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The Chant of the Sibyl; True Life.
Oct. 29th, 2008 11:10 amThe hand of the clock falls slowly from the hour of midnight, through the growing hours of the pre-dawn morning and toward daybreak, but the sun never rises. The clock hangs on a string, from a nail that has stained the wall with rust, like the iron frame of the window to its left. It is a whole, narrow world of oxidized metal that has a look about it not unlike flakes of dry blood, let to char in the air and never cleaned away.
A woman stands in the corner of the room. It is hard to tell whether her eyes are on the window, or the clock, but whatever she is watching she never stirs her gaze from, not even for a second. As if one waiting so desperately for something that they feel even the most brief instant of inattention could ruin everything. Everything. But what is there to ruin in a tiny world made of rust and plaster, a window with no glass, and the sere, papery face of a clock that never ushers in daybreak? Her face is like a bird, her eyes wide and dark, frightened hands paralyzed in the fabric of a shapeless, off-white shift. The cloth, like her skin, is an unhealthy color. It is not dirty... but it doesn't have life enough to look clean. The cloth, the skin, and the woman's face are too tired to be anything. From the hair that grows unevenly from her scalp, to her bony pigeon-toed feet planted on the floor, she is as withered as a dying flower, staring motionless as the hours on the clock melt from midnight into some interminable, unnamed hour.
The hands of the clock never reverse themselves, never speed past all of the hours of day that hope, always, to be birthed into time so that everything can start to move again, start to grow, expect the sun. But somehow, they retrace the same span of hours again and again, working blindly over some unsolved mystery.
More than a few hours waiting for absolution, more than a night waiting for sunrise, it is a winter waiting for spring, an ice-age waiting to be pulled out of eternal stasis by the curve of an elliptical orbit.
Gradually, the streaks of rust that make their way down the dun-colored wall are growing longer and longer, as if the metal itself is slowly bleeding out against the uneven plaster. The hands of the clock begin to slowly fall again; an hour goes by, and then another, and then another. Beyond the window, the featureless night never changes, never shifts in terms of even a single star, a moon to show some phase, some ritual of passage.
The hands of the clock crawl down from that inaugural hour, ticking over every minute, every second with deliberation. They draw down, all the way to the bottom, as if drawn by the earth's very, bitter gravity, and then they stop.
The woman turns her dark, sunken eyes away from clock and casement. Her hands twist deeper into her nightgown. Leaning forward, she crumples slightly toward the floor, as if she is no longer able to keep herself upright. Before she collapses, her eyes boring a hole straight forward, perhaps carving out the very air into pitted space, she splits her lips in an agonized expression.
Her mouth – the opening of her mouth – is as still and lifeless a black as the unending night beyond the iron frame of the window. Slowly, from the aperture in her lips, a stain like old rust spreads hazily over the flesh of her narrow chin and down her throat.
"She is a mother, oh god, she is a mother!"
"Jada, calm down..."
"Where is her child! What happened to her child?!"
A woman stands in the corner of the room. It is hard to tell whether her eyes are on the window, or the clock, but whatever she is watching she never stirs her gaze from, not even for a second. As if one waiting so desperately for something that they feel even the most brief instant of inattention could ruin everything. Everything. But what is there to ruin in a tiny world made of rust and plaster, a window with no glass, and the sere, papery face of a clock that never ushers in daybreak? Her face is like a bird, her eyes wide and dark, frightened hands paralyzed in the fabric of a shapeless, off-white shift. The cloth, like her skin, is an unhealthy color. It is not dirty... but it doesn't have life enough to look clean. The cloth, the skin, and the woman's face are too tired to be anything. From the hair that grows unevenly from her scalp, to her bony pigeon-toed feet planted on the floor, she is as withered as a dying flower, staring motionless as the hours on the clock melt from midnight into some interminable, unnamed hour.
The hands of the clock never reverse themselves, never speed past all of the hours of day that hope, always, to be birthed into time so that everything can start to move again, start to grow, expect the sun. But somehow, they retrace the same span of hours again and again, working blindly over some unsolved mystery.
More than a few hours waiting for absolution, more than a night waiting for sunrise, it is a winter waiting for spring, an ice-age waiting to be pulled out of eternal stasis by the curve of an elliptical orbit.
Gradually, the streaks of rust that make their way down the dun-colored wall are growing longer and longer, as if the metal itself is slowly bleeding out against the uneven plaster. The hands of the clock begin to slowly fall again; an hour goes by, and then another, and then another. Beyond the window, the featureless night never changes, never shifts in terms of even a single star, a moon to show some phase, some ritual of passage.
The hands of the clock crawl down from that inaugural hour, ticking over every minute, every second with deliberation. They draw down, all the way to the bottom, as if drawn by the earth's very, bitter gravity, and then they stop.
The woman turns her dark, sunken eyes away from clock and casement. Her hands twist deeper into her nightgown. Leaning forward, she crumples slightly toward the floor, as if she is no longer able to keep herself upright. Before she collapses, her eyes boring a hole straight forward, perhaps carving out the very air into pitted space, she splits her lips in an agonized expression.
Her mouth – the opening of her mouth – is as still and lifeless a black as the unending night beyond the iron frame of the window. Slowly, from the aperture in her lips, a stain like old rust spreads hazily over the flesh of her narrow chin and down her throat.
"She is a mother, oh god, she is a mother!"
"Jada, calm down..."
"Where is her child! What happened to her child?!"