Not Alone

I have let her go. My little songbird has flown away and left me al alone, because I told her to. Here I sit, listening to the tiny Persian music box. Many would call it ugly, though I don't mind. Beauty and ugliness mean nothing to me, even as they have shaped my entire life until this point. Someone once said to me, "We all wear masks, some are just more obvious than others." Was it her? I can't remember. Everything is blurring, I can't remember. I am quickly losing sanity, but does it make a difference, now that there is no one to witness it?

I remember only one thing now: that beautiful painful memory, her lips upon mine, willingly, of her own free accord. And, for a moment, I was at the very gates of Heaven itself, but St. Peter thrust me away with both hands when I realized it could never be. I loved her so much that it hurt, and I wouldn't force her to love me back.

Her white petals would never yield to me of their own accord, so here I remain, the monstrous nightingale, alone once more, reduced to tears over the irony of a music box.

Now she is back again. I tell her I love her, just one more time, so that she will remember for me, in case I forget that as well.

She begins to walk toward me, slowly. She really is an angel. She took me to Heaven once, my angel did, but my wickedness could not abide the light, and I fell back down, where the red light of the flames is more forgiving.

She has retrieved the wedding veil from its place on the floor, and secures it atop her silken hair. I wish I had more hair; it can be so beautiful.

She walks toward me and kneels, taking my cold bony hands in her soft warm ones. And now she speaks the four words I have never heard from anyone, nor ever expected to.

"Erik, I love you."

Then she leans forward and kisses me atop my forehead, and the tears begin again.

"No tears, my love." She says, as she kisses them away, her unmarred lips upon my eyelids, willing me to be happy. But I am! Oh, I am happy! She has brought me back to Heaven again, but she has dimmed the lights for me, so they will not hurt my eyes.

I am alone no more.