Prelude: The Angel Closes Her Eyes
There is no more transfixing sight than the tears of despair, for which one
was helpless to do anything but watch. Perhaps a weaker person would haveturned
away, but for me it was not possible. And she cried shamelessly, streaming
salty tears down her splotched face, dampening both her unbound hair and torn
dress. She clawed at herself, unable to contain any instincts that overtook
her, retching and heaving, screaming and whimpering. Her voice was not natural,
for it had an animal's baseness, and instinct kept her pinned to the ground
alternately swaying and pounding. I did not think so much emotion was capable
of being in any one person at the same time, that such an outpour could be so
heart rendering and sincere without actual effort to carry on the pain, or
submission into unconscious. But she submitted and rendered to none, and nature
was not kind enough to give her a faint heart. So the gasping, sobbing, hopeless
shrieking of a desperate soul with nothing left to cling to went on
interminably, conveying more powerfully than words their message. I cry out.
She bore the wounds of love. And me? I was an empty
shell. I was numb - emotionally void, as if something had wrenched from me all
my desires, my longing and my hope. As if all my efforts and strife for this
one event had come to an end finally, only to leave me without any other part
to call myself. What I had put my soul into, what had taken from me so much
more than I thought I had been able to give, now lay
before me, a finished project other than my own, yet I could lay no claim to
it. Therefore, I was left with nothing.
In many ways I had pitied her as much as I'd delighted in her, since she still
had things for which she could lose and mourn. She could not contain that part
of herself, the idealistic notion of the advantage of humanity's sorrow. She
fed off of that faith, preyed on it voraciously. If nothing else, she was a
creature of emotion that was uncompromising at core. The
unnamed part. The disembodied voice. Now it is
but a whisper. In every way that made her role stronger and
more purposeful, and her sacrifice more perfect. I placed my warming
hand on her stilling chest, drawing the spark of life within. As I did so, I
gave her a farewell befitting her part in my legacy. "Goodnight, Virginia."