot in these god-forsaken caverns one day...but..."
My mouth opens in disbelief as she begins to carefully pick her way around the slim edge of the cavern wall. The damned woman is ignoring me! I have a good mind to Punjab her...though it would bring down a new army, a greater pestilence than any rat I have ever killed (or cooked...ah those early years of cellar dwelling)...the dreaded ballet rats...
"What the hell are you doing?" Only a glare from Antoinette Giry could make me wish to hold my tongue.
"I did not travel seven floors below ground to attempt to converse across a lake." She states as she steps slowly around. "If you are not gentleman enough, well then I shall take care of the last distance myself."
I feel my face flush at the insult, and muttering about the insanity of the entire feminine population, step down into the boat and fetch her. Short moments later we are both upon the same side of the shore.
"Make this quick."
"I simply wondered how you were faring. I have heard nothing, there were rumors that..." she shrugs.
"That I gave up the ghost?" I sneer as I motion to the pipe organ, its surface and the floor covered in manuscript paper. "I have simply been occupied as you can see. Now if you would so kindly step back in the boat, I will be happy to escort back..."
She steps around my outstretched arm and walks to the organ. The damned woman is ignoring me again? I touch my face for a moment to assure myself I am still the horrendous Opera ghost. I am. So what the hell does she not comprehend about the gesture to leave?
"Very busy I see." She picks up a few pages, choosing to ignore the bloody smears and red ink before the title page appears. "Erik?"
I instantly hear the condemnation, the damnation in her voice. "It is time you left Madame, in fact..." I snarl as I snatch the paper from her. "It is past time."
"You don't want to write this...not..."
Her words are cut off as I grab her wrist and pull her to the boat. "I would suggest you remain quiet on the return voyage. I need no advice from a ballet mistress on composing a masterpiece."
For in my mind I know, I am assured that is what Don Juan Triumphant shall be.
Episode
Go...
Do it...
There is no chance anyone will gawk at your face...
Not when your entire body will be crushed.
Go...
Go on...dive headfirst...let your goddamned skull splatter first upon the bricks below...there won't be enough left to identify you as Monsieur O.G.
I take another step, so close to the edge now...so damned close.
Coward.
Another step.
Not a coward...tired...I am tired of fighting for existence, tired of letting the lessening rush of the morphine be my excuse for pleasure, tired of wanting what most certainly can never be mine.
Why not rest forever?
I look from one side of the roof to the other, the statues mocking me. It as if they remember that night...the betrayal. She was so beautiful...terrified...flushed from her run to the roof...and lost to me.
There is no music now. There hasn't been for a fortnight...not a single worthwhile melody has come from me. Nothing but shreds of manuscript paper upon the floor...that is what genius has come to.
Take the step...
I lift my foot, feeling the air beneath it, and am promptly hit in the face with a feathered projectile. It knocks me back away from the edge, and I land ungraciously upon my backside. The feathers are now accompanied by a plethora of shrill calls and my hands quickly wrap around what I discover is a young (and apparently inexperienced flyer) golden hawk.
Its yellow eyes meet mine, unafraid and perusing me as seriously as I am studying it. I look it over for any injury, and seeing none set the regal bird upon the ground. It looks at me once more, emitting a low whistling call before flapping its wings in practice before taking off from the Opera roof.
I echo the whistle, and smile as it turns in the sky and replies before continuing on its journey. The call replays in my mind, again...again...and once more...it would work...
I walk to the edge once more, sneering as I spit over the side at Death's temptation. Not today...there is music to be written.
Episode
Pretty lady, here's a list I would show you,
Of the fair ones my master has courted,
Here you'll find them all duly assorted,
In my writing, will't please you to look,
Here is Italy, six hundred and forty,
France is down for five hundred and twenty,
Only two hundred the Rhineland supplied him,
But mark the climax, Spain has already one thousand and three,
Well...I must give you credit dear Wolfgang- you did give your Don Juan admirable numbers...
Here are Countesses in plenty.
Waiting maids, nineteen or twenty.
Rustic beauties, Marchionesses,
Ev'ry grade his pow'r confesses.
Here are courtly dames and maidens,
Young and handsome, old and plain.
Is a maiden fair and slender,
He will praise her for modest sweetness,
Then the dark ones are so tender!
Lintwhite tresses shew discreetness;
When 'tis cold he likes her portly,
In the summer, slim and courtly,
Tall and haughty, ne'er she alarms him,
If she's tiny, no less she charms him.
Surely though your librettist could have been less...ah how do I say it nicely...hell why am I bothering with niceties? You're food for worms and your librettist was a damned self-indulgent idiot. I mean really! You have the world's greatest lover as the subject of your opera and he is discussed in simple rhyme schemes? Utter tragedy if there ever was one!
I snort in a moment of self-indulgent laughter as I peruse the score once more. I refuse to have my magnum opus compared in any fashion to this pale excuse for genius.
Terrors unknown are freezing me,
Demons of doom are seizing me,
Is hell let loose to torture me?
Or does it mock my sight?
My soul is rent in agony!
Condemn'd to endless misery,
Oh, doom of wrath and terror,
No more to see the light!
I close the book, wondering what kind of opera it would have been if he had taken some musical chances...hell taken some sort of chance with the plot. But then...perhaps you had something to lose? Those of us who have never had anything can easily risk everything in an attempt to create something more than spectacular...something that will never be forgotten.
And Don Juan need not rest with the demons this time. Perhaps he shall simply invite them on the journey...the idea invades my mind and I scramble for pen and paper.
No...Don Juan is not the one who shall pay the price in this opera. I smile at one of the few remaining sketches of her. Don Juan shall triumph, for doesn't hate conquer all?
Episode
Who's fault is it?
Well considering there is no one else down here I would say it is your own you idiotic fool...quit throwing things when you get angry and hence things you need would stop being broken.
This rash commentary of common sense only serves to infuriate me more and I send another candelabra to the floor. This one does not make contact with any of the other pipes, and simply crashes to the floor with a booming clang.
I pull at my sparse hair in frustration (the wig and mask having long since been abandoned in my latest fit of compositional madness). Patience has never been one of my virtues...though come to think of it a monster such as myself should be in possession of no virtues at all. Regardless I now find myself with an aria in a state of incompletion, a pipe organ with two broken pipes (creates a lovely sound...note my sarcasm here), wasted candles and candelabras on the floor, and the screaming desire to run away from every element of this disaster I call a life.
But knowing that I am too much a coward to go and dive off the Opera roof (or perhaps it is just a wish to avoid any more attacks by unskilled avians), I decide instead to leave the mess where it is.
My boots leave their marks upon music I could care less about at this moment, as I retire to the corner "library" and take out a large bottle of well-aged Scotch whiskey.
I think I shall forgo the glass tonight.
Episode
I don't believe in ghosts, though I have developed the persona of one over my time in this dark hellhole. No God, no ghosts...it is quite simple.
So why am I haunted?
Why is it at every pause in my waking moments, I am haunted not by the dead seeking revenge but by my own memories! I have destroyed everything that reminds me of you, and you are still here! Still creeping in my mind...your voice as pure as ever, your luminous trusting eyes, and a body I tried to ignore...and failed.
But I have seen other women, heard other singers. Why you? Why can I not forget, what witchcraft do you possess over me you miserable slip of a girl?
As many as I have murdered, as much as I have been tortured and humiliated in this life, it is not those memories that torture me. It is the recollection of carrying you in my arms, of holding your body against mine, of singing duets with utter abandon in the depths below a stage not yet ready for you...
I pray that this opera will purge you from my soul Christine Daae. Purge me clean from your wicked influence...and let this suffering become yours.
Let it remove that crystal purity that your boy seems to prize so highly. I pray this music rapes your senses, destroys your innocence as you have destroyed what little sanity I had left. And it will seep into your mind, these melodies I have written for you...so that in the passage of time there will be no relief, no calm after the storm. This storm will rage in your memory...
No Christine...you will not forget.
Episode
It is finished.
Complete.
My months of agony are over, every dark emotion poured into the pages of this score. There are dissonances galore, costumes fit for the prostitutes along the dark alleyways of Paris, and a pit of fire of which the devil would approve.
But this lead, my Don Juan, he will not perish by another, threatened by demons for his immoral behavior. No, no sniveling anti-hero here...no my Don revels in his evil, treasures it as his own, and gladly applies it to the woman who attempts to leave him before he is through with her.
I sit the score upon the table, for though it is prepared I am not. Surely if I am delivering the music of the devil I should appear as one.
Except for the moments I feel the need to delve into self-torture and gaze upon my wretched face, I generally keep the mirrors in my chambers covered. But not tonight! Tonight they are all uncovered, allowing the opportunity to delight in the wickedness of the crimson velvet. It matches the blood I so desperately wish to spill tonight...for I know they will be there -her and her boy.
Patience...patience is required, Erik. You have not slaved so long to rush into your vengenence blindly.
Forced deep breaths relax me as I continue dressing, adding the black stage makeup to my eyes. A rinse of the hands and the addition of the wig and full skull mask mark me as the Red Death ready to stalk abroad...
My gloves and sword are the last accoutrements of the costume. I pick up the score, observing my masterpiece one last time. All the instructions are there and I know they will not deny me this.
Fools that they are, they think I have finally disappeared.
Truly fools...now they shall discover how hell is unleashed.