One Last Duel | fermata
this inexorable, this frigid, this superior —
Is this what the winged butterfly feels when the a needle punctures that fragile membrane separating the aorta from the tender, twitching heart?Many a time my fingers have held down their wings on the drying-racks, as the Doctor prepared the alcohol.
Crystallising and condensing something pulsates through my ligaments and along the rims of my eyes, entwining the tongue and numbing my throat until I halt, erect, dry. Not a prayer utterable, not a verse or a whisper. I need a bearing. I stumble. That impenetrable dark drew around the corners of my eyes. This cannot be — but I see! My eyes radiate. I project skyward. I see the vault of the sky. The starry belt of Orion and the spiralling helm of the Argo Navis. The vault of the sky, falling, crashing down and down and down. It is as if the weight of the heavens pin my chest into the mortal-earth. The wet grasses tugging down leaden arms, leaden hands. Anchored. Still. Then that beating instrument in my chest slows, as if an unquiet snowstorm gathers from deep in my chest; this inexorable, this frigid, this superior —
— and I saw the glint of that thin blade slide out from the base my heart.
