Chapter 2 - He Performs for Questions (Dove)
Submitted October 26, 2007 Updated May 11, 2008 Status Incomplete | Separately, four people are talented artists. But together they become miraculous. They revolutionize a country by merely existing.
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Chapter 2 - He Performs for Questions (Dove)
Chapter 2 - He Performs for Questions (Dove)
I watch the old man leave. I can see he is shaken. He is a strong soul, this traveling musician. But he does not know the things that I, Dove, know. He falters. He falters at the questions left behind. The people he performs for are hard. I know, for I was born among them.
The people of this country are strange. Foreigners call us cruel, corrupt, warped even. Like a mirror of glass gives a distorted image and taunts the face that gazes into it, my village twists the lives that stay here. The tainted people cheat. They lie, they steal, harm, murder, frighten. Men break the hearts of their women. Wives taunt the authority of their husbands. Daily, hundreds of citizens commit a myriad of crimes. It is impossible to know how many lives have been broken. How many womanly bodies hide bruises under their long skirts and rich silks. How many tears has that blond child standing on the corner cried? Is that yonder merchant really a truthful worker? Or does he swindle, gamble, cheat, and steal in order to buy his new secret love gaudy ankle bracelets? No doubt his blessed wife of many years saves him leftover onions and sausage on the cookstove each evening. But only before giving her children their bedtime beating and sneaking off to spend her night in a drunken disgrace.
Yet no one pays heed. They see the sick, twisted lives of their neighbors. They see their own revolting existence. And nothing is mentioned, nothing is changed. Normal, happy, fake lives are playacted each day. Conversation consists of the market prices, the weather, the recent entertainment in town. Oh--Despair does not creep through our country on cat feet. It drenches every living thing in its dark, inky stain. Soon we shall choke on it; little time is left before we drown in its liquid poison sea.
Aren't the prices of leeks this month atrocious? I do hope it will rain.
Deceit's thick, strong hands are quick to lunge for their pathetic, scrawny necks. Half of the miserable beings wish that their spines would snap. Some do take their lives into their own hands. Bodies are flung from rooftops, men fall on their swords, women nobly practice the death of Cleopatra as they embibe cups full of death's ever present messenger: poison.
There is a new painter in town who came with the last caravan. Shall we go and watch him? Thursdays are such a bore.
And so every life is held on a short, painful, constricting chain. They hate it, but to escape is impossible. I watch their dark miserable eyes day after day. I cannot empathize, for my dance has saved me in a way. Despair I understand, Deceit I see in others. But the dance that has always led me has also kept me apart from the rest of the village. It illuminates the disgusting offal of this place. I dance to close myself...to purify anything in me. I dance to escape the pain of others. Their agony is beyond belief and it spills over onto me. So I sway into myself. I wish I could dance to the tune of the old man's viola. But I only applaud. I can hear the questions on the scattered clapping.
Why?
How is the music so pure?
Why are the notes that come from the grandsire so saintly?
Why have we never heard such innocent music?
How?
The questions jab at the straight retreating back of the blind musician. My own question escapes from my tingling fingertips.
Please my I dance with you?
The intuitive violist stops mid-stride and turns his snowy head. His gray eyes do not know where I stand --but he nods once into the crowd. I will seek him out this night.
The people of this country are strange. Foreigners call us cruel, corrupt, warped even. Like a mirror of glass gives a distorted image and taunts the face that gazes into it, my village twists the lives that stay here. The tainted people cheat. They lie, they steal, harm, murder, frighten. Men break the hearts of their women. Wives taunt the authority of their husbands. Daily, hundreds of citizens commit a myriad of crimes. It is impossible to know how many lives have been broken. How many womanly bodies hide bruises under their long skirts and rich silks. How many tears has that blond child standing on the corner cried? Is that yonder merchant really a truthful worker? Or does he swindle, gamble, cheat, and steal in order to buy his new secret love gaudy ankle bracelets? No doubt his blessed wife of many years saves him leftover onions and sausage on the cookstove each evening. But only before giving her children their bedtime beating and sneaking off to spend her night in a drunken disgrace.
Yet no one pays heed. They see the sick, twisted lives of their neighbors. They see their own revolting existence. And nothing is mentioned, nothing is changed. Normal, happy, fake lives are playacted each day. Conversation consists of the market prices, the weather, the recent entertainment in town. Oh--Despair does not creep through our country on cat feet. It drenches every living thing in its dark, inky stain. Soon we shall choke on it; little time is left before we drown in its liquid poison sea.
Aren't the prices of leeks this month atrocious? I do hope it will rain.
Deceit's thick, strong hands are quick to lunge for their pathetic, scrawny necks. Half of the miserable beings wish that their spines would snap. Some do take their lives into their own hands. Bodies are flung from rooftops, men fall on their swords, women nobly practice the death of Cleopatra as they embibe cups full of death's ever present messenger: poison.
There is a new painter in town who came with the last caravan. Shall we go and watch him? Thursdays are such a bore.
And so every life is held on a short, painful, constricting chain. They hate it, but to escape is impossible. I watch their dark miserable eyes day after day. I cannot empathize, for my dance has saved me in a way. Despair I understand, Deceit I see in others. But the dance that has always led me has also kept me apart from the rest of the village. It illuminates the disgusting offal of this place. I dance to close myself...to purify anything in me. I dance to escape the pain of others. Their agony is beyond belief and it spills over onto me. So I sway into myself. I wish I could dance to the tune of the old man's viola. But I only applaud. I can hear the questions on the scattered clapping.
Why?
How is the music so pure?
Why are the notes that come from the grandsire so saintly?
Why have we never heard such innocent music?
How?
The questions jab at the straight retreating back of the blind musician. My own question escapes from my tingling fingertips.
Please my I dance with you?
The intuitive violist stops mid-stride and turns his snowy head. His gray eyes do not know where I stand --but he nods once into the crowd. I will seek him out this night.
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liggybird on March 24, 2011, 9:42:46 PM
liggybird on
I've only read two chapters (and the Plot Help) so far but I'm liking this very much. I like the two lines of small talk that interrupt Dove's strongly ascerbic thoughts (on what Dove sees as the very hypocritical hidden lives of his fellow countrytmen). I also like the idea of Dove's feeling of being more fortunate than his fellows (on account of his dancing) while at the same time being subject to their condition ("Their agony is beyond belief and it spills over onto me."). I'll read further soon but I just wanted to give this a comment before I went out. ^^musicismylife on November 28, 2007, 9:00:14 AM
wow very nice detail! you write very well!!!! lolz woot! keep it up!! ^^gigglebutton on October 26, 2007, 12:27:40 PM
gigglebutton on
Oooo....cool...I like it.redclaw on October 26, 2007, 12:23:58 PM
redclaw on
thats kinda scary, and emotional.........*sniff*