Danse Macabre
“I wander through your being
Where can I not look for you, love?
It is my misery which darkens your path
Yet it is my existence where you find peace”
If a random person stops you in the streets to ask you, how would it feel to stand at the edge of a cliff, with the ground teasing you with its ends, the wind caressing you as it passes through you like it was awaiting you from the beginning? What would it be like to see the sea and rocks clash with each other for your presence as the sea breaks all forces of the rocks with a sense of urgency?
You would call that person a lunatic, someone crazy and delusional, right? Exactly why someone like me confines their thoughts to their unsound mind and does not try to pry answers out of people. I see the thunder making its appearance through the dark clouds and the sound of it trying to catch its way to the light. From many stories and fables like Romeo and Juliet to Tristan and Isolde, none share a crueler fate than thunder and lightning. Lightning unable to control its own nature runs through the clouds and pulled back by fate while time plays with the thunder to make it a subject to mockery, running behind the lightning for the circle of eternity. We beings have death to unite us all and death travels fast, but these elements are the source of us, they are not bound by eternity and death, as they are eternity and life. So, as thunder and lightning move around in a perpetual cycle, my heart weeps for their hopeless eternity.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I breathe in the scent of the forest, the freedom of it. I look at the sky to find my god and ask him to provide these lovers with the gift of death so they can finally unite.
I take a few wildflowers from the cliff and pass them towards the sea for every broken piece of their hearts which breaks due the failure of their unrelenting tries, and turn my back against the force of wind to let its general caress feel a little more like an assault.
I walk towards my town where every man is strange to other. As once stated by a famous politician, Lord Acton, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”, the entire neighborhood reeks of corrupted deviance.
This power, it’s not bad nor good. It’s just nature. Yin to yang. Concrete grounds of reality state that a word like “power” is a form of dominance yet if I use the term “potential” in place of power, it somehow seems more submissive, doesn’t it?
The truth is that power and potential are two sides of the same coin just like how hope and denial, mind and soul, love and selfishness, desire and need are. Though, this is not how people choose to perceive things and emotions. For them one is always superior to the other until fate has it’s play. They treat the inferior as the pawn until it reaches the end of the other end to become what they fear. That’s when they see the thing inferior to them as something differently dangerous. Foolishness, I’m afraid is what I consider superior in the heads of such people who see the queen on the chessboard as the mightiest, thinking the king is just a helpless hallmark on the board. What they forget is that, once in trouble, the queen is meant to be a gambit for her king. Some will be a martyr for their queen, but all will be sacrificed for their king on a chessboard.
But these thoughts reside in a corner of my head since the potential of them is not meant to be handled by the ones who reign their powers and confine it to either some or no control.
I walk towards my house as I let go of my musings and let them lurk in the back of my mind.
As I pass through the forest, I hear a rustle and turn instantly back. When I see nothing, I turn to my path but I feel like I’m being watched. I might not fear the sun and watch it in the eye everyday just to fight its beauty, but right now, I feel fear- intimidation- as my pace turns faster. My blood turns colder and I feel myself wanting to turn back again, but stopping myself at the thought of finding demons chasing me, I start running. Suddenly I feel something take my ankle into a vice like grip as I fall and hit my head on a rock. I feel the blood gushing out my head but it is the least of my worries. I flip so that my back is against the ground.
The clouds get darker and the sound of thunder turns more melancholic as if it grieves for me. I try to take the support of the rock to get up and slip due to the moss on it, giving me a long bruise on my arm but the blood does not scare me. It is the only proof that I still exist in the flesh as I stand back up. I look through the woods and see a man with nothing but a dark cloak. As if I am in a trance, I cannot stop looking at him.
My feet wish to move towards the dark but fear rattles my heart. I hear the screeching sounds of birds. Not birds, crows. They sing a melody but it is not haunting in the least. It invites me to go towards the one in the cloak, but I cannot. My mind takes over my instincts as I turn back and see my blood worship the roots of a hemlock tree. My blood turns colder with each second as if it is freezing yet I still find the strength to start running.
The sound of crows follows me everywhere I go and thunder booms in the distance but I do not stop. I reach my town and the stony roads of it to find a man in the center of the street.
It’s evening now and the clouds and skies have blended into each other. The yellow streetlights offer as much as light as they can to put the man in some sort of a spotlight. He too is wearing a black coat and his black hair move in the direction of the wind. He is looking at the sky with the same serene expression I had a few moments ago.
I run to him and say “Please help me, there is someone after me.” As he slowly turns around, I feel the same attraction to him I felt when my senses wished for me to run towards the man in the black cloak. His eyes are pitch black with a depth I feel could be compared to the age of time. His build is strong and powerful and his presence offers calm and peace. He smiles and takes my hand and raises it to kiss my knuckles. Despite this, fear stands strong in my bones but I am back into that trance where I feel like I have nothing to be scared off.
He pulls me closer and wraps a hand around my waist and whispers in my ears, “It is never my intention to scare you all, but it seems like somehow I always go wrong with it anyway.”
His hands are colder than ice and a shiver goes through my spine but I steel it as realization dawns upon me.
“You were chasing me through the woods?”
His eyes never wavered from me as he gives me a nod and spins me around as if we’re dancing. I try to wrench myself away from his hold yet all my efforts seem futile. In that moment, he grips me harder to give me a subtle sort of warning.
My voice turns into a whisper and I can barely hear it when I ask, “Why?”
He keeps spinning me till my back is against his front and leans towards to whisper in my ear, “Danse Macabre, my dear. Everyone dances with me.” He spins me around so that he can face me and says, “Everyone dances with death.”
Death? My head starts to spin and I feel like I’m going to fall to the ground as he keeps dancing with me to the melody of thunder and crows. “Please, I implore you, please! It’s not my time yet, it can’t be.”
He laughs in a sadistic manner. “Time is not meant to be owned, sweetheart. I cannot control it, let alone anyone else. It follows every path of yours and now passes you over to me when his journey ends. It hides in those clouds you worship; it runs in the waves of the sea, it brings the colours to every flower that is born. Just a few moments ago, you were wishing for it to let go the world and someday it will. Someday, time too will dance with me, then your wishes will come true.”
He stops dancing and hold my face between his hands and continues, “Eternity dies too. You will not remain with me forever. The storm will leave the sky only to be back again and you too will leave only to dance with me all over again.”
I think about all the things I wish to do, all the things I still must do. Memories rush into my head as I remember all the ones I loved. They will miss me just as much as will miss them. So many regrets reside in my head. So many questions I haven’t yet asked. As if he knows what I’m going to ask, “Death will unite you all, and as you leave me for life, time will take care of the rest.”
We keep dancing for a while as I accept what must come next. I rest my head on his chest and feel him cocooning me and offering me comfort for all that I missed in my life. Tears don’t reach my eyes as I feel myself letting go of this world. I lose myself in that moment. I realize I don’t feel cold anymore.
I look at him one more time to inspect his features as he casually looks at the sky with not a single worry. Death too, is beautiful. He lurks in the shadows and when he is not known, he is scary yet its call is still attractive. But here? In the light, even fear dances with death. Every power I held, every regret I had, danced with death. Here death is not just attractive but he is also a gatekeeper, forcing us to let go of everything that puts us in mortal shackles.
As the sky clears up and the sun starts to shine a little, the melody of crows seems to come to a stop. I close my eyes, knowing what is coming next and take a deep breath.
I ask him, “Can’t we dance a little longer?’
I feel his smile against my face as he says “No.”
“Why?”
He lets go of me and kisses my eyes closed as he whispers in my ears, “Death travels fast.”
***
I open my eyes once again and I find myself alone on the cliff again with the sea, the clouds, the thunder, and the lightening.
Suddenly, the rock supporting the cliff from underneath breaks and I fall towards the sea.
I try to resurface again, but it’s pointless. The sea holds me tight in its embrace and passes me over to the dark. I fall unconsciousness and my body gives up on me as I feel his hands hold me again and caress my face into a deep slumber.
***
For what feels like after a second, I wake up again.
Death stands behind me and I break into a laugh with him. We laugh together as I run towards his arms.
I run through the edge of the ocean. Dance with death endlessly but not get tired of it. I dive from cliffs. I swim in the depths of the ocean. I sleep in the bed of flowers and ask my questions aloud. No, I scream them as death smiles upon me.
I find others, just as free as me. We don’t have any regrets, no judgements, just freedom in his kingdom. Reality is left to be molded by us here as we have no compulsion of defining our worlds and our past life.
As I sit under the hemlock tree, death holds me close but I feel it shed a tear as I see the clouds come back again. Thunder strikes the sky in the same melancholic way I heard when death came to take me away. I follow his vision and see someone in a black cloak. His eyes are white as he offers me his hand and signals me to walk towards him.
Death tightens his grip on me and kisses my hand one last time but then lets me ago as I walk towards those white eyes. Before accepting his hand, I turn to look back to see those black eyes again and find them to be filled with silent tears.
Death too has a life, a life meant to always be forgotten.
Death will always be forgotten.
Until it meets you again.
By: Avni Chaturvedi
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