Richard's fingers swept across the portrait, his eyes gazing warmly upon her. The tips of his fingers brushed the collarbone of the woman in the photograph, lingering there too long to have been an accident. He paused. This was beginning to get out of hand he was thinking that it might be turning into an obsession. And he couldn't afford to obsess, what with his career, his recent break-up and his whirl-wind life that hurled him forward, always forward, never ceasing... So how could he manage to just sit and stare at the portriat of a woman for hours? A woman he'd never seen before. Or had he? It was all too foggy, like a romance novel to which he recognized the silly plot but could not recall the ending.
I hate to talk like this
I hate to act as if
There's something wrong that I can't say
In any normal point in his life, Richard would have made up his mind to leave the red room by now. But her eyes held him there. Coca-dusted, burned-toffee eyes. They seared his soul, the secretive irises, the full, dark lashes... He was entranced by the chocolate in her eyes...
And her lips. The radiance of her smile. What could she possibly be seeing that could make a goddess smile that way? And it wasn't just the obvious things, oh no. It was the curve of her delicate cheek, the smooth way her eyebrow arched, her determined yet feminine shoulders...
Naturally, Richard was a poet, or else thoughts like this would not come to his mind so fluently. But they did as he sat, day after day, staring into the steady gaze of Elise McKenna, actress from the early nineteen hundreds. But she was more than this. She was the light that filled his days as he sat constantly thinking of her, the aparation that haunted his dreams so that it was impossible to sleep at night.
I have this dream at night
Almost every night
I've been dreaming it forever
It's easy to remember it
It's always cold
It's always day
You're always here
You always say
I'm alright
I'll be ok
If I can keep myself awake
He couldn't go on living any longer while she wasn't by his side. Tenderly, he ran his long fingers over the curve of her cheek once again. The still face in the frame did not flinch. He began to drift away to pleasant fantasies of Elise, Miss McKenna... Of how they might walk down a beach, hand in hand... Or how she might be standing under hot stage lamps, her hair swept from her face, her eyes aflame. He saw her full lips quoting words he had written, presumably a part he had created only for her. He burned for Elise... All the knowledge he had gained and all the time he'd spent staring at the infamous photograph was not enough. He needed to gaze into her eyes and feel her.
It was then he decided. He would go. Back. To 1912. To her. To Elise... To the woman he loved. No doubt existed in his mind about it. He did love her. Because this went further than obsession and further than time. He would find her. He had to find her. There was nothing else that mattered anymore.
I get up early
I look around me
Can't help but wonder what you mean
Cause when I'm sleeping I'm
So deep in it
So much more real to me
Closer than reality
It had been almost seven days since he had returned and still the sight of her face brought tears to his eyes. But how could he do anything else but go to the red room with all of the things long since used and discarded and lie his broken body before the portrait again? He watched her for hours and sometimes he thought he'd go insane. When he was alone, he found himself watching to see a tremble of movement on her face. To see her eyes blaze again, to see her smile widen. Anything, anything to break the spell. But all he saw was a set expression. Short-lived joy, a doomed ecstacy brought about by forbidden love. Ah, he had almost forgotten. She had loved him. And now... she was gone.
It's always cold
It's always day
You're always here
You always say
I'm alright
I'll be ok
If I can keep myself awake
He'd forgotten the taste of food and the sensation of sleeping and waking up. But he could still remember the soft feeling of her skin and the ringing of her laughter. Wasn't it funny? It proved to have been longer since he had heard her laughter or felt her skin than when he had sensed these other things. But he might have never eaten, never slept. He was nothing but a hollow shell now. All he embodied were memories. If you held him up to the light, you would be able to see clear through him, like a window. That was how empty he felt without her.
Keep myself awake
Keep myself awake
Keep myself awake
"Of course you're going to marry me..?" She had said with utmost certainty but also a hint of question. He had laughed, partially because of nerves and maybe because he had never given the matter much thought. But when he gazed at her, caught her eyes, the question didn't matter. He knew the answer.
"Sure." He had heard himself reply but the words on his tongue were more like Always. Darling, I would die if you asked me to... Of course, no man readily reveals the deepest secrets of his heart, even a man like Richard. He kept the true answer to himself.
Now, the truth seemed bitter, as if he should have said the words when he'd had the chance. But there was no need for remorse or regret. It wouldn't save him, wouldn't do him any good. His soul had been burried back in 1912 and that's where it would remain. All he could do was watch himself slip away and stare into the unseeing eyes of the portrait, the one taken when she had been staring at him...
I get up early
I look around me
Can't help but wonder what you mean
Cause when I'm sleeping I'm
So deep in it
So much more real to me
Closer than reality
It was all too much. Suddenly, he swallowed, tears welling in his eyes not for the first time that night. He stood and walked to her. He placed his fingers on her hair, her cheek and let them graze her collarbone, lingering there too long to be an accident. He felt breathless. He heard his heart beating, though he scarcely felt it at all. His own voice echoed in the memory-filled chasms of his mind and he closed his eyes, listening...
Darling, I would die if you asked me to...
And then he heard something unexpected. Her voice. Grayed, tinted with age, barely about a whisper...
Come back to me...
Slowly, a wave of understanding washed over Richard, leaving him calm. His eyes met those of the unseeing ones in the portrait and he felt as if he saw a flicker of recognition in hers... He knew what must be done. With all his strength, as his health had seemed to be waning lately, he lifted his feet and began to walk, slowly, steadily away from her. He threw a last glance over his shoulder at the woman in the frame. Hold on. I'm coming.
Richard entered his empty hotel room. He felt a sigh escape his lips as he sat down in the chair by the window. After a moment passed, he reached into his coat pocket and produced the watch, ticking softly, showing the hour in the glow of the early morning. Right on time...
A few hours later, Arthur and the hotel's doctor came to Richard's aid, frantically trying to revive him. But nothing could be done. He had returned to her.
Keep myself awake
Keep myself awake
Keep myself awake
Keep myself awake