Skip to main content

Ophelia's vision

From my story Cambriel, in November 2006.

The next morning, I went out into the city alone.

The sky was gray and everything felt dead in the cold mist. Even though I was frightened of the rusty elevator, I stepped inside and lowered myself as I had seen Shelley do. Every time the wind blew, the cage swayed, clanging against the shaft, jarring me mentally far more than physically.

I knew a thrill when I stepped out of it. For once there was no one to check what I did. My mantle wrapped firmly around me, I moved furtively along the alley. I did not know where I would go—only that I would see this place that humans had long forsaken—and at a time when the werewolves would be at their weakest.

I crossed a deserted parking lot which weeds had mostly overtaken. There was one car which was dilapidated almost beyond recognition. Every available crevice was stuffed with straw where birds had made their nests. As I moved across the pavement, a vision came to me in a blinding flash.

I was carrying a heavy burden, my strength from a surge of adrenaline. A trail of blood followed me, darkening the cracked pavement with crimson. My mind moved from one thought to the other—from the past to the present—and I could see shifting images of horror and blood.

In the adjacent field I lay my bundle, then picked up a shovel and started digging. Blood covered the front of my dress. I moaned and wailed as I dug up the dry, dusty earth, wiping my running nose on my dirty sleeve.

It took hours to dig this grave. I had to crawl inside and trowel out the earth. I shook all over as I did so, barely able to suppress the scream rising in my throat. Shakily I crawled partly out, fell in again, then dragged myself onto the grass, dropping my head near the linen-wrapped bundle.

“My darling,” I whispered. “I failed you. Forgive me.”

Then I dragged the form into the grave as gently as I could and started covering it up. Tears streamed down my face as I did so.

The vision affected my physically. I felt it pierce my heart, and I began to cry senselessly as I made my way across the parking lot. There were no spots of blood on the pavement—as there had been in my vision. They would have faded long ago. However, in the adjacent field there was a pile of pieces of asphalt, mostly sunken into the ground.

I approached it, knowing as I did so that it was that grave—lain undisturbed for a hundred years. In it were the darkest of my memories.

Popular posts from this blog

Snow White and the Prince

I dreamed in darkness, cold and alone. Phantasms shifted around me, frightening me, but I was powerless to escape them or even move, as I was sealed in a casket. I thought of the Queen, my Stepmother, and tears dripped from my eyes as I considered the quasi-poignant moments we had once shared, when we might have been considered to be close, when the Queen had nearly been a mother to me, and the face of love had shone radiantly upon me, before eclipsed again by the storms of Venus. I thought of the huntsman, stung to consider that my only friend had been poised to betray me, to kill me, and again in my mind I felt the horror of his shadow, of waiting while he came behind me, knowing there was no escape for me from a death he would inflict. My heart lifted as images of the Prince entered my mind, his grace atop a white-maned horse, always out of my reach, just beyond the words I longed to speak. If only there had been more time for us to fall in love. He might have saved me from those...

Where does it lie

I look out onto the yellow and brown vegetation beneath my window, at the castle-like buildings far away and wonder where do I lie in all of this? There was a time when I was unfettered. This was a time before I entered the working world, before I was independent. My heart was free as a bird when I was in college. I did not know what happiness I experienced in my creativity because I had never known different. In other aspects of my life I knew pain but my stories, sprung up lately from a gothic mist into an immersing Pre-Raphaelite painting, were a richness and the most beautiful thing I had ever known. That the most beautiful thing I knew to exist happened inside of me made me very happy, even though I didn't know it. Now I know the sun is setting, even though I can't see it, because the bank of brown, twisted trees and shrubs is lit gold, like a reflection from a golden chalice. Slowly, slowly it will fade until everything is a homogenous, uncertain gray. This is the nightma...

The day was described as unseasonably warm

The day is so beautiful, but I do not feel beautiful. I feel like a void. The world will not be any more beautiful if I go into the park and enjoy the sunshine. The birds will still sing whether I go or stay, and this person does not seem capable of feeling any kind of happiness. I have been going through old entries, and find the same things I have always found when doing this. I have the same feelings and interests as I always did, I feel the same pressures and struggles as ever. I have been tagging things, but it is a never-ending task. I have nearly 800 posts in this journal alone, to say nothing of paper journals and other notes on the Internet. I thought I would organize my notes because I do not feel capable of imbibing any kind of information or communicating anything of importance. However, I am tired. I did not sleep well last night. It is as though at some point years ago I lost some sleep, and I have been losing it ever since. I have a strange, lost feeling when I thi...