MARCH SADNESS - A Symphony of Sorrow

[pumpkinhollow]

SYMPHONY OF SORROW

If the Audience Would Please Take Their Seats

You find yourself at the theatre.

You may be asking how you got here, why you are here, when did you arrive. But none of that matters, does it? Nothing matters. Whether you are shocked at yourself for thinking so or whether you have known that nothing matters for years on end does not matter either. Whatever meaning there was to be had in any of this escapes you now. Who you were and what you wanted, what you valued and stood for, it all seems now like such a hazy dream. Out of reach.

There is a ticket in your hand. It tells you where to go. You follow it dutifully. Ticket stubs are exchanged for playbills. A schedule of performances. Whatever. You numbly proceed to where you belong. Performers and stage crew to their places, orchestra to the pit, workers to their positions. All with the knowledge that there can be only pain.

A four-armed conductor in moth-eaten robes raises his baton, and there is music.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

You deserve this.

Observer’s Overture

First Movement in E Minor

adagio, con dolore
PP

Lights down on the chorus, who sits in the stands. They are playing the role of the audience. Ad lib spoken word between chorus members seated near one another. Soft music begins to swell eerily.

Lights up on the stage. A performance begins, apparently in media res, where the chorus is meant to observe.

vacillante, improvvisato
cresc. P

The performers on stage play out their acts, appearing fearful. The chorus ad libs quiet uncertainty from the stands. Some of them will look down at their playbill and find their own name on the schedule of acts to come. There is a brief description on the page of the act that is scheduled for them. It is clear by the state of the ones already on stage that this isn’t something they have a choice in.

Chorus members attempt to rise from their seats, but cannot. Not yet. Foreshadowing to a later movement. For now, they must endure the overture.

Opera Infernale

Second Movement in Various Keys
( A medley of vignettes, performed in various styles)

chorale concerto a tutti, con affetto

F

Various chorus members rise between songs and make their way to the green room, where they are costumed. They have some time to talk with other incoming acts. They will find themselves and their loved ones being prepared for their acts.

segue

Those who performed before stop in the green room again. They look drained. A fate which awaits the incoming acts.

segue

On the stage, each act is a musical recreation of trauma. A worst fear, a most painful moment, an act of cruelty, a time of hardship. The styles will vary accordingly. If the other players in a given tale are present, they will receive their role without question. If a cast member has no fellow performers from their own world present, an understudy will be chosen to play any other roles from those that they are close to. Everyone is off book. Vocal quality is adjusted to match the conductor’s standards. Staff ensures there are no interruptions. The show must go on.

CODA: Für Nimona
A Coda in A Minor

There is a stranger in the green room, unmoving. Pale glowing eyes peer out from an ungulate-shaped void perched atop a high end suit. Antlers leer overhead. He is waiting for someone. Staff take no notice of him.

Ensemble's Lament

Third Movement in G Minor

bocca chiusa
PPP

There are other places to be besides the stage. Other roles to play.

pesante

Behind the stage, the stage crew toil under Baritone, the stage manager and the Viscount of Suffering. There is a pipe organ built into the man’s chest, and the bell of a horn where his heart ought to be. It shows. He is as cruel as he is miserable. He runs a tight ship.

declamando, letando

There are others in the pit, if they have the musical skill for it. And while this part of the performance is managed by a kinder sort, the Contessa of False Comforts is not so named for no reason.

The opera is long. There are no intermissions. The orchestra plays until their lungs ache and their fingers bleed, while Sonata assures them that it will all be over soon. Surely she cannot be lying. Surely there must be an end…

freddo, pietoso

Just outside the auditorium, there is work for the chorus serving food and drinks, taking ticket stubs for the endless stream of audience members, cleaning messes, or all other manner of soulless work. Perhaps these ensemble members simply did not interest the Conductor. Or it could be that they were made more miserable elsewhere.

Reprise - Observer’s Overture

Fourth Movement in E Major

impetuoso
FF It would seem that once a chorus member’s concerto is complete, they are free to move about the premises. At least until they are scheduled in a supporting role for another soloist. This means a chance to explore--- or escape.

presto repente, bellicoso
cresc.

Those attempting to escape will be met with resistance, however. Guarding the doors are shades, creations of the Conductor who can wear the faces of those held dear by those that look upon them. Escape, more likely, will come from within.

Members of the chorus who attempt to do battle with the Conductor, however, will find themselves up against something far more dangerous. Figures of glass, in all different shapes. Some abstract and solid, some hollow and human-like, and everywhere in between. Perhaps some chorus members will find one to be familiar.

The Hero will need an ensemble of her own to make it through and strike at the Conductor. Perhaps a resistance can be formed in a hidden location near the green room.

Homeward Aria

Fifth and Final Movement in C Major

tiempo di fanfara, vittorioso
F

When a dagger of Aster is driven into the heart of Prince Efrain of Sorrow’s Song, at last, the illusion fades. The members of the chorus relinquish their roles and find themselves on the summit of Crane’s Ridge.

It will be an arduous journey home, but it can be done with the solace that there is one less Demon Prince to trouble Pumpkin Hollow. Music in a joyful major key swells, then decrescendos.

enfatico, mancando poco a poco

| CONTENT WARNINGS: altered states of consciousness, entrapment, grief, depression, mood control, loss of bodily autonomy |

Comments

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry does not vanish. He doesn't fly upward, back slamming against a titanium alloy wall. He stands firm. It's almost comical, given how physically frail he must seem compared to Carolina, compared to York. That the stronger should flit away like paper in the breeze and the weaker should stay. But he remains firmly rooted to the spot as she unhooks him, telling him a story that sounds all too familiar.

When she meets his eye again, he looks past her marks, her scars, and just sees her. Wearing an expression Gerry sported often, back home. Wordlessly, a pair of thin, wiry arms laced with thin strands of muscle made a sort of raggedly strong by work without discipline wrap around her.

"Hope I get to see it," he finally murmurs.

[cyansoldier]

She shouldn't be this close to another human being. Ever. It isn't safe. She'll keep her hands at her sides and that way, she isn't really touching him. If she isn't touching him, it's acceptable. She can enjoy his arms, flimsy and weak around her shoulders, without feeling so stupid. Stupid for falling into another trap. Putting her faith in a person— a stranger— who'll do fuck-all with it.

He should work out more. How's he ever going to protect himself? Pointless thoughts like a diversion from what really matters.

Carolina tenses. She's a brick wall to Gerry's piece of straw. All bulk and muscle and strict routine. And then she yields.

It's okay as long as she doesn't touch him. But her chin, her cheek— those aren't her hands. She can do whatever she wants with them. Fits her nose into the crook of his neck, pulling all her weight from her legs into her face and burrowing.

"It'll get ugly," She warns.

[skeletonkeay]

"Ugly doesn't scare me," he answers honestly.

Very little does. He's been buried, beaten, set on fire, chased through impossible mazes and hurled into the stratosphere. He's met things picked straight from nightmares, wooden clowns wearing human skin and mounds of meat and walking insect hives disguised as human beings. Things bent and twisted beyond imagination, war ghosts with knives still sharp enough to kill and creatures born of pure darkness. And while it hits a little close to home, the understandable hurt of one woman--- one beautiful, powerful, disciplined, intelligent, loyal, valuable woman--- wouldn't be enough to scare him away.

She buries her face in his shoulder, and he, like a garden, finds contentment in being dug into.

"I can see the ugliest parts of anything," he informs her. "And anyone. If there was cause for me to look away, I would have by now."

cw descriptions of gun violence / head wounds

[cyansoldier]

Will he feel the same when he sees what she does to him? When she puts barrel to forehead— cold, cruel, a daughter's fury packed snug in its metal chamber— and pierces the Director's skull? That's if he makes it easy for her. If he choses to run, she'll subdue him. Knock his kneecap out. Trap him between her boot and the floor. It'll be ugly. And if he begs, she won't be kind. Not that he'd ever debase himself by groveling at his daughter's feet. He's stubborn, and she hasn't fallen far from his deadened tree.

In her dreams she kills him like a soldier. In life, she's afraid she won't be so fortunate. That maybe it'll be her groveling. A daughter beside herself at her father's feet, asking why? Why? Then what will Gerry do? Pick up the gun for her? No, she'd never let that happen. It has to be her, no matter what.

"When York asked me to leave with him, I don't think he was prepared for what actually meant. I don't think any of them were. Everyone scattered and after that, they were picked off like flies while the Director hid like a coward. I hid too. I could have helped them, but I didn't. I was furious. You made this bed, so lie in it—"

The words spill and don't stop. They wedge themselves between her lips and Gerry's collarbone. She doesn't care where they go, really. Couldn't keep them down if she tried. Who knows if he can hear her. If he'll be able to make out muffled speech.

[skeletonkeay]

Most likely, if Gerry witnesses the Director's death, he will do what most avatars of the Eye do. He will witness. Watch carefully, absorb every detail of fear-stricken faces and blood splattered walls, and it will feed that part of him which refuses to die. Slaughter, Desolation, End. What is it that you fear most, Leonard Church? The sudden, unpredictable violence of snapped bone and pieced brain matter? The destruction of all that you hold dear in a sudden burst of senseless agony? Or simply the cessation of all that you are? Gerard Keay, a man from two worlds away who you have never met, looks forward to finding out.

Moreover, though, he will be envious. When Mary Keay died, it was first at her own hand in an ocean of crimson that she had full control of--- until she didn't. Then it was by Gertrude Robinson's hand, with a lighter. Now that his own page has been burned, Gerry knows exactly what that feels like, and she deserved every bit of it. But still, Gerry himself never truly had any hand or choice in the destruction of his first and oldest tormentor. But perhaps there will be some catharsis to be had, living vicariously through Carolina.

Either way, he will understand. He simply hopes that whatever happens will be exactly what Carolina needs.

His tattooed hands find her hair, brushing the red locks straight. Helmet hair. An idle bit of care that he can provide, some physical comfort. He hopes. Her confession rings out crystal clear, the fear she must have felt at watching all of them die carrying the information to the avatar. But he doesn't comment, feeling like this fragile trust that allowed her to confide might be broken by his input.

[cyansoldier]

She feels herself affixed to her spot. Encouraged by the knot in her stomach slowly undone. Muscles which have learned to function at maximum capacity, bearing the brunt of weight no human should have lobbed onto mortal shoulders, now uncoiling beneath Gerry's arms. Red hair slides through his fingers with ease, streaked by natural, Allison blonde.

(She'll need to dye it soon. Wilts at the idea that it may not be possible here. All that magic's got to be worth something, right?)

Sighing, she resents the fact that she could stand there for hours, nosed up to his pulse. Ba-dum, ba-dum. Listening. Filling her own chest with air. Not quite pieced together after having come undone, but not scattered across the floor, either.

Could— though would never truly let herself. What she's accepted from him already is a greater price than Carolina is willing to pay. Trust she isn't ready to give— not ever, she tells herself resolutely.

And she hasn't touched him. Not once. She should be proud of that.

_{Ignore the ache and you'll be fine.}

Carolina shoulders a small step away. Hyperaware, now, of how busy the Green Room has gotten in preparation for the next show. Great.

"I want out of here. Anywhere that isn't this stupid room."