Chapter 1: We Meet Again

I stood at the threshold, my hand shielding my eyes from the setting sun, fading away far off into the shadowed plains… as the last of the golden grass was swallowed away into darkness… as my sight suddenly abandoned me, and I was left to naught but a single feigning candle, pathetically aglow on the cherry-wood table behind me… I retreated to it’s sanctuary, leaving the door at rest, and letting the night to it’s own affairs. I emitted a long sigh in my solitude, for oh! how these days have brought nothing more than pure loneliness!

I clenched a short crystal glass, filled with cold, hardened shards, in my hand, and retrieved a tall, slender bottle from the candle’s silhouettes…

“I shalnt spend another night in tragic misery! Here’s to a cure at last!”

And with that, I impatiently tipped my bottle, spilling the contents into my glass, now swirling in a golden whirl, the sweet scent of aged caramel filling my lungs with hope… hope that tonight, a savior will come…

And then…a knock upon the hollow door…

Good day jolly chap!

My good old friend!

I see you’ve come

To visit again

But you know me well

And it hasn’t been long

Ever-dying angels

Still sing the same song

So there you are

Waiting at my door

As heartless and callous

As ever before

I’m not very partial

To letting you in

But how could I deny?

My good, old friend!

So I beckon your entrance

Let me pour you a glass

I know scotch is your favorite

I’ve got the best the world has

Make yourself comfy!

Please, have a seat

And know that, for you,

I’ve lain fine, velvet sheets

Your face was of stone

You’re skin was so cold

And your body was empty

As you took off your soul

It hung on the coat rack

All tattered and dry

A shell of a ghost

A shell hiding lies

How clever you are!

To have concealed yourself well

I’ll reward you at once!

With a piece of my hell

So I uncloth my hand

And turn over my wrist

And blush with drunkeness

As you place, upon it, a kiss

Do you know that you kill me?

“Do you know I don’t care?”

And with that, I am trapped,

Your cold hands in my hair

Your chest, pulsing close

Your heart…a parasite!

You’ll take all my life

And you’ll leave me to die

Oh dear! I must beware

of my company kept

But then, you make me wiser

As you take off my white dress

As much as it hurts

I’ve become used to this

So I wipe away my tears

And pucker my lips

I’ll fight away my fears

And fall into your grip

And we’ll continue for years

Until you’ve had your last sip…

Until you’re glass is dry

Until your pallet is pleased

Though I know you will drink

A thousand glasses of me

My hands trembling pale

I offer you your next glass

Welcome back old friend

I’m the best scotch the world has.

And together, we retreat away into the same darkness that I had once shut away, leaving my little candle dancing wildly in the cold whisps of air, now chilling the warm room.

“Where have you been?” I whisper to my new companion. He says nothing, but glides silently to the far wall of my room, leading me to a great, mirror hung above my dresser, its edges carved in iron with charming serpents wrapping their ways into my reflection. Behind me, the shadow billows in his long layers of black, fragile even in the wake of his own air. I reach forward, lost somewhere between my world and his, my fingertips like ice upon the still glass. I turn to find him, as whispers of serpents appear beside my ears, and evaporate into echoes… and sigh with tears, as my eyes fall upon the empty, velvet sheets, curled up upon the edge of the bed, their deep carmine pale in the moon’s white breath.

A faint voice finds my heart, wrapping around it like stitches of ivy… embracing the empty body with the lost soul…

And so… with a new sense of hope that wavers on a threshold between light and darkness…

I wait.