LABYRINTH
Explication:
Part One: Crown of Stars
Starry starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my heart…
Don McLean, Vincent
The stars embodied a cold thesis: that self-awareness, such as it is, is a pathetic joke. The vaulted ceiling of the sky leered down. Clouded midnight blue blurred the white torches of stars, distant enough to seem pinpricks of icy light against the velvet backdrop of night. Far away, streetlamps echoed with a bleary amber artificial light, spilling broken circles of luminance downward over litter-pocked grey sidewalks. Somewhere, farther distant, the stars reflected off the many glass panes of windows in some high rise, and farther still, a siren wove its eerie howl through the emptiness. The emptiness of what Eliot might have called 'Unreal City'.
Vincent shivered. The memory of the dream was still fresh in his mind, and although the night was too cold for standing on his balcony in only a thin hotel robe, he knew he was shivering because of the dream, and not the frozen air of late winter. The dream was always the same, pale champagne eyes seen through a halo of blood. And then the silhouette of a man with long hair of a red that could never occur in nature, red of brick, red of blood. Long enough to brush the floor and pool there. That is all he could see- he could see no face. Every time he had that dream, the man was about to turn, and then he was filled with such an intense fear he couldn't breathe, and he woke up.
His hands looked pale and thin against the white wood hotel balcony. The black diamond on his left pinky flashed as he moved his hand, sliding it into his hair where it could be warmed- startling and sort of unpleasant against the hot skin on the nape of his neck.
With a sigh, Vincent turned and stepped barefoot back into the suite, sliding closed the cold glass door behind him. He left the filmy white weave hotel curtains open, wandering aimlessly through the room, glancing at the lines of numbers printed on the white phone, lines of letters printed out on the hotel notepad. In this state of mind he could hardly connect letters into words he had written by hand.
Who was that man? Why did he seem so familiar?
The phone rang. He leaned his hips on the side of the too-soft mattress, plucked the phone off the hook. His voice was soft, un-accented, though he was not an American. "Yeah?"
"Vincent. There are some problems with the shipment." The voice of his operations coordinator on the other side of the line was tense with fear. Why, because of some minor problems with the shipment? Vincent was enough of a patient man to deal with minor setbacks, and enough of a businessman to know when to cut his losses. Perhaps that last was what Albrecht was so afraid of- as outlined ironically in Machiavelli's work 'The Prince,' cutting ones losses often includes good riddance of bad operatives.
"What kind of problems?" He asked, shifting his grip on the phone to flip through the names on that hotel pad. All in code, which in his present state took a few seconds to translate. Albrecht's name was not on the list.
"Delivery problems. What Nelson sent us isn't pure."
Vincent's first reaction was intense anger, which slid up out of the bottom of his belly and slowly traced its way through his veins like burning lava. He forced himself to be philosophical about it, however. After all, when one was new in any business people always tried to cheat you and screw you over. He sighed deeply, theatrically, into the receiver, and then said calmly, "You deal with the shipment. Salvage as much as you can. I will have a little talk with N-"
His sentence was cut off abruptly, never to be completed, as several things happened in tandem. Vincent felt a tearing, ripping pain in his stomach and doubled over, vision going nearly white with intense vertigo. All the lights in the hotel room went out. Total blackness swept over everything, only slowly overtaken by the moonlight streaming in through the glass sliding doors. Cursing, Vincent stood up as best he could and staggered around the growing outlines of the room's landmarks, staring up at the sky. Looking out over the city, he saw with deepening shock that the entire city was dark. No cars moved. Even the flashing videoscreens on the downtown buildings were totally blank. It was eerie, as if life had fled the entire world.
Vincent went back over to the bed, sat down carefully and lifted the phone receiver. It was dead. Totally dead. He tried to contact the desk, and failed to even get that. There was no tone at all.
He went to the door. Fumbling open the deadlock, he turned the knob, staggering into a hallway that was almost complete darkness. He could see absolutely nothing. Fear leapt into his stomach and squeezed with cold, brutal fingers. He pressed his own hand against the curiously fabric-like feel of the wallpaper, trailing fingers over it to guide him as he walked. Several times he staggered and had to alter his pace as he past the little niches holding pairs of hotel room doors. Once, he slammed forcefully into a human body.
His curses turned quickly to apologies. There was no answer. In fact, the body he had hit thunked to the floor like so much meat. Vincent cursed violently and reached down to help this poor person up, only to feel limbs as stiff and unmovable as iron. Fingers searching rapidly in the darkness found no pulse. Dead.
His eyes widened, and with an animalistic urge, he scooted back along the carpet. The hallway's worn rug burned his bare skin, but didn't stop till his back hit the wall. He fumbled for a weapon, a dropped flashlight, something heavy in a fallen purse, anything at all. He came up empty, cursed again mentally, unwilling now to make a sound. Then he widened his eyes as if that would help him see in this terrible darkness.
A thought leapt into his head: All life had left this world! He was the only living, moving thing!
But he had scarcely entertained that thought when it was belied. There was a soft, slow tread of footfalls approaching him from the end of the hall.
"Who are you? What's going on?" His own voice sounded thin and lonely in the huge, still darkness. Until it was joined by a low, androgynous chuckle.
There was a flash, and color appeared- red. After a moment Vincent's eyes registered a lit match. Behind it he could see a slender body clothed in black, a face painted with clown makeup, and a tangle of brilliantly red hair caught up under a broad-brimmed black hat. In his hand was a bunch of flowers… or was it her hand?
"What are you supposed to be?" He asked, feigning boredom. Things were getting, as Alice might have said, curiouser and curiouser.
As if the thought of Alice had imprinted on this odd, unreal reality, the figure illumined in the bare ruddy glow of the match lifted his (her?) hand to tip that hat. "One is called Mad Hatter. You are a strange fish, aren't you? I thought all motion on earth had been arrested."
"All motion on…?" Vincent's eyes widened again. "That's ridiculous! Life would end. The world's orbit would shift, we'd either spin off into the sun, or so far away we'd cover in ice."
"You think you know so much about the universe…" She tsked lightly. Something about her manner of conversation convinced him that was the correct gender to use. He was almost sure, anyway. "But one must confess one was speaking of the entire universe, and not simply your planet earth."
"The… entire…?" He croaked. That seemed to amuse her. Black painted lips curved a little. The match she was holding was a long one, of the kind that he remembered seeing in long, gold-papered boxes and had never quite known the use. Nevertheless, it was nearly burned out.
In its fading light the Mad Hatter pointed down the hallway, and Vincent was startled to see a flash of white motion, low to the ground. "Follow the White Rabbit." She advised, before smiling wickedly and blowing out the match.
"Wait! Mad Hatter! Without the light, how can I-?" He fumbled to his feet and stumbled down the corridor after her, but she was gone as if she had never been. Perhaps she had never been. Maybe this entire thing was only a dream, or a hallucination provided by his broken, severely diseased mind.
He stared into the darkness ahead of him. Follow the White Rabbit.
"Well, for lack of a better idea," Vincent muttered, and strode along the hallway, hands held out in front of him, feeling for obstacles.
What he met was the smooth, mirror reflection of the closed elevator doors. Sliding his hands over the walls nearby, he finally contacted the elevator button, and pushed it harder and harder, again and again, until he realized it was not going to work.
Cursing again, Vincent fell with both hands flat against the cold metal, banging his forehead against it perhaps a little too hard. And then… he had the sensation of falling.
Falling through metal? Surely not! But nonetheless he was falling, falling down the elevator shaft… down the Rabbit Hole… and the darkness twisting around him, absent of any lights or colors, only added to his fear and disorientation.
A scream tore out of him once as he fell, a scream that seemed endless. Then he screamed once more as his body slammed against stone.
Because it damn well hurt. But as he began to move, gathering himself together, he realized that beyond all hope, nothing seemed broken. And there was light here. As he sat up slowly, wincing at countless bruises that throbbed over his skin, he saw that he was in a circular stone chamber, with three archways leading off from it. The light seemed to be coming from the two to his left.
Vincent got to his feet slowly.
"Hello?" He called. His voice echoed off smooth stone.
"Hello?" He repeated, and once again was answered only by his echo.
With a sigh, Vincent hobbled over stone toward the two lighted corridors. He realized he was still barefoot and excruciatingly cold, wearing nothing but that damned hotel robe! That brought a whole string of curses, which, amusingly enough, echoed as well.
Eenie meenie chili beanie.
Vincent chose a path at random, and continued to wander until his feet felt swollen. To add insult to injury, a dark pit appeared like some demon's maw in front of him and he had to stop. Stopping meant cold though, and he curled into a ball, clenching his fists tightly and trying not to despair.
"I will not give up," he told himself. "I'd be certain this is a dream except for the cold and pain sensations. If it is a dream, I can control it if I refuse to play by the rules."
He got up, winced again. "And if it isn't…" he muttered to himself, "I know I can control it if I bend the rules."
Oh please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me over that cliff.
Instead of choosing the labyrinth of doors and arches that surrounded him, he took a deep breath and leapt into the pit.
Explication:
Part Two: The Color of Blood
Trapped in purgatory
A lifeless object, alive
Awaiting reprisal
Death will be their acquisition
The sky is turning red
Return to power draws near
Fall into me, the sky's crimson tears
Abolish the rules made of stone
Pierced from below, souls of my treacherous past
Betrayed by many, now ornaments dripping above
Awaiting the hour of reprisal
Your time slips away
Raining blood
From a lacerated sky
Bleeding its horror
Creating my structure
Now I shall reign in blood
Tori Amos, Raining Blood
Explication:
Part One: Crown of Stars
Starry starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my heart…
Don McLean, Vincent
The stars embodied a cold thesis: that self-awareness, such as it is, is a pathetic joke. The vaulted ceiling of the sky leered down. Clouded midnight blue blurred the white torches of stars, distant enough to seem pinpricks of icy light against the velvet backdrop of night. Far away, streetlamps echoed with a bleary amber artificial light, spilling broken circles of luminance downward over litter-pocked grey sidewalks. Somewhere, farther distant, the stars reflected off the many glass panes of windows in some high rise, and farther still, a siren wove its eerie howl through the emptiness. The emptiness of what Eliot might have called 'Unreal City'.
Vincent shivered. The memory of the dream was still fresh in his mind, and although the night was too cold for standing on his balcony in only a thin hotel robe, he knew he was shivering because of the dream, and not the frozen air of late winter. The dream was always the same, pale champagne eyes seen through a halo of blood. And then the silhouette of a man with long hair of a red that could never occur in nature, red of brick, red of blood. Long enough to brush the floor and pool there. That is all he could see- he could see no face. Every time he had that dream, the man was about to turn, and then he was filled with such an intense fear he couldn't breathe, and he woke up.
His hands looked pale and thin against the white wood hotel balcony. The black diamond on his left pinky flashed as he moved his hand, sliding it into his hair where it could be warmed- startling and sort of unpleasant against the hot skin on the nape of his neck.
With a sigh, Vincent turned and stepped barefoot back into the suite, sliding closed the cold glass door behind him. He left the filmy white weave hotel curtains open, wandering aimlessly through the room, glancing at the lines of numbers printed on the white phone, lines of letters printed out on the hotel notepad. In this state of mind he could hardly connect letters into words he had written by hand.
Who was that man? Why did he seem so familiar?
The phone rang. He leaned his hips on the side of the too-soft mattress, plucked the phone off the hook. His voice was soft, un-accented, though he was not an American. "Yeah?"
"Vincent. There are some problems with the shipment." The voice of his operations coordinator on the other side of the line was tense with fear. Why, because of some minor problems with the shipment? Vincent was enough of a patient man to deal with minor setbacks, and enough of a businessman to know when to cut his losses. Perhaps that last was what Albrecht was so afraid of- as outlined ironically in Machiavelli's work 'The Prince,' cutting ones losses often includes good riddance of bad operatives.
"What kind of problems?" He asked, shifting his grip on the phone to flip through the names on that hotel pad. All in code, which in his present state took a few seconds to translate. Albrecht's name was not on the list.
"Delivery problems. What Nelson sent us isn't pure."
Vincent's first reaction was intense anger, which slid up out of the bottom of his belly and slowly traced its way through his veins like burning lava. He forced himself to be philosophical about it, however. After all, when one was new in any business people always tried to cheat you and screw you over. He sighed deeply, theatrically, into the receiver, and then said calmly, "You deal with the shipment. Salvage as much as you can. I will have a little talk with N-"
His sentence was cut off abruptly, never to be completed, as several things happened in tandem. Vincent felt a tearing, ripping pain in his stomach and doubled over, vision going nearly white with intense vertigo. All the lights in the hotel room went out. Total blackness swept over everything, only slowly overtaken by the moonlight streaming in through the glass sliding doors. Cursing, Vincent stood up as best he could and staggered around the growing outlines of the room's landmarks, staring up at the sky. Looking out over the city, he saw with deepening shock that the entire city was dark. No cars moved. Even the flashing videoscreens on the downtown buildings were totally blank. It was eerie, as if life had fled the entire world.
Vincent went back over to the bed, sat down carefully and lifted the phone receiver. It was dead. Totally dead. He tried to contact the desk, and failed to even get that. There was no tone at all.
He went to the door. Fumbling open the deadlock, he turned the knob, staggering into a hallway that was almost complete darkness. He could see absolutely nothing. Fear leapt into his stomach and squeezed with cold, brutal fingers. He pressed his own hand against the curiously fabric-like feel of the wallpaper, trailing fingers over it to guide him as he walked. Several times he staggered and had to alter his pace as he past the little niches holding pairs of hotel room doors. Once, he slammed forcefully into a human body.
His curses turned quickly to apologies. There was no answer. In fact, the body he had hit thunked to the floor like so much meat. Vincent cursed violently and reached down to help this poor person up, only to feel limbs as stiff and unmovable as iron. Fingers searching rapidly in the darkness found no pulse. Dead.
His eyes widened, and with an animalistic urge, he scooted back along the carpet. The hallway's worn rug burned his bare skin, but didn't stop till his back hit the wall. He fumbled for a weapon, a dropped flashlight, something heavy in a fallen purse, anything at all. He came up empty, cursed again mentally, unwilling now to make a sound. Then he widened his eyes as if that would help him see in this terrible darkness.
A thought leapt into his head: All life had left this world! He was the only living, moving thing!
But he had scarcely entertained that thought when it was belied. There was a soft, slow tread of footfalls approaching him from the end of the hall.
"Who are you? What's going on?" His own voice sounded thin and lonely in the huge, still darkness. Until it was joined by a low, androgynous chuckle.
There was a flash, and color appeared- red. After a moment Vincent's eyes registered a lit match. Behind it he could see a slender body clothed in black, a face painted with clown makeup, and a tangle of brilliantly red hair caught up under a broad-brimmed black hat. In his hand was a bunch of flowers… or was it her hand?
"What are you supposed to be?" He asked, feigning boredom. Things were getting, as Alice might have said, curiouser and curiouser.
As if the thought of Alice had imprinted on this odd, unreal reality, the figure illumined in the bare ruddy glow of the match lifted his (her?) hand to tip that hat. "One is called Mad Hatter. You are a strange fish, aren't you? I thought all motion on earth had been arrested."
"All motion on…?" Vincent's eyes widened again. "That's ridiculous! Life would end. The world's orbit would shift, we'd either spin off into the sun, or so far away we'd cover in ice."
"You think you know so much about the universe…" She tsked lightly. Something about her manner of conversation convinced him that was the correct gender to use. He was almost sure, anyway. "But one must confess one was speaking of the entire universe, and not simply your planet earth."
"The… entire…?" He croaked. That seemed to amuse her. Black painted lips curved a little. The match she was holding was a long one, of the kind that he remembered seeing in long, gold-papered boxes and had never quite known the use. Nevertheless, it was nearly burned out.
In its fading light the Mad Hatter pointed down the hallway, and Vincent was startled to see a flash of white motion, low to the ground. "Follow the White Rabbit." She advised, before smiling wickedly and blowing out the match.
"Wait! Mad Hatter! Without the light, how can I-?" He fumbled to his feet and stumbled down the corridor after her, but she was gone as if she had never been. Perhaps she had never been. Maybe this entire thing was only a dream, or a hallucination provided by his broken, severely diseased mind.
He stared into the darkness ahead of him. Follow the White Rabbit.
"Well, for lack of a better idea," Vincent muttered, and strode along the hallway, hands held out in front of him, feeling for obstacles.
What he met was the smooth, mirror reflection of the closed elevator doors. Sliding his hands over the walls nearby, he finally contacted the elevator button, and pushed it harder and harder, again and again, until he realized it was not going to work.
Cursing again, Vincent fell with both hands flat against the cold metal, banging his forehead against it perhaps a little too hard. And then… he had the sensation of falling.
Falling through metal? Surely not! But nonetheless he was falling, falling down the elevator shaft… down the Rabbit Hole… and the darkness twisting around him, absent of any lights or colors, only added to his fear and disorientation.
A scream tore out of him once as he fell, a scream that seemed endless. Then he screamed once more as his body slammed against stone.
Because it damn well hurt. But as he began to move, gathering himself together, he realized that beyond all hope, nothing seemed broken. And there was light here. As he sat up slowly, wincing at countless bruises that throbbed over his skin, he saw that he was in a circular stone chamber, with three archways leading off from it. The light seemed to be coming from the two to his left.
Vincent got to his feet slowly.
"Hello?" He called. His voice echoed off smooth stone.
"Hello?" He repeated, and once again was answered only by his echo.
With a sigh, Vincent hobbled over stone toward the two lighted corridors. He realized he was still barefoot and excruciatingly cold, wearing nothing but that damned hotel robe! That brought a whole string of curses, which, amusingly enough, echoed as well.
Eenie meenie chili beanie.
Vincent chose a path at random, and continued to wander until his feet felt swollen. To add insult to injury, a dark pit appeared like some demon's maw in front of him and he had to stop. Stopping meant cold though, and he curled into a ball, clenching his fists tightly and trying not to despair.
"I will not give up," he told himself. "I'd be certain this is a dream except for the cold and pain sensations. If it is a dream, I can control it if I refuse to play by the rules."
He got up, winced again. "And if it isn't…" he muttered to himself, "I know I can control it if I bend the rules."
Oh please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me over that cliff.
Instead of choosing the labyrinth of doors and arches that surrounded him, he took a deep breath and leapt into the pit.
Explication:
Part Two: The Color of Blood
Trapped in purgatory
A lifeless object, alive
Awaiting reprisal
Death will be their acquisition
The sky is turning red
Return to power draws near
Fall into me, the sky's crimson tears
Abolish the rules made of stone
Pierced from below, souls of my treacherous past
Betrayed by many, now ornaments dripping above
Awaiting the hour of reprisal
Your time slips away
Raining blood
From a lacerated sky
Bleeding its horror
Creating my structure
Now I shall reign in blood
Tori Amos, Raining Blood