hero.2.symphonic

And so it was, Élyse, or sweet little Anna...

I do not know which of you will ever read this, though I mark all here as a cautionary tale...

So it was...

That the crimson moon gave way to pallid sun...

And the captive Jews arose in unison...

And fled the repurposed dance hall in Casablanca...

In which we had all been held like cattle within an electrified fence line.

I will tell you that the singular problem that I had with this literal emancipation act...

Performed by sheer luck, thanks to the accident of my diseased...

Elongated digits...

Forgive me.

I have just been brought back unto consciousness...

As the captives hastened unto desert, or the sea...

They inadvertently trampled me.

And thus I was beaten once more unto earth...

Trodden upon and rendered low...

For what e'er that is worth.

I know that I can never un-live the Mustard fields...

The dark work that I performed with my violin...

My symphonic, soulful, and intellectual rape of the dying...

The gutless murmurings that I extolled unto the fates for the sake of judging and placing those noble or cowardly combatants...

Into whichever shade of the afterlife that had always awaited them...

Despite me...

My interference...

At the end.

For all the things our wars recount...

Or at last portend...

To what e'er these lives amount...

I am here to lend...

Sulphuric substance...

Friend.

When the fated flock had fled, I was taken unto some dark and godless bed...

Pulled in every way...

This way, that, then up, and down...

Eternal me...

The clown.

A woman smacked me about the head three times, and thrice was all it took.

I realised that in this telling I am no prisoner to rhyme...

But somehow that construct had formed within my mind...

She asked me whether or not I was the heroic Pétain, who had saved so many French lives by means of capitulation and subsequent collaboration.

I smiled abashedly.

Three hours later, she squirmed dripping with my love from those meagre spaces giggling and skipping...

Believing that she had just shared intimacy with the head of the Vichy Government...

The personification of the future of France.

Well...

Perhaps.

She bubbled away into the illusion of a day, whilst I rippled like a leper on the floor unto the most quiet corner I could find.

I tried to sleep within a stable, but each time I began to drift I heard my name being shouted...

"Pétain! Pétain!"

I covered myself with hay and slept.

I slept long.

I slept like the dead.

Dead, but dreaming.

Dreaming of the conflict you shall inevitably encounter in this world.

Dreaming of the strength you will need to conjure to overcome all adversities.

I know that you are strong.

I know that you are capable.

But...

Please take my strength, too...

Into the breach.

I dreamed of passage, and of crossings...

As I had already experienced in my earlier times...

So that, I was not sure whether my fate was more aligned to Heracles, Prometheus...

Or Paris?

Those must have been crows or vultures that lighted upon yon failing edifice...

Neither stone, nor clay...

Just straw.

And waking now...

Again...

I knew that the next day would remind me of the weight...

Of the struggle.