Sleep, Pale Sister

Death
Epilogue

Manuscript, from the estate of Henry Paul Chester January, 1881

The black angel stirs restlessly and I look at the sky, rimmed now with the livid cataract of dawn.

Time.

A sudden panic sends ripples down my ruined spine. I feel the tic which has already frozen half my face begin to twitch again, relentlessly, as if a tiny, furious creature were imprisoned behind my eye-socket, gnawing its way out. The last card of our game is Death…I knew it from the start, but although the looseness in my ribcage is relief, my brain rebels against annihilation, stupid tissue screaming out: no no no no! The lid of night is beginning to lift and beneath it is the Eye of God with its blank, blue iris and terrible humour.

The tale is told and I am no Scheherazade, to slip away at dawn with the wolves snarling at her heels. The wolf is behind my cheekbone, curled in the hollow of my skull, waking…

Hungry.

The black angel reaches for her scythe. My last thought will be of Marta: my crown of thorns, Princess of Cups, hemlock and chloral, dreamchild and executioner, sorceress and penny whore. The pale light falls on the curved blade: lift it, Columbine, take my life, my words…but tell me this: Did you love, Scheherazade? Even once, did you love?

Silence.

Imagine a dead leaf drifting down a bottomless well.

Imagine that, for a moment.