vercingtorix
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T
he city is the world I understand, I know, turned inside out. It is my innermost fears manifested: it is monstrous and strange, as distorted as shapes beneath cloudy water. I feel as if the sights I witness, all around, belong to a man that is not me. The fear is a dream’s fear; a nightmare’s concern, for something I do not understand and cannot stand to face.Love does not hurt. It kills. You hope that the pain will stop and it doesn’t, you wait in hope and it kills. I have neither killed nor destroyed. I leave.
Her confession is raw. It belongs to this nightmare world; this search for a beast. I close my eyes when Damascus begins to scream. The sound ought to evoke terror; but it never has, at least not in me. Damascus is the keening of whales beneath the sea as they are slaughtered. Damascus is the sound of sorrow, salt and iron, uncensored and lacking wholeness. Damascus is the sound of a well, echoing, when a wish is abandoned to its waters.
The cry echoes, and echoes, and then is answered by the castle’s beast. Another type of keening. Another type of tragedy.
And yet, Elena’s answer leaves me dissatisfied; it is not as monstrous as I had hoped; it is not so monstrous that it justifies my own bad deeds or, at least, makes them less significant. The longer the answer sits—echoing, like Damascus’s cries—the more I become… nearly, thankful… for Elena’s chosen confession.
I relate to it; as strangely as I relate to this nightmarish city, with surreal lights and eyes glancing wickedly from corners.
It takes me very long to answer, but my fear has waned. It does not occur to me that she is responsible: simply that the only answer I have to these types of questions is forward, always, forward.
Instead of finding something eloquent, I offer her a lesser kindness: “I also leave.” And then: “In some ways, it is a kindness to the alternatives. In some ways, leaving is another kind of death.” I know it is of no solace; I know it does not bring with it reassurance, only acknowledgment: Yes, leaving is terrible. But there are other options more terrible.
We stand at the gates of the castle. I am looking up at them, and the effect makes me feel boyish and not myself. That is where my confession comes, almost wryly.
“Well,” I admit, glancing at her sidelong. I should not find it all so humorous, but there is a juxtaposition between the severe and the less severe. This truth, in comparison to others, is laughable. “For starters, my name is actually Vercingtorix. I lied when we first met. I did not think we would meet again, and have it matter.”
With that, I exhale sharply and push through the doors into darkness.
Several steps later, we remain in that darkness. The fear is gone, now, replaced by cool confidence that belongs to someone else. “I hate myself, Elena.”
This echoes.
Above us, glass shatters; Damascus’s tremendous head is pushed through a lightless window. We are showered in fragments, and he breathes luminous yellow vapor into the dark. It dances, glowing, into the extraordinary hallways before us.
