The Heavy Velvet
Vera
“ Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me -
The Carriage held but just Ourselves -
And Immortality.
We slowly drove - He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility -
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess - in the Ring -
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain -
We passed the Setting Sun -
Or rather - He passed Us -
The Dews drew quivering and Chill -
For only Gossamer, my Gown -
My Tippet - only Tulle -
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground -
The Roof was scarcely visible -
The Cornice - in the Ground -
Since then - ’tis Centuries - and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity -”
-Emily Dickinson - Because I could not stop for death
The bright yellow, sparkling eyes of the tiny, furry beast glow in the dark. I lay my hand on the black fur of my elegant, wiry, and muscular cat.
His furry body gently rubs against the hems and corners of my long, black dress.
-Another day here, isn’t it, Sebastian, or rather - night?
I look through the tall, mahogany-colored wooden windows. Raindrops persistently wet the heavy, thick glass.
The fog is so thick that I can barely see the tall, coniferous trees in the distance that stand motionless in the vague rain-soaked blackness, untouched by the persistent storm that has been going on for days.
Actually, maybe months.
I am no longer quite sure of the duration of this terrible storm because I have long since lost track of time. Track of that fleeting, trivial thread in which our miserable, small lives that we cling to are supposed to fit somehow.
Or, from which we hang.
We hang from thinned threads, silken like spider webs, carefully spun, but so fragile that even the merest movement of an almighty divine hand could break them, without the slightest trouble.
And then darkness.
Eternal darkness that would swallow our souls - sinful ones, how else could they be after a whole stay on earth stained with injustice, pain, and eternal suffering.
Sebastian gets up on his hind legs and rubs his wet, completely black muzzle against my white cheeks.
I reciprocate by gently stroking his head and triangular, wide ears. The cat purrs, and its yellow eyes become even brighter, illuminated by the flickering, warm, orange light of the candles burning in the metal sconces in the corners of the house.
I watch his whiskers move warily and timidly as he listens to the storm outside, and then, with the first clap of thunder, his lithe and ready body jumps, and he goes to make himself more comfortable by the fireplace, in front of the crackling fire, where it is warm, calm and safe - the storm outside does not touch him, nor does the storm inside, he is perfectly calm and reconciled to his feline destiny.
For a moment, I laugh at myself and my crazy thoughts.
The fact that I might have lost my mind has been floating in the air for a long time and obscures my vision with some vague veil; it is neither completely accurate nor correct, but it is very possible, almost definitive.
I’m torn between the little reality I’m still aware of and the sweet dark madness that irresistibly calls me to itself - and maybe it’s best that way, to be neither completely normal nor crazy, to oscillate between these two completely unnecessary extremes like a tightrope walker.
Sebastian curls up comfortably in front of the fireplace, and I am left alone to watch the storm raging outside through the impenetrable fog.
I breathe the balmy and fresh air of the huge castle into my lungs and then exhale it, making a warm, hazy circle on the window pane.
I touch that small area with my fingers, making an aimless pattern.
Another bolt of lightning strikes in the distance, tearing the tall, snow-capped, black mountains in half. A powerful, bluish-white flash of lightning flashes inside my pupils, something snaps inside me too, though I’m not quite sure what, I just know that a horrible and equally electric feeling is awakening within me.
Hatred.
With the brightness and power of all the thunderbolts of heaven, I let every part of my body flood with this feeling.
Untainted, completely pure in its original form - I allow myself to feel it flowing through my body.
Hatred, so strong that it is enough to separate the sky from the earth and the earth from the sky, causes me to almost fold in half in a painful spasm that twists my body, and my face acquires some eerily sparkling and expressive grimace.
A year ago, or less, maybe more, I’m not entirely sure, because since then, time seems to have stopped, melted into an unbearable vortex of pain, everyday life that is too hard to bear, and just surviving in the shell of what’s left of my tortured body.
Because I am quite sure that my soul and heart died that day, together with them.
About a year ago, my fiancé, the man I loved all my life, whose innocent, sky blue eyes I had known since he was a boy, who I grew up with, who I developed and lived for, who I was promised and destined for, died together with my parents during one of these storms.
They were returning from the city. They went there to pick up gifts for our upcoming wedding.
The ceremony was being prepared in full, guests from the whole village were ready to magnify with their presence one of the most beautiful and biggest celebrations in the entire history of our village.
The two richest and most respected families from the village were preparing to unite their blood in a vow of eternal love between two young people whose hearts had been promised to each other since childhood.
And then, like the muffled sound of a raven’s screech, my sob bounced off the stone walls of our castle.
My lacy, white wedding dress was left hanging sadly in the closet, sealed with a pain that never passed.
They died returning in a carriage from the city, in an accident that happens rarely, very rarely, but which nevertheless happened a couple of times in the history of our village.
They died when the carriage slipped off the road, probably because the horses were scared by the terrible lightning strikes, or because the road was too slippery and the coachman was too drunk to keep control.
They died because the mud and ground were too rough for the unprepared horses’ hooves, because the carriage was too heavy, because the raindrops were too strong, too leaden, they died just like that, slipping off the road, and their dead bodies were left standing motionless in a muddy, dirty ditch near the village, leaving me alone, with a vow and a promise that could never be fulfilled, but which marked my life, body and soul forever.
They died in an accident, which, of all people, had to happen to them.
And, although I did not wish harm on any human being, that day, I cursed both heaven and God, inconsolably and madly wondering why it had to be them?
Why did it have to be them, just and good, hardworking and brave, the ones I loved the most?
In the place of their motionless, cold and stiff dead bodies, I imagined a fat baker who always charged more for bread than it was really worth, rude and insolent, I imagined a haughty butcher’s daughter flaunting her meager and unjustly acquired wealth, I imagined a emasculated mayor’s wife together with her corruptible husband, I imagined dozens of drunkards from taverns who beat every day their wives and children, I imagined adulterers, thieves, villains, robbers, rapists and murderers, how, punished by the mighty hand of God, laying dead, with bloody heads and frozen eyes in that same dirty ditch, with their fate sealed and the cosmic verdict pronounced - that they would never rise again and walk the earth or do evil.
Still, instead, it had to be them.
On that day, in one of the worst storms that befell Domesden, they perished - my mother and father - my flesh and blood, those who brought me up and gave me life, whose proud daughter I was, who taught me the eternal good and all that I knew in life, and he, my dear, the one to whom my future belonged, to whom my heart was already bound, by an unbreakable, eternal thread, and to whom my innocent body was already in every part gifted.
Eternal darkness fell that day on them, and together with them, on my heart and on my mind, fell irretrievably along with their tragically taken lives.
The blackness, which was too thick and heavy for even a ray of light to penetrate, darkened my vision and narrowed my consciousness. Along with the relentless rain, I cried for hours until I collapsed from exhaustion and passed out on the cold, stone floor.
When I woke up, it was already morning, and my servants came to inform me about the funeral that had already been prepared. No one wanted to burden me with that - it was decided beyond my knowledge and will, so that I would not be further shaken, poor me.
Now, my life unfolded before my eyes like a movie, in which I was a mere, inept actor who didn’t even know how the script was going to play out.
The black, heavy velvet clung to my body unusually nicely, instead of the white, lacy, silk wedding dress.
The formal, black dress with a narrow waist made my figure particularly slim and elongated, with accentuated curves that overflowed from the black corset embroidered with small red roses.
My black hair fell on my shoulders, long shiny curls, tied under a black lace scarf, while I used an umbrella to shield my body from the gusts of wind and cold raindrops, although at that moment I didn’t care - whether I would get wet, whether I would be whipped by the wind, whether I would remain alive or dead, whether I would be buried together with three heavy, wooden coffins or left like an empty shell, with a buried heart and burnt soul to still walk on earth.
As they lowered the coffins deep into the damp, dug-out pits, suddenly another ominous bolt of lightning shot across the sky, and along with the mighty bang, for the first time ever, something within my body also snapped.
Something that could no longer be contained inside - the black juice of hatred that swelled inside me, the grief that had nowhere to pour out, the suffering that accumulated within the fragile space of my warm skin - something primal, unstoppable and sinful burst inside my body, and I collapsed in a spasm, falling helplessly to my knees, on the damp, muddy earth that smelled of rain, death and evil lurking in the darkness.
