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]

There is no lash of indignation at Ripley's words. No justification, no rebuttal, only the silent acceptance of a woman who has long since wrestled with her conscience to prove the damn thing existed again. It's all true. All of it just using other people for a devastating, selfish end. A fool hoping that somehow she could sate a hunger for approval with the blood of others. Empty, hollow, and hateful - and doomed, always, to some kind of oblivion. She nods, slow, and does not look away. It's the only way to prove she is telling the truth - that she is not shrinking from the enormity of everything.

(And it's true, perhaps, that the Elder Brain has its own ends. They had needed to control it, cage it - and it was a thing of such evil that it could not be allowed to exist in this plane.)

A movement, but it's nothing more than Fever gathering up Jude into her arms, settling the boneless creature into her lap. An innocent life that until recently she would have been too scared to touch. Something warm and soft and gentle, who seems to not mind how much death her hands have dealt.

"...people say but that's not you now as if that somehow makes up for the fact that everything still happened. It did. Even if I don't remember it. Even if I was struck down."

A brief pause -

"Sorry. You asked for answers, not my whining."

Brush it off, like dust, like feathers. Stop talking, or it's like you're trying to get out of it.

[2onostromo]

"It makes me sad for you." Ripley states matter of factly. "Not for you, but that you felt for whatever reason you should put your faith in something so destructive, so reprehensible, to feel self-importance."

A purr from Jude's throat and lungs as he loses himself in the comfort of Fever's lap.

"You don't strike me as the greedy type, Fever. I don't think you did whatever it is you did for the power. Maybe you liked the fear and discord in that creating it made you feel purpose, but what exactly was your end goal? You sow the fear, then what? You start the war, but to what end? Was it your's, or someone else's? Did you given any of this any amount of thought before— throwing your hands around innocent people's throats?"

[abhorrently]

To the end of everything. Because I was told to murder all life, and I was going to. You sow fear, and you slit throats. You leave the cities rank with the unburied dead, and you burn and destroy until you set your armies against themselves and wait until you are the last living thing alive to lay yourself on the altar. Then, maybe, he'll be proud.

All things she cannot, will not say. Not in this holy place. Not to someone she barely knows, who she's having to open herself up for - oh, it's probably obvious, as clear as an operation without anesthetics, that this is hard. And yet, she's pushing herself, ignoring her own lines that scream with fear about being crossed. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She gave up the right to that comfort, to privacy about these issues.

"If I answer those questions, Ellen, it will only sound like I'm making excuses. And that is the last thing I want to do."

Let her keep the blame, and the shame. Let her keep that she was made and molded for it as a smith does a blade, as a poisoner distills a new brew, as the flames are lit on the pyre.