Pursuance

He opened his eyes. Scents of velvety voracious whispers, soaked in curling wisps of tobacco smoke and misty clouds of luxurious perfume, hung in the air. Hungry were the mouths that flung the murmurous fishing line out, waiting for a response, for a bite to reel in. The curtains that hid them, deep blood red and alive with the wobble of nervous hands, were ever so mesmerizing with each quivering twitch they made. The floor beneath him, shiny black with the gleam of the many small suns above the stage shining, glancing off its luster and sheen. So stood he, in the middle of such radiance and awe, his face alight with sweat and fire, a fire that consumed his every being, a piece of kindling for the bonfire of passion.

The stage itself only gave way to those who commanded it, those who might tame its beastly frame and manner. He knew, inside, the stage would swallow him whole, or he would stand over its corpse, a hunter over a lion. Such a beast he would not merely tame, but dominate with the purest extent of his own will. He got here through the engine in his body fueled by will and strength, by the truth he knew would ever so closely come to him.

For here he was now, upon the sheen and gleam of the stage, so scrupulously standing around him, ornate and simplistic enough to know what it meant for him to be here. Tasting the flesh of the fruit of his labors, the fruit so tantalizingly close in the past, yet here in his palms now. How round and smooth it felt against his fingertips, the gleam of its brass so mesmerizing. In its shine, he saw not that which he played music through, but rather the conductor of his very own soul, of his own shine. The golden horn fit so wonderfully in his hands; so beautifully did it truly mean to be; so beautifully would it dip, croon, and swing its way around the stage, with his own life being blown through it.

Color exploded into his view, piercing through the stage’s ebony shine, as the curtains flew to the side. Exposed to a rainbow and all those who wore its colors, who softly threw whispers and murmurs of bloodthirst and judgment. Knives they drew, with words he couldn’t hear and feel, yet still understood. In the middle of an ocean, alive with its supposed spite and fire, he stood with a will to live, upon the midnight sheen of the stage, he stood with a will to pierce and stand above all others.

The ensemble he came with were mere shadows, shadows to get him to the greatness of having his name whispered for eons to come, shadows dripping away from the spotlight of moonbeams above him, giving him the glory and lucidity of the heavens as it highlighted his very existence upon the stage.

He felt no one else; he knew nothing more than he, himself, the golden horn in his hand, and the sea of color before him, the ones to decide his fate. He knew the moment, the moment he had died for with each labor of love and lust and need. It was so intimate and familiar, melting away all that he felt around him, for it was only him.

Yet he heard a song that was not his tickle his ears, far off in the distance, grounded and real as the dust of a room he had left to get here. It wailed for him to come down and love again what he had promised to love and lose, to come home and sleep without the itch and tickle of a dream to wake up from. To love and lose what he already had within his fingertips, and be at peace when it came to be as it always would, no matter what.

Yet they started to play his own music, his own song he made to cement himself in the world around him, to finalize his fate and go up to where he was truly meant to be. He blew his life into the horn, far and long past such a song of reminders to come back down from his heavenly pedestal. Glory swept him away in a tsunami that crashed over him and the audience with the might of an angelic chorus, his horn in hand and mouth. Soul poured from his tongue, dripping off his lips and leaking out his eyes. Flowing from a spirit of dreamed-up thoughts that could maybe one day penetrate the cloudy walls of a heaven immortal, with her next to him in such a vibrantly close reality.

A reality he dreaded crept up on him as he saw her below him. She sat there, watching him, letting loose a sigh heavy with a grievously sad honesty and smoke that he could see still dribbling out of her mouth. She knew will, even in its purest form, could not match the soul of such a dream. Heavy and heavier, his breath weighed upon her as she kept the very same pained smile she had kept up once she no longer knew who he was. A smile that plagued the back of his mind with an itch that couldn’t be scratched in the back of his mind. He played on, even knowing now with a gleam of wailing despair in his eye, what would come next, a panic building inside of him, filling his mouth with the taste of desperation and pleas for a longer slumber.

Then the song itself, lilting and flitting above him as a butterfly he had seen but could not catch, not even get close to, came down with a thunderous roar and swept her away in a crash of percussion, not even leaving a stain on the chair where she once sat. He could see it sweep across his eyes and the rainbow of colors that came to see him and lift him up to where he knew he wanted to be. It took them from him, shattering them with an immense shake of a reality that he hated to go back to.

He trembled before the might of the song in front of him, trying to overpower it with his own song, his own perceived magnificence, with his own dreams and powers that gave him what he wanted for this very night. Yet he could not stop the song that came to him with what he knew was real, yet refused to believe in, shaking him awake from the reverie that he held onto with a primal desperation, fearful of what would happen when he opened his eyes.

A teardrop fell upon his cheek, choking his music and staining his eyes with the sting of salt and sorrow as the song crashed upon him with the awe and might of a river, to sweep him away downstream where he could not breathe his free air of relief, to wake him up to a grey reality where he would always return to after he opened his eyes.

And he opened his eyes; he opened his eyes; he opened his eyes.

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