Glass

PART ONE

She awoke in a field with the words on her tongue. They left in a tune she had never heard before this moment, yet as she released it, her bones shook.

My beloved awaits in the city of glass, my heart is there in the city which shines.

Standing up to scan the horizon, shielding her eyes from the misty-orange haze of the suns, she could vaguely make out a sign placed at the foot of the mountains. She went to it, and as she did, she began to notice that the field she had woken up in was no longer a field, but rather a desert wrapped in cracked earth and prickly trees, dust dangling from the sky.

The sign that showed her the way had been assembled by aluminum and it read in big, fizzling neon letters: Good Love.

With the sound of claps and a beating drum, the sunlight was blown away, shaking the sign in its currents. There she stood, alone in a cold, dark silence, but not for long. For coming from the east was a caravan of one, a small wagon painted with splotches of blues and golds, leaving a trail of confetti wherever it traveled. It came to a rickety halt, and candles danced in the wind.

"There was nothing left of the circus; nothing but ghosts, and possibly a few goblins if you looked hard enough into their eyes. Or maybe if you didn't."

"I'm sorry," she said, "But I haven't the faintest idea what that means."

"Neither do I, but that's never stopped me." His fingers were in constant motion, and his face wore an expression that suggested madness, yet his words were made of magic. "There was love in the world and she held it there, there, right in the pixie palm of her hand," he grabbed at hers, pointing as if she was the one he spoke of. "What do they call you?"

“My name is Karen.”

“Karen,” he tapped his chin, “Karen, this woman, they called her Lydia, she was so much the very existence of love and life and all things beautiful that when she was taken away by the dark, sinfulcreatures of Apostolina, the circus became nothing but brown and grey. The cotton candy grew stale, the fortune teller lost her sight. Even the poor ringmaster lost his way with words!”

He pulled her down, whispering a secret, looking over his shoulder. “You see, it’s a tug-of-war process; the circus wins her back and Apostolina becomes barren, not at all the carousing city it once was. Then they go in search of her, then she’s stolen back and so on and so forth.”

“Well one day, a boy who had fallen so deeply in love with her vowed on The Holy Book to rescue her from the Apostolinians and bring her back for good. He followed the train tracks at night…until he reached the place were his world and her world met…”

Glitter burst through the air and showered like fireworks, raining down a town filled with rainbow lanterns and musical streets of revelry. The faces were all very terrifying, masked in painted ecstasy, a frenzy in their eyes, and Karen thought to shout for help. But then came The Magician’s voice at her side: “Never before had the boy been quite so frightened as when he first entered Apostolina. It had not been made for his eyes, nor for any human. Yet he remained steadfast and began to search through the boulevards and avenues.”

Low sang the streets.

“Can you hear it?”

Downward was a swarm of them, dancing in a trance as if nothing at all mattered but the woman that swirled in the heart of it.

“Can you see it, Karen?”

Entwined, they all sang out, celebrating the return of their queen, their faerie mother, sister, lover. Music swam out from the lights and as it quickened, so did the intensity of their feral dance until it became the very whirlwind center of the town. The boy fought through their gruesome smiles, through the sticky-sweet air that glittered gold onto his skin, through all the things which frightened him so, for the love which he held for her was that of an entire world.

When he came upon her, she was in her truest form and she breathed, “My love, my love, dance with me. Be with us, O my love.”

But he could see that which she could not; the tearing and gnawing.

“No,” he said, “We must leave this place. I’ve come to rescue you.”

She laughed through the streets with his hand around her arm, leading her from the chaos that constantly pursued them. He would not take away their soul, no. “My children, my bliss!” she laughed and laughed.

At last they reached the town gates, held between twin flames and a crescent moon. She stood at the entryway with a wicked grin and said, “Dearest love, you have saved me,” but she would not let him pass. For it had been her plan all along to lure a creature who held as much love as she, an ersatz soul for Apostolina.

And this boy was just right.

The wolves howled in the distance and Karen took time to catch her breath as he finished.

“It is said that the boy still waits there in the carnival town, trapped in a nightmare until he, too, finds a replacement.”

It was such a sad tale, but it had opened her eyes to worlds she had never seen, words of beauty she had never known. Her very spirit felt as though it was flourishing into roses and daisies in this desert landscape and she fixed her gaze upon The Magician. He was smiling so wonderfully at her, like a child would in the sunlight, for he only wished to please her. “Are you my heart?” she asked.

But his expression turned to a pout. “I am not.” Spinning her by the shoulders to face the sign, he pointed and whispered, “Your beloved awaits in the city of glass. Your heart is there in the city which shines.”

With the sound of claps and a beating drum, he disappeared as quickly as he came and she stayed on track with her hands clasped tight to her chest.

PART TWO

A harsh light shot down then. She held her hand up, but still it sat in the sky, bleaching her vision and she felt as though she might die from it. After a short while, it faded away as the suns shifted positions, leaving her to stare at the splendor before her.

Reaching the cotton candy clouds of heaven itself were hundreds of towers made from only the finest, most breakable glass. They formed into swirls and waves, icicles of white which seemed to sing a melody to the streets below. It was cold in those streets, but she did not shiver. The townsfolk in blues and whispering silk greeted her, but she did not reply. She traveled and observed and hoped in silence.

A gathering began to grow up ahead, so she followed.

There stood a makeshift stage in the town square, surrounded by an audience of princes, thieves, witches, the commonest of shoemakers, every sort of person one could imagine. Some smiled and some cried, while others could only watched in wonder as the three actors performed a drama onstage. They had no voices amongst the accompanying piano, but they spoke in whirling motions; in dance, in waves, in gestures of the hand. There was a man in a mask of granite and a woman in silver, but the one the audience loved most of all was he who wore the porcelain mask.

“Such brilliance,” they said, and the men clapped. “Such beauty,” and the women swooned.

Karen herself was in caught in his raw grace. The world, she thought, had begun to tilt and she felt dizzy on her feet, yet the air around her smelled warm of vanilla. More than anything else, though, she felt peace.

“Are you my heart?” she whispered, but realized she had not spoken.

When the show was finished and the curtain drawn, Karen crept backstage and saw that the man in granite was very handsome and strong behind his mask. And the woman in silver had the cascading locks of a goddess with kind eyes. But the man in porcelain, the one who held her breath, remained just that.

Still in his mask, he left, and she followed behind him. He did not say a word, but those around him were sure to give their attention, glancing up whenever he passed. The shopkeepers left their posts just to catch a glimpse, the most cynical scholars sighed. The children who did not know who he was smiled half in curiosity.

No one could touch him there in the street.

He entered a glass tower, where all the inhabitants wore gold with their whites and moved in slow motion beauty. Light sparkled through the walls in rainbows from all sides so that she wasn’t certain if anything was real or not. She followed him through the party as they all waltzed and told each other how lovely they looked that night. She followed him as they held their glasses out and told each other how utterly enchanting they were and they all kissed one after the other.

She followed him up the stairs that echoed throughout the city, which led to another room and another and another, all almost identical to the previous. Only the light became fainter with each room, the white became dull and tattered, and the waltzes grew violent. Before long, they were black silhouettes in a black room, thrashing about without sight. She closed her eyes in a desperate hope that they would no longer be there, but still she felt them brushing against her much too lingeringly and much too intimately; she winced. Clutching her arms tightly to herself, she searched the airless, breathing room.

The thought of them caressing him in such a way very nearly horrified her.

She followed him outside, into the alleyways that smelled of disease. The piano trailed his feet as well, but it was out of tune and no longer play a melody, but rather haphazard keys.

Through the cracked window of a burnt down shack, she watched as he sat in silence, staring at the coffin where he would awake the next morning to perform. He traded in his blue for grey and placed a flower on his breast. The piano silenced its voice, the glass towers still sang.

The Tragedian at last removed his careful mask of porcelain, and Karen wept.

On tired legs on trashed concrete, her location was now unclear as she could not see the towers before her, nor the light that glistened from them. All was muffled and dim and lifeless. This place was death. So when she saw the tiniest of lights through a door left ajar, she did not knock before she entered.

The sudden jolt of clean air hit and she went to place her hand on something to steady herself, but soon found nothing was there. It was such a shock to her lungs and when she coughed, dust clouded from her mouth. A man held onto her as the soot and dirt left in big, black puffs, shaking her to the core. “Be at peace, child,” he said, “Your suffering shall pass.”

There was a woman on her knees, reciting a poem with her eyes shut, hands raised.

“The darkness no longer has a hold on you,” he whispered comforting words. She shuddered in her skin.

When all was over, she wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at the kind man holding her upright. “It began as a fairy tale,” she said. The walls around her were of modest timber, but the glows emitting from the men and women lit each corner with the quietest serenity. There were no ornaments, no windows, only a tiny infant displayed on a wooden altar. Karen held her hand out, and the child placed His fingers around hers. He did not cry.

“Why does he not stir?” she asked, and the woman answered, “He is a diamond of hope, given by the second sun. We have all lost it one time or another,” she smiled.

Standing in the small room beside the woman in brown who glowed, she could not form a sonnet for this child. She basked in the light of the others and was content with this until she saw The Apostle in the farthest corner. His poems were not the most ornate and certainly not the loudest, but he shined so brightly that the room turned a beautiful, honest white, with clouds and grasslands and gentle, swooping blue jays. There was a song in the wind, a wisp that accepted her so kindly and danced through her hair.

She felt adequate and encouraged there. Loved and light in his heart. But it belonged to Him and she was still so speckled in black that she knew she could not yet share it.

They gave her a single tack wrapped in leather and kissed her forehead when she left the sanctuary for the sparkling metropolis. And with her brand new eyes, she noticed that the city was so much more alive than she had previously thought. Not just the towers, but the commotion and conversation, the population itself as a constantly moving and changing energy. There were lights everywhere.

A child sat on the edge of a fountain whose cheeks were stained with the same blues and golds of The Magician’s wagon and she tugged at her shirt. “Have you found your beloved, your heart?”

“I have not,” she told the small voice, “I have not, but he is waiting here for me in the city of glass.”

She shook her head in remorse when the gong rang out, for Karen’s attention was given away without question. Behind them was a luxurious divan carried on the backs of men, decorated in ivory and turquoise, and on that divan sat The King in his most expensive silk, holding out his hands. His words, although foreign, were clearly very sophisticated.

She asked, “Are you my heart?” but The King did not speak her language.

A stairway of hands was formed by his servants, and she took her spot at his side.

There was a pang of nerves in her chest beside this man in his refined air, almost to the point of not belonging.

He brought her to his palace, where the floors of marble reflected all the lovely things he kept and the bells on the flowers jingled whenever anyone passed, so as to be noticed. All the noblemen declared that she was his most beautiful treasure he had collected thus far, yet Karen understood nothing. Only the ringing bells. He held a feast for her and invited all the people of consequence he knew, all of whom were charming and very pleasant to watch, but just as confusing in every way.

Her room was filled with incense which burned lavender into her eyes, drawing out any sort of worry. And the thick garments he had her clothed in were stitched with jade. They made her feel beautiful at first, the lavish gifts piling up higher and higher over her arms and neck, until she could hardly move under the coating and her arms ached. There was no use, she realized much too late, calling out for help, for they only smiled when she spoke.

She remained this way for so long that soon she was nothing more than a golden statue, posed in the garden for all to admire, when she only wished to see The King once more. He did not come, though, and so she waited, two precious globes in hand.

At night, the flowers were her only companions as they twinkled in the wind that cracked her now brittle skin. They said to her, “Look, blessed statue, look. The moon, it shines for you. Lovely, dear statue, the sky is yours.” Still, she could not move.

When all was quiet, when the flowers had stopped their conversations, the child came from the shadows of the willow and began to pick off the jewels and pieces of gold one by one. “Your beloved awaits,” she whispered, “Your heart is there,” and ran off, away from the palace, leaving behind her a trail of paper confetti. Karen followed it with her back crouched, not at all thinking to watch what she left behind.

It wormed through a damp, empty section of the city, much too close to The Tragedian, where desperate children huddled together against the warmth of a single match. Soggy and muddied, the confetti led her up creaky stairs and through a hallway so poorly built that holes had formed, letting in a fog of stars. She walked carefully, scared the floor might collapse beneath her feet, until at last the trail stopped.

Chrysalis read the etching on one of the doors.

The door creaked as it opened and, half in fear, half in shyness, she entered with her breath hardly working.

A television, buzzed throughout the already chaotic apartment, clinging white noise onto the walls. Useless trinkets had been thrown into piles, forgotten and tired. And the bulb that swayed from above flickered light onto the woman who sat by the window. She sat there, facing the doorway, in a blond wig and garish, red lipstick. She was destructive, a siren, bad news in every sense and she thrived in her tragedy so brilliantly.

This was her beloved. This was her heart.

This woman was Karen.

She lay at her feet, curled up tightly under the black lace and closed her eyes.

“Can you hear it?”

The white noise leaked into her dreams.

“Can you see it, Karen?”

She awoke in bed with the words on her tongue. They left in a tune, a verse she had never heard.