They were all just odd, the happenings in her daily life anymore.
Awkward, really, without the lips of a man brushing across her cheek. The sensation of making love to a man she loved unconditionally seemed alien to her anymore. She'd hung around the local teahouses, of course, wherever she had found herself; each day was a different place. One day it was Luoyang, the next, Changan, even a small village situated in the Xiegu pass-this one was a pleasant surprise-in fact, every teahouse seemed home to her anymore. No reason in particular other than the prospect of drinking until she passed out or otherwise forgot what it felt like to be a living, breathing human being, but the locales being what they were, she knew the occasional man would try to make a pass at her. They'd call her all those names, flash all those terms of endearment at her along with their smiles, both their words and their teeth varying along the spectrum from pearly white to decayed and disgusting.
"I didn't catch your name, sweetheart."
"I didn't throw it."
Which wasn't to say she hadn't felt the desire for the touch of a man-no, of course she had. But there was nothing behind it. It was simple desire for what once was. There were days, many of them, that the thought of anybody but her former husband laying a finger on her repulsed her, but there were also days that she couldn't care less who it was that did the touching-those days were the ones that she felt particularly low. The only thing present was the desire to feel anything at all, no matter the lengths she had to go to do it, but it was those particular one-night stands that backfired completely-a rush of hormones and pleasure that when worn off in the afterglow, when her partner for the night had long fallen asleep, bred only disgust for the decision and the drink that caused her to be thrust back into the darkness once more after her brief respite, and moreover, for herself.
Pleasure itself in the end seemed to be something she could never truly find, even during her brief moments of ecstasy that reminded her the joy of feeling something only extended to the physical and nothing else. At that point she had simply used the disconnect to rationalize slipping away from their arms in the dead of night, draping herself in just enough fabric to cover herself as she made her way outside, taking in the crisp, cool breeze of winter or the hot, muggy air of summer. All she could do was seclude herself and stare at the moon. She never thought of much in particular, which is why she half-dreaded the fleeting nights when she was joined by the lilting, melodic tone of that woman's harp.
"Don't look at me like that."
"I look at you with only sadness. You trying to find yourself in the arms of men... I weep for what you must be feeling."
"Only the same thing every day I live, and every day my family does not."
It forced her to contemplate her life alongside her past, something that she rarely enjoyed because it only brought her disappointment. And yet she had coped with her past. Reconciled. And the peace she had found was somewhat comforting. It gave her hope for a brief moment, but once the harp had ceased, left to finally sleep, it only made her realize further that she could never hope to find that peace. They were inherently different; the music of the harp sang of love and forgiveness, but all she knew was hate and bloodlust. It was heart-wrenching, how far she had fallen.
It was only on those nights, her scarred and bruised body, the skin of a porcelain doll, draped in the fabric of her past, shivering in the icy chill of murder and despair in the summer heat, she contemplated what once was. It was only on those nights that her thoughts chirped softly and somberly along with the crickets-she examined the actions and reactions that forced her to hide from herself in her own personal cocoon. What frightened her the most was not the new being that would emerge from that shell, but the knowledge, not the thought, that there was not a being in there at all, no matter how many strangers she solicited to help her find the dead and blank soul that was resting in the chaos inside her.
It was only those nights that she acknowledged her jealousy towards the wistful melody emanating from that harp, and it was only those nights that she allowed herself to cry for her own fate-the fate that she would never be able to crawl forward from that chrysalis of hers like the player of that harp had, and that she would never be able to gracefully fly away from everything she knew, everything she feared, in a delicate wisp of blue and yellow.
Silent, alone, and completely untouched.