Losing Lenore: PART 1 - A Valentines Ghost Story
31 Mayıs 2011 Salı
, Posted by buRkAy at 00:28
Okay - I realise it's Valentines Day, but as a redirection from the usual Valentine posts you will no doubt be reading from everyone, I decided to do this.What follows is a heart-felt story of heartbreak. Poe told the story first in the wonderful classic poem, The Raven. I'm telling it here as a two-part short story.
Please read it and let me know what you think of the ghostly happenings and Williams insanity. All excellent accompaniments to any Valentines, don't you think?
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe: The spooky tale can be heard here...
LOSING LENORE
On a silky, black December night, a storm brewed and the high winds tickled purple drapes through a draughty window. William shivered, stroked by a zephyr. He no longer appreciated the beauty of the night, hidden within his chamber. Nor did he wish to do so. He remained alone; probing books about the dark arts in search of answers he would never find.
Lovers ran beneath it; blanketed in the night’s metallic glow. Their resonant laughter fought through joyous winds, but couldn’t penetrate William; deafened by his obsession. They bathed in moonlight, romance and naiveté, just as he once had.
Now, he lay restless in a pitifully large bed that only served to exaggerate the enveloping insignificance of his lot. He lamented lost love; Lenore was now buried beneath infested soil only a mile up the road. Each spade of earth dropped had felt like Lenore’s hands clawing at his guts. He couldn’t bear the knowledge that her coffin held the body he so longed to embrace.
He still experienced a perverse conflict between the desire to forget and the desire to remember. She was present in every thought and endeavour; his love lingered like a virus. Sleep found no vessel in William; peace had abandoned him. William had lost Lenore, and with her, his will.
Tap, tap, tap. “If that’s you, Sally; go home. I want nothing more from you, tonight.”
Tap, tap, tap. “Sally - is that you? Answer me, I say.”
William realised it could not be his maid. She would answer him, she would enter his room. She would surely have left by now, though he no longer kept track of irrelevancies, such as time. ‘Who the Devil could it be?’
“Sir,” he asked. “Or Madam, I really must insist. I seek rest, yet find I am unnerved by your tapping.” At the persistent silence, William began to sweat, his heart boomed audibly, its beat quickened. Reading of the Dark Arts had made him paranoid, he told himself. Lately, he’d found that panic eased if he used an appropriate mantra, ‘It is a visitor at my door, nothing more. It is a visitor at my door, nothing more.’
William left the sanctuary of Lenore’s soft, velvet bedding and shuffled toward the noise, dodging debris on the floor. Shaking, he crouched at the door, listening. He heard nothing other than a quiet tapping; ‘... a visitor, nothing more,’ he repeated.
With a deep breath, he swung open the door, expecting to reveal a perpetrator! Yet, he met with a darkness within which he found hues of mauve and blue. Staring into it, he became lost in visions. Out of the darkness walked the ghost of his father, “Pick yourself up, young man!” he heard him say. Then, just as swiftly, he disappeared. He heard his name being called by a stranger’s voice. Sensing a strong presence and movement in the hall, it remained empty.
Grabbing at his hair, clumps twisting in grubby fingers and uncut, jagged fingernails, William shouted, “Father, return. Come take your son with you.
I miss you, father.” His father didn’t reply, and William only felt more abandoned. His loosened hair mottled his shoulders or fell to the floor, bloody at the follicles. Darkness seemed to move toward him, carrying with it an unnatural silence. Blacker and bolder it came upon him, like death had come to visit, at last. Fear and excitement blended beneath the layer of sweat and grime.
I miss you, father.” His father didn’t reply, and William only felt more abandoned. His loosened hair mottled his shoulders or fell to the floor, bloody at the follicles. Darkness seemed to move toward him, carrying with it an unnatural silence. Blacker and bolder it came upon him, like death had come to visit, at last. Fear and excitement blended beneath the layer of sweat and grime.
“Say it’s so, Death my dear friend. I’m ready for you. I will make your job an easy one tonight.” ‘No more pain, no more pain,’ he murmured; repeating one mantra until another replaced it.
In anticipation of death, William smiled; temple to temple though it did not touch his eyes. He let out a childlike giggle, but the silence remained unbroken for some time, pinching at William like frost. No end arrived within the illusory darkness. The sadness of this reality became a swelling in his throat. He searched for tissues to wipe away tears and mucus, reusing one of the dryer specimens from many on his floor.
Following resignations, whispers jolted William, ‘Lenore, Lenore,’ came from the silence and aroused the hairs covering his derelict body; pricking up with electricity.
“Darling Lenore what news of you?” William asked the darkness, with a hope so potent it held onto his breath, “Lenore, Lenore, Lenore, Lenore!” he repeated over again. The question of insanity never entered his head. His dripping eyes attempted to clear enough to see into the abyss. He awaited a vision of ‘Lenore’ or of another who would take him to her – which never came. Nothing stepped from the darkness, not even a repeat of the gifted whisper.
With a huge sigh, William returned to bed; empty and cold. He could still faintly smell her nestled within the bedding, and her violet pillow hungrily griped onto stray, long, pale hairs. Their bedroom was now his favourite. He had become confined within it since the funeral in a self-imposed incarceration, apparently without end. Memories molested him; the naked dance of romance; the silly quarrels; her beauty, were all strongest there. The outcome bittersweet; such nearness was both comforting and torturous.
Much time had passed since her loss; friends and family had been ignored so they’d left him to mourn. His maid served his meals, which became carpet matter in disorganised clumps about the floor. He drank tea, but only because its smell reminded him of his lost love. How fussy she had been, ‘It must always be Earl Grey.’ The taste of it evoked a picture of her slurping at her floral cup; her pretty pout all pink and wet. She had teased him relentlessly. Now, he doubted he would ever laugh again. He let out a scream at this fleeting thought, and blew his nose on the velvet bedding.
Time seemed to rush by in visions of her; almost tangible images danced on the walls around him. He could stare for hours, lost in her face, and often did. He longed for her touch again. Hours passed into days, then weeks. Nothing eased his loss, nothing allowed him respite.
He didn’t smell the pungency of his own filth, the damp, and the rotting food, the bodily fluids. Her perfume sabotaged the reality around him. All he desired was her spirit, her presence in any way. Oh – and his own death.
‘Lord, release me from this empty world; help me join my Lenore.’ He would pray this way all day and night, chanting this while rocking on his bed. The more he said it, the more likely it would occur, he believed.
Tap, tap, tap – Tap, tap, tap!
A louder tapping sprang from his window – it scared William to his bones. He swallowed with difficulty as the noise brutally wrenched him from his longings, and flung him to the ground. Picking himself up, he brushed away soup mold from his night shirt, holding the velvet to his face in a poor attempt to hide.
“For Heaven’s, sake; tapping at my window now? Really!” He held his breath and committed to exploration. He flung away musty, velvet again, and marched to the noise. A deep panic disturbed him, his clammy flesh; bumpy. Shaking hands ripped at his drapes and flung back the shutters in two swift, brave movements, using one deeply held breath.
An ebony raven flew past him through his room - over William’s books on the occult and black magic - over pictures and paintings of Lenore; scattered over the floor - over plates of putrid food and mouldy cups - he flew, around and around; inspiring fear, commanding attention and respect. Finally, he perched upon a bust of Pallas Athena: God of Wisdom.
Lenore had bought this for him the year he began university. That was a magnificent time, the memory of it passed rapidly through his body leaving sunny lesions in its path; both the splendour and regret of it embraced him in her absence, re-establishing the lumpy throat, and a searing ache. Even in the grip of fear, Lenore savagely possessed his thoughts.
Part Two follows tomorrow right here.... Please stop by and leave comment below. Have you read the poem? Did you like it? Do you like Poe? I do because is dark and intense.
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