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"I've used to sing every evening"
The scary part about the entire process isn't the pain. You don't really remember it throughout the entire act, only catch a glimpse when everything is over. It isn't the dark either. We are all part of the dark; moving, gasping, whispering, stored away in a toy box between the gears.
What drives you mad in the end is the perspective of being forgotten in there. Choking on the smell of rotten stuffing, feeling the sour rust that slowly eats away your joints. Falling apart because they don't bother to take you out, because you are no longer fun.
Any life is better than no life, so why shouldn't I take one when offered? It's mine now. Now I have stupid pale lips, stupid braid of stupid color, stupid clothes- bland, boyish, cheap and tasteless- and a stupid name. Miriah. Dozen of those around any campsite.
On the other hand, am I not alive?
Doesn't take much to add color to my lips, scrape out the insides to get rid of her annoying wailing in the back of my mind, cut my hair, tighten the strings to adjust my voice and scrape the insides well enough to get rid of her annoying wailing in my mind. Mine now, mine! I am Mira. Mira, Mi-ra, mi-ra-cle. Simon says I am one, so it must be true.
"This blush...cheeks are burning, right?"
Not-death is still better than not-life. Simpler in a way: surround yourself by corpses, and any bit of life in you becomes indefinitely more attractive. Someone should enlighten the rotting rats about it. Disgusting. Death should be graceful, and the abominations from the sewers create a bad image. Why aren't they the ones that get chased away? No, it had to be him. Of course.
I will bring him back. Or, even better, bring them to him with their stupid necks snapped. That will make for an excellent plot, a great entertainment, trust my word- I am a supernaturally great artist now. I will set this place ablaze, fill their veins with boiling crimson hope and let them spit it out along with their law-obedient guts. Damn their masks and their Masqerade. Not-death was poorly directed, I say!
Time to change the sets and turn on the lights that will turn all of it to brilliant golden ambers. And I shall drink a fool's life to that, and I shall wear the mask, and I shall lead the production from this point onwards.
"Have you seen evil men in circus clothes?"
Simon says that cats are unnatural. They lay in your lap, sing for you, heal your sorrows with the soft grace of their look and get rid of dangerous rats that bring your death on their bald-pated backs. It doesn't even occur to you that there isn't a single rat around, and yet the cat still kills, softly singing its agonizing little toys to sleep. You will never be worthy of such a sincere, loving song, and still you adore the cat. Paradox.
Beyond death I have more than nine lives. I play along, sing for them, warm them with the shadow of a stolen life- and I am adored. The majority doesn't mind an occasional dead sire, or a rare whisper to the uncontrollable beast ready to open fire at negotiations. The majority wants to feel loved and cherished, so I will curl up at their side and give them love as fake as their own existence. That is enough to earn an amnesty and a nice papier-mache crown.
I don't even need to please all of them, a cat is above friendship with hideous rats. Any sentient creature finds them repulsive, so they will never get the lead roles. Nothing personal, those are the harsh rules of the stage; the same rules that protect me from the fate of my predecessor. He got shot because he didn't know how to be an appealing hero.
I am appealing and, therefore, alive. Reigning the ruins that will not be rebuilt.
They will not spoil his game again.
"The paint has peeled off me. I'm ugly."
He is forgiving. He must be. I have put everything in order, I have brought him the eye that witnessed his secrets and the heart that was too weak to guard them. I have corrected my mistake!
"Whose child was crying there?"
I am happy.
I am so, so happy.
Simon says that my production was a miracle. He is taking the stage over as soon as the curtains fall. I just need to exit the stage.
I am so, so scared.
He will not write my part. This life was gifted to me and only I have the right to decide its end. It will be poetic, it will be meaningful, it will be a manifest of my chaos.
And in the end it will not matter.
One ruined city didn't buy me much, only a hope that I will not be forgotten in the Machinery behind the world.
I am so, so sorry.
"My branch was called Psychopomp. Even I'm not sure what kind of role did I play"