~oOo~
He was in frame, only not on the same stage.
His were the moves of a ghost; one trapped above the living. Seen only as white, an apparition of the upper body. Bare flesh made iridescent in the faint blue light; coloring him as Morphinae.
The air was filled with the rhythm of stomping feet. Worn heels digging into the fibers of the floorboards beneath them, leaving behind black marks, cuts to the already marred wood. He marched as well, raising his leg and throwing his foot with force to the metal of the balcony, perhaps a little too hard. He couldn't tell, the stage echoed with the corruption of all their steps. The hits, like biting teeth.
He breathed in, crossing his arms behind his head, and felt the world fade away. The faces in the audience were gone. He was in his bedroom, alone. The music, though, remained and it filled him, linked itself to the drugs in his veins and threatened to exit in the same way; as the blood spilling from his open wounds.
Behind his eyes, shooting to the edges of skull along his temple, all was abuzz with the warmth of an outer existence. Another plane.
He moved his hips the way girls do. They way they move in pictures for men, that was the way he moved; with hopes to lure. He rocked himself back and forth until the song was all but over, then ran to the balcony where he placed his foot on a section of lower railing, lunging his weight as though pushing deeper a shovel, trying to work away the tension. Mimicking the way the girls were moving below.
Wohl...Ach, lebe wohl!
Auf wiedersehen,...
Bye bye mein Herr!
And the spotlight was on him again, the circle created to burn. "The final performance of Sally Bowles. Thank you, Sally. Bye-Bye. Thanks, Rosie, Lulu, Fritzie, Texas and Helga. Beautiful dancing." The bulbs in the frame flickered, yellow, white and red. In a frenzy he couldn't tell the difference between music and applause.
He'd glided down the stairs and brushed his hands over Frenchie's satin, over a wooden chest, before losing himself in the shadows again. Once lost he found Sally snaking through the coals. Seeing him, she flipped her shawl over her shoulder, covering the skin, the bruises he'd already glimpsed, even in the dark.
He walked to her, stopping to observe the act continuing without them. Sally leaned over, one foot suspended; her lips and nose, her blonde hair, pink in the light as she whispered, "How was your date last night?"
"He never showed up. Shame we can't trade places and make it so last night never happened to you instead... I saw the marks. What all did he do?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Really." She turned her face from his, crossed her hands over her chest, holding tighter the fabric. She sighed, her mind, showing through her eyes, was on the night.
Emcee removed a package of cigarettes from his pocket, tapping one in his palm before lighting. "Yes, I can see that. Nothing..."
He patted her shoulder, as his life was the same. He had no words of encouragement to give her. No false hopes or lies. His words for her moments ago had been laced with anger, but only for the cards fate had decided to deal them.
Emcee turned to Sally, the cigarette dangling from his lips, a rouged line around its middle as he beamed; the tight fitted smirk that seemed to rest directly under the end of his nose.
Two fingers, one from each hand, set about spreading the ends of her mouth into a grin. Sally, annoyed and charmed at the same time, found herself willfully smiling as she batted away his hands, cursing him softly.
Catching one of her fingers, he kissed it, bowing as he departed stillness for the fear of the audience, to the two clear lines between those seated in countless rows before the bar.
Walking, the faces and bodies merged with the colors falling to them from above, making them featureless. Blurs of pinks edged with blue; hued noses, hollowed eyes. He passed under the lowered roof of the mezzanine, and to the bar.
As the glass of gin met his lips, a hand met his shoulder. With the alcohol still between his teeth, under his tongue, he turned, finding that the touching pulse belonged to a man. His soft face was young, with hardened dark eyes, two shades darker than his wavy brunette hair. About him was the air of man removed from the country and the trees he was used to: one who was lost, though he was loath to admit it.
When Emcee saw him, he was instantly given a vision of the man alone amid a field of green, his dark suit standing out against vibrancy. He next saw himself atop an unmade bed in a corner near a white curtained window, the sun shining in on both as he and the man kissed, ready to fall from the mattress edge.
The Emcee's red lips, lined in black, curled into a grin exposing his long teeth. "Hello, Handsome."
~oOo~