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

[abhorrently]

"Her name, as you know, was Orin. Perhaps it might be apt to call her something of a living weapon. A killer more cruel than you might be able to fathom. And my kin."

Once. That fate has been unbound. Bhaal will only have one Chosen, and now, he only has one option. The only kinship is that distant physicality, as opposed to cosmology. And flesh and blood could mean so very little. But careful, careful. The moment the word cult comes out of her mouth is the moment she has to be worried if Degas might ever overhear.

"I don't remember much about her, save her existence, and that she and I had fought before and would fight again. And, that a short while before I came here - before I left my own world - she was part of a scheme that risked the entire Coast, if not the whole continent."

If not all of Torill. She doubted Orin would have made it to the full death of the Material Plane. Fever could have, though - such is her own opinion.

"I'd suspected for a long time that she was somehow tied to what happened to me, when I lost my memory. What we went through confirmed that."

[2onostromo]

A living weapon for family. Now that's some bad luck.

Ripley folds her hands into her lap, listening intently. Shedding what preconceived notions she has about the world— her world— to adjust to one ruled by magic and the unfathomable.

"The stone she took from you— I felt something when I held it. Like this..." Ripley gestures vaguely. "Triumph. Like finally I'd won what I felt I deserved more than anything in the world." Not to mention the wild beast's joy Ripley felt at striking Fever down; one that makes her sick remembering. She's determined not to mention it.

"Why did she want it?"

[abhorrently]

"Because with the stone, she had part in the plot. It...how to explain it without confusing you..."

Absently, she reaches over to pet Jude, stroking soft fur.

"Those who had the stones had great power, power enough to threaten everyone living there. Taking the stone meant that she was taking my power, and my place in everything."

She doesn't want to look at Ripley, when what isn't stated links itself together, when the caustic way she had treated herself - I deserved this - now has reason behind it.

"But more than that, she wanted everything I had. Everything she felt I deserved. I know enough to say that."

[2onostromo]

"She took your part in the plot." The words are leveled. Not accusatory, but not indirect, either. Fever averts her eyes. Attention better placed in soft, dark fur. Ripley can't say she blames her.

"What were you intending to do with it, before it was taken?"

[abhorrently]

There is silence, the sort that means someone is really, really not wanting to continue. But she makes herself do so, even as it feels like forcing herself forward. Ripley was there. And more than that, the path of honesty cannot be turned from now, after so many hardwon attempts to stay on it.

How simple it would be, to look up with soft eyes and claim she doesn't remember. How bloodless. How much she wants to hide in the amnesia, her cloak for so many misdeeds.

"The details aren't the clearest, but from what I've pieced together as some fragments have returned...I was to use its power to help control a great and terrible creature. And through that, and my own work, to sow fear and discord through people, beginning a war of conquest."

A manufactured war, one hand offering a solution while the other orchestrated terror. There is no pride in this. There is no glee. Whatever dark satisfactions her heart still holds for it, they are long, long hidden.

"I've hurt a great number of people, Ellen. So many that it might as well be a mountain of them, unable to be counted. I cared for nothing and no one." If Ripley hates her now, then...there would be relief, that someone else sees her as disgusting as she is. "Being stabbed in the head was probably the only way I would have ever stopped. I just...didn't have the decency to die from it."

Now she makes herself look at the other woman. Bear witness - do not look away. Accept her verdict, with empty hands and a willing heart.