Wednesday, 26 November 2014

The Music of Belial


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THE MUSIC OF BELIAL ------------------------------------- c. Sara L Russell * Wild-eyed at the piano, he wants to spin her a line, but the Muse has flown out the window and he's running out of wine. The candles are burning lower, sweat runs down his face, the tempo's going slower, time is giving up the chase. * If the music could only embody her graceful, lovely shape, but the arpeggios sound shoddy and the chords begin to scrape - how can all this chaos bring a tear to her blue eyes? He's not Wolfgang Amadeus and only the barn owl cries. * Suddenly, his fingers are playing on their own, playing out an air that lingers and chills him to the bone, spindly notes that run like spiders at the high end of the scale, like dark fears we hold inside us like a lashing scorpion's tail... * He grows weak, the notes go deeper as the melody grows strong, familiar now, to this light sleeper, it's a fugue, a nightmare song, a precursor of disaster to invert the sweetest dream - his heart is beating faster, but he cannot rise or scream * and the fugue is plunging Hell-bound to the deepest, darkest dirge, the dark fireplace holds him spellbound, something's waiting to emerge out from the deadly darkness where the flames have died away, into the room's cold starknes and still his fingers play * and the evil music's winning there's a thumping on the door, the candelabra's spinning, the fireplace, a gaping maw, spews out soot and ashes like a mist with teeth and eyes, the music pounds and crashes and the mist begins to rise... * ...Now the music is receding as he wakes up in his bed but his fingertips are bleeding and the fugue is in his head and the wardrobe door is swinging slowly open, on its own, his tortured ears are ringing, he is frightened and alone * and the black mist is encroaching on the borders of his soul, a distorted face is approaching, it's mouth a shrivelled hole, it's a fear to put a name to as the face gives a mirthless smile: "I have come to claim you through the Music of Belial!"