preparations complete, the day of loves union dawns, one to be made, one to be lost.
Wellwishers have arrived from the four corners of the Kingdom, all in their finery, smiling-dancing eyes on all, each attendee the vessel of excitement and merriment, a silent but tangible hum emanates from all of them gathered, this day so rare, an 'out' from the grinding modernity that is 'this life', glad of heart, spirits untangled from the every-day.
Alone, a young warrior sits, his heart like granite, cold and heavy, he stares with empty eyes, his jaw muscles pulse slowly, for many nights his sleep has abandoned him to the long, long eventide, where only the twilight birdsong has shaken him from this catatonic agony, many scenarios have streamed through his fractalised mind-scape, too late, too cruel, this is the day.
The door of the barn croaks, the sunlight, like a white and near blinding arc sweeps through the gloom inside, lighting the dust hanging in the dank air like a trillion slow motion photons, the light paints a sculpture inside, a gleaming, menacing, apocalyptic steed, sleeping and harmless, like a cryonicaly stilled hideous gargoyle, a hellish demon, the stuff of terror induced paralysis.
Its master, clad in mourning black and blued steel, betrayed in colour only by his smouldering orange/red eyes, glowers at the winged monster, "dont fail me now Divvy", he removes the rose clasped in its shardlike blackened teeth and his eyes momentarily flash with longing, with the same summer washed saphire blue as his boyhood eyes were, but not today,
he crushes the thorn protected rose stem in his black gauntleted fist, his blood, like viscous nail paint, oozes from between his fingers, he slides off the 'safety' on his Iberian type 4 - 65mm foam cannon and holsters it, his titanium digit like a heavy capacitor cracks life into the beast, he moves off, slow and deliberate, enveloped within his own dimension, the street, the people, cars, dogs and children playing, their noise - tinny and distant, all around him is hurried, yet he is in slow-mo', the zone, the matrix. less than a quarter mile til he reaches his collision with fate, for days he has been aware of no sound, only - within his tangled mind- the girlish laughter of his hearts desire, imaginery summer insects in the corn field where they- he and his sweetheart, would have their intimate liasons, blessed only by the warm summer sun.
He's nearly there, the venue where his love, his existance, his vision, will be taken from him for eternity, he hears music, not from the street, from inside him, this is broken by the stark BEEP! of an ice cream van he has narrowly missed colliding with, he gives the vendor a hair whitening scowl, the van crumps into a wall, somewhere in the background, the music starts again, faint, he kills the beast in front of the 'love gate' at the foot of the path up to the gothic oak and iron doors, the music in his head races in volume toward him like the devils carrion, he flails open the door with his boot !
Music