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CHILDREN`S GRAVES.
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HOLLOW WORDS TURN TO POETRY. CHILDREN`S GRAVES.
“Some of the best show as perform to a empty stage.”
It was one of these summer evenings, the day was to his end, when I open my eyes, and the curtains of my attic room…
The place got suddenly fill with dusty tangerine light.
The sky was like a painter palette, fill with mixture of colours, from violet to deep ageing purple, and cross over by bleeding scarlet traces, open wounds, broken rainbows!
How long have I been hibernated? Did not really matter, time was a notion I had learn to master and therefore to forget!
My knowlegde as far as I was aware, was similar to a cuddly beast, immersing from a long sleep, which at this second, was to satisfy his appetite, from which anger was tremendous!
The ritual was about to start. I sank my body into the cold water of the bath, washing my dreams away, my mind must be clean and the treasure of my inspiration reborn…
I grab a bunch of dried flowers, which I left floating around me, perfumes of the decease, when I felt my flesh impregnated by their passing life’s, my soul twisted with new senses!
I stood naked, dripping from the tears of the earth; affront of the Victorian mirror, starring at the reflection of what I suppose was the Goth of myself…
I still had to wear my disguise.
I sat at the small table and with robotic movements, started to applied the white powder, first layer of my human canvas, for a quick second I could smell, the perfume of my grand-mother powdering her face, souvenir in my blurry mind…
My fingers took hold of the crimson lipstick, a favourite of mine. So much red as been symbolist in my early youth…
Smear it against my lips, silver shade on my eyelids, cold ashes, when the fire of passion had finally died.
A black line under my eyes, to accentuated the tiny sparkle left…
I look again, in the split mirror of my reflection and smile…and this was the sweetest smile I had seen for a long time.
When I had accomplished the portray of my face and was satisfied with the vulgar result, I went toward the large wooden wardrobe.
As I open it, the smell of incent left me dizzy, it is then from the smell of the ages, that I knew, I was about to accomplished my master piece, therefore my best outfit was to be wear…
White was the robe, maybe to the eyes of an expert, you could have see the slight yellow discolouration of time, but the colour of innocence was to be!
I grab a long silky scarf, who once upon a time used to be used for confession, and wrap it around my waist, the ends of it was garnish with golden threads twinkling by the candle light.
I took hold of my long dark hair and wrap it around my head in some Victorian fashion, fix with a tortoise shell pin.
All was left was wearing my long grey coat.
By this stage, the room was diffuse by shadows. I took hold of the metal box, hidden under my bed. Meticulously, holding each photos, pile neatly.
My pride, my work of so many years! I started to flick through each ones, filling my decaying mind from their beauty, wondering for a while if my work would ever been admire for his artistic qualities?
Somehow I did not really care, one way or the other.
The burning desire of ambition had long left me and the void had been fill, with the only primitive desire to create upon my own impulse.
You see there was no doute that I had become the tool of some stronger forces! I sat there in complete silence, the candle flame flickering inside my black pupil, the shadow changing my face to something hideous, image finally switch to a sainthood figure…
I hear the owl of the nearest church and knew that time had come to slip into the night.
The noise of the keys inside the rusty lock of the door. I walk in the same pace, ignoring the look of passer by, upon me…
I sat on my old friend, the bench facing the Thames, electric’s lights reflecting and shaking by the movement of the dirty water.
I knew, she would come to me, patience was another jewel, I had learned to master. It is true, that when you are not waiting anymore for such a thing call “life”, it seem so easy to oblige…
And so she did. Youth, shy, godly creature, at first she gave me a quick glance and sat few feet’s away, but curiosity was to strong…
I smile with bleeding lips and she did the same, with revolting innocence!
She must have not been, any more than fifteen springs but her body had flourish into the most saintly womanly figure, but most of all, she had kept the quality I cherish the most; PURITY!
My hands instinctively clutched on my camera. The desire of using it became so strong, that I could hardly comtemp my posture, but time will come…
I did not have to say a word, she knew, her destiny had took her to me. Her god had guide her toward my evil and the two of them has somehow, in some intriguing ways, find a common ground…
I gently took hold of her fragile hand and headed toward the scene of my masterpiece.
The breeze of the night was ever so flirtatious with her hair. I could smell the perfume of her milky skin, sensing the pulse of her heart, drumming against the end of my fingers, like a mournful symphony along a funeral cortege!
HIGHGATE cemetery:
I push the gates, which left a sharp lament into the space. And still, the view of the grave did not seem to scare her, apart from a light pressure of her fingers in the palm of my hand; she kept the same pace and follows me ever so tamely…
But why fighting against fate? When the all story is already laid into the sacred book…
Myself knew, that tonight was my last, and it is with the star and a feebler moon, that I was about to give my best picture to the world…
My final act, the missing piece of my own story, mine been a little bit more visual than others…
We pass the trees, from which their long branches, cut out affront of the deep blue night, look like some long forgotten mythology monster, part of so many secrets…
And finally, we saw them…
Line up into a perfect circle. Children’s graves, golden names incrusted in the cold marble stone, and there in the middle of it, more macabre than what was rotting inside the earth, stood with great arrogance, a gigantic monument of the virgin Marie. How vulgar the sculpture looks to my eyes…
And the memories of the child I was came back to me…
My father had spend nearly a year, sculpting it, putting so much pride in it, while at the same time, he rejoice himself by humiliating me, somehow is Art feeding on my own child misery!
The boy had not forgot his baby sister, falling from his arms, the crack of the skull against the pave stone!
The scream of my mother, which a minute later had faded with her broke heart!
I was to be responsible. This hideous monument, in which my paternal had put so much of his hated for me would forever, symbolised my double crime….
As each night, the acidic whisper of his vitriolic words would remind me, in some nightmarish lullaby.
And this is where, for so many years, the dust of my Sybil rested, I decided to take my young friend.
She knew and looks at the small marble stone, stain by the passing seasons.
And as she was reading the word “angel”, I took hold firmly of my tortoise pin, and as my hair felt on my shoulder in some water falls movements, the pin went through her delicate neck!
I drag the body gently against the statue. Defiant I had finally broke my father curse. What I was offering to the god and the Goth of these children’s was not made of hate, but purity, as pure as the expression on her dead face look…
The blood pouring over her silky dress was looking like red sapphire around her neck.
I gather many plastic flowers into her hair and put a dead rose inside her stiff fingers.
I step back and mechanically, pointed the lens of the camera. My final picture was accomplished!
And as the flash was lighting up the all scene, I could swear that for a brief second, I saw the face of my sister, smiling at me, with the most forgetful eyes…
I pushed the door firmly behind me, locked it and left the key inside the lock.
Developed the photos and as usual, after selecting the best shot, burn the others one, and the film.
I open my metal box and place it on top of the others; the work of a lifetime had finally being achieved…
I stood affront of the broken mirror, my face had somehow change, I suddenly look older.
I wiped the make up and saw the figure of my father staring back at me.
But the eyes of the old man was not so cruel anymore, instead tears was filling them, and I felt for the first time, the warm of them running along my cheeks, as I laid down on my bed, and felt into eternal sleep….
