myth of the hourglass
Walpurgisnacht, great Queen of Witches, scourge of the earth. She who makes her appearance on the stage once every hundred years to the screams of her audience. When she appears on the stage, her play becomes a tragedy of death and destruction, and all who know her look upon her clockwork form and despair.
The helpless fool who spins about in circles, she barely seems to notice the havoc that she wreaks on everything she touches. Her laughs that are not laughs (are they sobs, is she weeping? No one ever survives long to wonder.) shatter the windows and send buildings on their sides, as she looks for someone to watch her tale, to validate all her fruitless struggles. That's all she wants, validation. Who cares if the world burns? Who cares if she sets it all on fire? If she can get just one person to listen to her tale, none of this will matter.
She was a strong girl, once. Once, an eternity ago, she was a strong girl. Not this helpless fool. She had taken it upon herself to be strong, and would never find herself the plaything of fate.
But no matter how strong she was, no matter how she strived to change her world, she couldn't do a thing. She couldn't save her loved ones from dying, couldn't change the cruel hand of fate she had been dealt. She could only watch as they all died, could only watch as they slipped further and further away from her, until they were strangers to her, and she, to them.
Her strength had meant nothing.
None of this seemed real anymore. The actions were forced and she knew all the lines. It kept happening, over and over again. A play, it was like a play.
That's all this is, she realized one day. It's just a play. And with that knowledge, she was free.
She was just a girl once, and just a normal Witch once. She cursed humanity as they had once cursed her, spreading her influence in small and subtle ways. She grew stronger by her newfound cannibalism, but the paradox was that as she grew into a stronger Witch, she merely became more helpless. The loss of identity with all of these other consciousnesses jumbling around in her head, the confusion, it only made her even more helpless than before.
They, Walpurgisnacht and all the Witches she had devoured, they all had one thing in common. They all wanted to put an end to their pain.
Walpurgisnacht can't bring an end to pain, not hers nor anyone else's. She can, however, fashion a great, ghostly parade to distract herself from the clamor and the constant torment—it is only her pain she cares about, hers and no one else's. The grand play, never-ending, will be the balm to her gaping wounds.
The little ants who sting at her will now dance for her instead and serve as the guardians to the stage, ensuring that no one will defile her sacrosanct tale. And she will watch, she, great Queen of Witches, will watch, and her giggles will sound like sobs.
None of this has any hope of granting her real peace. The bright colors, the pretty lights, the actors diving back and forth, it's the Witch's illusion. When she realizes that, that none of this is real and only the products of her great hand, she makes the living things around her pay for her disappointment. This is a far more entertaining play; the ants' scurrying is at least spontaneous.
And she, great Queen of Witches, has come to this place, at this time, for one reason.
For her.
Walpurgisnacht is one half of an hourglass, reaching down. She is incomplete, and growing more fragmented by the second. Here, she knows there will come on, a Witch of terrible power and beauty, one who will stretch her hands up to towards her. She promises to put an end to Walpurgisnacht's pain, to make her herself again, to rid herself of all the voices, all the pain, all the artificiality.
She who wishes to put an end to all suffering, she is the only one who promises an end to the pain, who promises to let Walpurgisnacht rest in peace. Whether her solution is bliss or oblivion, Walpurgisnacht does not care anymore—and really, is there such a difference between the two? Either way, Walpurgisnacht will rest in peace.
Her other half is coming, the only one who can make her whole again, the only one who can give meaning to this plastic play. And when she finally makes her appearance, her terrible beauty lighting up the stage, Walpurgisnacht will cease her giddy laughter-weeping long enough to say:
I have finally found you. My dearest love, you've come back for me at last. You didn't forget me after all.