This crawled its way up and out my brain the other day. Been thinking a lot about the tropes of children's literature and how they can apply to more adult fiction...
"The King of Veils and the Queen of Silent Screaming fear the Slumbering Duke."
They were the only words she had spoken in a decade. Dr. Vershenk was sure they provided the key to her ailment. He had nothing else.
She was hunched in her usual spot beside the bed: back pressed against padded frame and crumpled mattress, knees drawn up to her nose, huge dark haunting eyes peering out of sleepless hollows, fever pale features. Her untouched dinner tray rested beside her. In six years of observation he had never seen her eat, never even seen her move. Not even to blink. One would assume she were comatose if it weren't for those eyes.
Loathing. Malice. Distrust. A hurt so poignant, so deep, it demanded a response. Dr. Vershenk had stopped looking at those eyes years ago. The guilt still had not left him.
In the corner, Julia the Clock-work Girl softly ticked. Dr. Vershenk ignored her so completely it was like she wasn't there.
He scribbled a few meaningless notes - coherence lost in constant repetition till they had become nothing more than a jumble of absurd symbols - and closed his notebook with a practiced sigh. It fell to the floor like a weight, laden with unspoken fears and frustration. Fat breath scarabs scrambled ponderously to claim the routine prize that had made them sluggish and corpulent. Vershenk pushed at the bridge of his glasses, shook his head to complete the ritual, and carefully, unconsciously, stepped over the frenzying scarabs.
The lights and the cobweb canopy fell fluttery with his passing.
Long after the dark had settled, the broad black leaves continued to flutter and shake. The Page of Veils made its slow way from the Court into the cell.
"His Majesty requests your presence." he coughed glacially slow through the...
This crawled its way up and out my brain the other day. Been thinking a lot about the tropes of children's literature and how they can apply to more adult fiction...
"The King of Veils and the Queen of Silent Screaming fear the Slumbering Duke."
They were the only words she had spoken in a decade. Dr. Vershenk was sure they provided the key to her ailment. He had nothing else.
She was hunched in her usual spot beside the bed: back pressed against padded frame and crumpled mattress, knees drawn up to her nose, huge dark haunting eyes peering out of sleepless hollows, fever pale features. Her untouched dinner tray rested beside her. In six years of observation he had never seen her eat, never even seen her move. Not even to blink. One would assume she were comatose if it weren't for those eyes.
Loathing. Malice. Distrust. A hurt so poignant, so deep, it demanded a response. Dr. Vershenk had stopped looking at those eyes years ago. The guilt still had not left him.
In the corner, Julia the Clock-work Girl softly ticked. Dr. Vershenk ignored her so completely it was like she wasn't there.
He scribbled a few meaningless notes - coherence lost in constant repetition till they had become nothing more than a jumble of absurd symbols - and closed his notebook with a practiced sigh. It fell to the floor like a weight, laden with unspoken fears and frustration. Fat breath scarabs scrambled ponderously to claim the routine prize that had made them sluggish and corpulent. Vershenk pushed at the bridge of his glasses, shook his head to complete the ritual, and carefully, unconsciously, stepped over the frenzying scarabs.
The lights and the cobweb canopy fell fluttery with his passing.
Long after the dark had settled, the broad black leaves continued to flutter and shake. The Page of Veils made its slow way from the Court into the cell.
"His Majesty requests your presence." he coughed glacially slow through the complicated motions of his mouth parts.
The whine of a flywheel unleashed filled the corner. From behind the painted demure smile, a child's voice, scratchy and crackling, emerged, "He can wait. She is otherwise occupied."
An adventurous scarab moved sloth deliberate beneath the glossy cascade of her hair, legs carefully picking over the curve of neck, up the cliff hang of jaw. Feelers tenderly caressed flesh, searching, tasting, for soft currents of body warmed and spiced air. It was sprawled over her cheekbone, one whip lash antennae prodding at the gelid surface of an eye, when its other feeler went taut. The barest waver of breath had tickled its tensely vibrating end. It scurried awkwardly, gorged girth making motion cumbersome on the vertical plane of cheek, towards the dark inlet of her nostrils. Its antennae were probing the moist recesses, one deep within each cilia lined passage, when she finally exhaled with the slow measured breath of the sedated. The scarab recoiled as if it had been burnt. Feelers and limbs jerked spastically confused and uncoordinated. It virtually leapt from the poison exhalation's presence, disappearing into the crisp white folds and creases of her institutional pyjamas.
No response. Just that emotion laden glare at nothing.
"His Majesty will not be kept waiting." barked the Page. He lowered four of his arms into view, multiple joints jerking and flexing, busily weaving strands of shadow, torn bed sheets and secrets into a barbed cord. Two smaller limbs emerged, deftly began to loop and twist the tarnished length of line into a noose. The air shimmered heat haze dreamily within the circular opening of the knot.
Unseen latches clicked out of place, tension springs unwound and coiled, locked gears spun into life. Julia dropped with sudden mechanical abruptness into a crouch, clock-work innards reoriented for action swift and brutal. Her painted porcelain features took on a harsh cast with the sudden shift of angles and reflected firefly star light.
"There is no need for that." voice distorted by echo and vasty distances.
From behind the cracked altar against which she crouched, the lichen stained mausoleum door grated slowly, slowly open. Muted, not truly heard cries - more like the recollection of memories long buried - flowed like fog from the growing aperture of the tomb. Breath scarabs scrabbled and fled, limbs of unseen trees trembled and shook, even the Page of Veils pulled in its limbs, looked timid and uncomfortable.
The Queen of Silent Screaming slipped into the cell.
Her feet did not touch the floor, bare toes, perfect tiny nails the colour of false hope, drifted just above the riven obsidian slabs set about the broken altar. A garment of smoke in the colours of trapped screams and suppressed outcries slid over and around her lithe figure, shifting through periods and styles as it flowed over curve and limb. Hair dark and glossy as the surface over which she floated hung in spiraled corkscrews, framed a face fever pale in which a pair of bright copper pennies winked and flashed where eyes should have been.
Julia curtsied low, black victorian frock spread wide, joints grinding harshly as they fought to maintain balance. The Page of Veils hastily hid his noose, a domino row of arms folding against its thorax as it bent upward in an upside down bow.
"What seems to be his Majesty's concern now?" asked in a voice slight as a dying man's sigh.
"It is not my place to question, m'Lady, merely to serve." answered the Page of Veils, multifaceted gaze still averted.
"Of course." sighed the Queen of Silent Screaming, "Julia, we shall return shortly." Julia curtsied low once again, came upright with a sharp click of locking gears.
A leathery rustle of leaves, the suggestion of a terrified scream, and she and Julia were alone in the cell once more.
"The King of Veils and the Queen of Silent Screaming fear the Slumbering Duke."
They were the only words she had spoken in a decade. Dr. Vershenk was sure they provided the key to her ailment. He had nothing else.
She was hunched in her usual spot beside the bed: back pressed against padded frame and crumpled mattress, knees drawn up to her nose, huge dark haunting eyes peering out of sleepless hollows, fever pale features. Her untouched dinner tray rested beside her. In six years of observation he had never seen her eat, never even seen her move. Not even to blink. One would assume she were comatose if it weren't for those eyes.
Loathing. Malice. Distrust. A hurt so poignant, so deep, it demanded a response. Dr. Vershenk had stopped looking at those eyes years ago. The guilt still had not left him.
In the corner, Julia the Clock-work Girl softly ticked. Dr. Vershenk ignored her so completely it was like she wasn't there.
He scribbled a few meaningless notes - coherence lost in constant repetition till they had become nothing more than a jumble of absurd symbols - and closed his notebook with a practiced sigh. It fell to the floor like a weight, laden with unspoken fears and frustration. Fat breath scarabs scrambled ponderously to claim the routine prize that had made them sluggish and corpulent. Vershenk pushed at the bridge of his glasses, shook his head to complete the ritual, and carefully, unconsciously, stepped over the frenzying scarabs.
The lights and the cobweb canopy fell fluttery with his passing.
Long after the dark had settled, the broad black leaves continued to flutter and shake. The Page of Veils made its slow way from the Court into the cell.
"His Majesty requests your presence." he coughed glacially slow through the...