Torment

LACRIMOSO

- THE LAMENTATION - 

Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse
oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere,
et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβνλλα τί ϴέλεις;
respondebat illa: άπο ϴανεΐν ϴέλω.

April was the cruellest of the month. There were breeding lilacs out of the dead land. They mixed his memories running high and dry. They stirred those dull roots of desire burning beneath the very flesh of his flesh.

Air filled his lungs in sudden terrifying gust within his blistering organ. His head ached. His skin was burning from the sun glaring against his body. His mouth watered. His muscles clenched and contracted. It felt as if someone's hand was actually clawing his abdomen and twisting and digging them from the inside out. Despite this agonising hunger and thirst, still, he stood up with all his pride and dignity.

The illusionary voice echoed again and asked, "What do you want?" He shook his head and squeezed his eyes for a second.

He forced to open his eyes and finally took another step forward. He should be close. So close. Few more steps, though his knees trembled, he could not give up. "What do you want?" He shook his head again and forced to keep his eyes open. He continued moving forward until his blurred visions finally recognised the dome of the Baroque basilica. Finally.... Six weeks. Four days. Eight hours. And twenty minutes... Finally... Finally.... Finally....

The sun was already setting, yet its heat still burned against his rough tanned skin. Spending days and nights without sleep, without food and hardly having any water, was so slowly and painfully taking the last remaining entity of life within him. His eyes now filled with dark horrid circles. His clothes drenched with sweat and dirt and dust. His feet now so calloused and bleeding from not having anything to wear against this rough surface of the road. Perhaps others would have thought of him as a beggar. Well, he was in the filthiest of filth. Yet his heart was still continually beating, air was still filling him, he was still living.

"What do you want?" He gulped the bile rising in his throat and walked faster. "What do you want?" His feet scraped painfully against the road, his blood leaving a mark on that dusty surface of the earth. "What do you want?" Suddenly, his heart beat violently on his ribs. Sweat prickled from the very corners of his scalp. Faster. He walked faster. The blood kept running from the soles of his feet. "What do you want?" But he suddenly stopped.

There were a number of vehicles parked near the entrance of the basilica and so he ran with eagerness towards the church. But before he could even reach the churchyard, the basilica's mahogany doors had suddenly come to open. He stopped behind the Acacia tree. He was panting, sweating, bleeding. The crowd streamed out of the opened basilica's doors. All of them, celebrating, proud, pretentious. They were wearing their most presumptuous, wide, blissful smiles. "What do you want?" All of a sudden, he could no longer breathe. It was as if air finally left his entire body. His limbs gave in. And so, his hand reached for the trunk of the tree.

The ceremony was over. No, it could not be over, could it? "What do you want?" His mind screamed in terrifying pain of melancholy and paranoia. His muscles constricted, heart still pounding, head aching, he had to depend on the tree. His eyes scrutinised every single person in the area but none of them made any sense. Every laughter, loud giggles, the bells, the chattering all passed in a steady fuzzy, muffled sound through his ears. Everything was blurry. "What do you want?" He knew what he wanted. By heart and by soul, he knew what he wanted. But he had no time to respond

His body had turned cold and rigid. It felt as if his soul had been torn apart. Its splinters were cutting through his skin and burrowing within the moment he watched the bride and the groom came out of the church. And there, he saw her.

Rosalie....

"What do you want?" Yes, of course, Rosalie was all he wanted. It had always been her. Who else would it be? But it was too late. A long veil now covered half of her slender figure. From afar, he saw her walking in that white shimmering bridal dress, so lovely, so graceful and glamorous. Her eyes filled with glimmering sparkles of unimaginable bliss. Every bit of Rosalie's feature was radiant. Her smiles, too gorgeous and exquisite to witness. Next to her, there stood Edgar so neat and so handsome. His arms were wrapped around her waist. The glow of the sun now shining against those diamond bands wrapped around their left fingers. "What do you want?"

Until he could no longer bear it. And so, this was what it felt like? After giving his life for love and still, it was not enough? He fell on his knees. Hopelessness pierced his heart. He closed his eyes and let the tears pour down his cheeks. Never in his life he felt this kind of pain. Never. He thought he already felt it the moment his father and mother abandoned him. The moment he lost his home. His siblings. His childhood. His early life. But he was wrong. He was so wrong. This pain was more than that. No words, no music, nor literature or any other forms of art would be able to describe that feeling. Nothing. Slowly and painfully, his life was leaving his body.

Inside, he knew he was in a dead land. Memories and desires running high and dry now pile in a heap of thousand sordid broken images. The sun was dismantling its glimmer. The birds lost its sound for chirping. The leaves wilting off the tree, slowly falling around him. His world was ending in a whimper.

It was indeed, the cruellest of the month. It was the day as if he saw with his very own eyes Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage, it was, as if the voice of the boys said to him: "What do you want?"

And he answered: "I want to die."

***

Painting: Andrea Mantegna's "Cristo morto" (The Lamentation of Christ) is symbolic of Homer's very own lamentation 

Music: Franz Schubert - "Coronach" (Chorus) D.836

Yes, I don't like part twos and this is  obviously not a continuation of Torment.

I really love Homer from the very beginning. I restricted his character so much, I made him consistently cold, enigmatic and impassive in 'Torment' maybe it's his time to shine in 'Lacrimoso'  but I don't know when. Maybe give me one year? Two? Three years? I don't know. 

Also, would anyone be willing to read poetry about CharDawn? Even if it's so cringe?