This is just something I wrote for English class. Hope you guys like it. Please review!
M.
Night was usually cold in this dark, dank corner of the romantic city of Paris. The wind was crisp and smelled of the oncoming autumn season, blowing through the deserted streets like a lone jilted lover.
Suddenly, I felt course and unkempt fur brush my damp, cool skin. Styx— my alley's resident cat— was rubbing its right flank against me. It was being uncharacteristically affectionate tonight despite its normally withdrawn habits. I stared silently into its baleful yellow eyes without comment. Not that I could comment anyway.
The new moon of every month. Religiously, I have counted off the moments in my head, waiting twenty six days in lonely solitude for this single night of happiness. For as long as I could remember, this secluded crevice of Paris has always been 'the meeting spot'. What more fitting a place for forbidden lovers to meet then this shadowy haven?
I can never predict his arrival; he glides as effortless as a shadow, a phantom, a ghost. He makes no sound when he moves, but when he does it is with grace and elegance… almost as if he moves to music only he can hear.
Tonight was no different. When his tall and skeletal figure appeared, I almost jumped, which was saying something. My nerves are made of stone.
Him.
He wore a black velvet cloak and a wide brimmed fedora, one that he pulled low over his face to cover it. Inhumanly long fingers sheathed in black leather held the hat in place. Though he was practically at one with darkness, his eyes glowed yellow and cat-like. Had he the power to extinguish their brightness I knew he would have, even if he secretly enjoyed the awesome power and danger they gave him.
Those very same eyes were oddly shiny now, the pupils dilated to an almost invisible size. I sensed it right away— something was very wrong.
He gripped his hands behind his back and paced the floor of the alley like an impatient father waiting the arrival of his baby. He didn't even acknowledge me and his indifference to my presence hurt. It was as if I was some kind of wall…
Like a caged animal, he walked back and forth, back and forth. Styx sat on the floor, gazing hypnotized as if by the pendulum of a grandfather clock. I sat in silence, a concerned and stung silence, waiting fearfully for what the night still had to offer.
Tap tap tap.
Footsteps echoed through the street and seemed as loud as the clanging of a bell in the deathly quiet of the sleeping city. They were delicate, as if belonging to a pair of small white feet encased in the finest of slippers.
I felt myself shrivel in disgust.
The high point of my evening had reached its end; now, the more sour side of this moonless night had begun.
Her.
How I hated her!
She was dressed in a white dress and black cloak, her porcelain cheeks flushed from exertion. Once seeing him —he was now frozen and staring at her with narrowed eyes— she stopped. I could sense her fear as she tucked a loose strand of brown hair behind her ear and sat down on her knees.
"Forgive me master," she murmured. "I apologize."
There was a moment of extremely tense silence. I could practically feel it.
"Why are you late?"
His voice was controlled yet she, just like I could, could sense the blind rage that hovered beneath its surface.
"I… I… I was unavoidably detained, master."
Without warning, he smashed his fist into my side. My vision teetered on its axis… I felt nothing, yet the pain was unbearable.
"My dear, you must know by now that I hate liars."
My dear… the words that were laced with venomous anger and malice somehow still managed to voice his unending love for her. They cut through me like a sword. Or rather, a wrecking ball, since a sword can not do much to hurt me.
She cowered back against me, much to my revulsion.
"Oh… master, please forgive me, forgive me!" she cried and I knew that her tears were sincere; she really did feel remorse for whatever she did. I didn't have a clue as to what it was, but if it threw him into such a rage, then it must be an unforgivable crime.
"You have a lover!" he laughed, a chilling sound that would have sent shiver down my spine had I had one. "A handsome"— he spat the word out as if it was a dirty curse— "rich fool who seeks your hand in marriage!"
She pressed her forehead to his boot, shaking to the point of twitching. I felt no pity at all as I understood the enormity of her crime.
She had betrayed him.
You see, this man— if he could be called that though he was much more— loved this girl dearly. I knew he would die a long and painful death if she was not beside him at all times and no one else (for he was insanely jealous).
I was no human: I could see what others can not. In her sparkling blue eye, I saw no love. I saw pity, pity that this man lived in eternal solitude. I saw reverence to his majesty and supremacy. I saw dependence in his praise and comforting words. But love? No. She did not love him.
Not as much I.
There was nothing but her ragged breathing for what seemed like an eternity, until he bent down beside her and tilted her chin upward.
"Please my dear," he murmured. "Do not cry. I can not bear to see you cry." His voice broke, horrified that he made his perfect little angel shed a single tear.
Suddenly, he swept her up in his arms, where she lay un-protesting. She was relieved and contented, I knew, and very soon she went to sleep, her head resting tenderly on his shoulder.
Our shadows lay intertwined together, a secret testimony of unrequited love: bony shafts of darkness wrapped around a liquid dress that covered them both. There was Styx, observing with disturbing awareness, as if he knew exactly what was going on.
And then there was I… the wall they leaned against, the wall that shielded them from harm and nurtured their strange affection against my will. I, who loved a human, a human who loved me no more then any architect loved an expertly built building.
Nothing more.
Styx ran its claws across my surface in an almost comforting gesture, but its touch was a horrible mockery of what I was, what could never be.
And so, like every month on the new moon, I cried in silence.
No one heard me and the city of Paris went on sleeping.