Spoiler! :
It's still a first draft, so I'm sure there are a mistakes but it took a very long time to write so I'm hoping you enjoy it. Things start to move here Chapter 2
The Wisp’s lair was situated in the Greek isle of Ithaca – home of Odysseus, the hero in Homer’s epic tales – almost right in its heart, in the fabled Cave of the Nymphs, where Odysseus hid the gifts given unto him by the King. It happened to be a very tourist-centred place, people flocking from every corner of the Earth to gaze upon the beautifully formed rocks and the sky-blue crystalline waters that lulled themselves into the cave adhering to a gentle tempo, to and fro in perfect time. But the Wisp’s home was not anywhere where humans could reach. When the Earth was still forming this particular location – a bubble formed right beneath it. This bubble grew into a secondary chamber that would be connected to the cave had this bubble met the first one, had they touched for a split second but as of yet, their outstretched arms had not yet met, hence the secondary chamber remained isolated from the first.
This secondary chamber hidden away underneath the Cave of Nymphs was immense in its size. A supernatural light illuminated it and somehow the Wisp had managed to bring items from the surface as well as divide the chamber in different rooms. The stone he had used was clean-cut and unadorned, but was mostly akin to a form of polished marble. The light bounced off this marble and gave the room a less than brilliant white light. The floor was tiled with the same stone and for some reason the entire chamber was reminiscent of the crypt in the Taj Mahal. He had a circular antechamber, filled with all sorts of things normal people might consider junk. He owned paintings and sketches hung haphazardly and without any particular order or pattern. One of these paintings took up the entire circumference of this circular room, it being an uncannily precise copy of Monet’s Water Lilies. Whether it was actually a copy or the original stolen from the Orangerie museum in Paris was definitely only known to the Wisp alone. Stacks of books adorned any empty space, bookshelves filled to the brim with texts both ancient and modern. Some of the books even stood alone on stands with a special type of illumination, as if it was their very pages that were producing the light of their own volition. Every word was illuminated as if it were inked in gold.
In another room, the Wisp possessed a large number of musical instruments of all types: violins, cellos, guitars, horns, trumpets, harps, bassoons, clarinets, timpani, drum sets and even tribal instruments such as a bodhrán and the djembe but centrally placed in the music room was a grand piano, beautiful in its melancholy, illuminated as if in spotlight and looked as if it had never been touched. Its keys were smooth, gleaming white and black marble, the body made of polished wood painted black and it looked as if, if one were to touch it, it may produce the most beautiful sound in the world.
The only other rooms left were functional: a bedroom furnished in an almost miserly manner, with only a double bed; a fully furnished kitchen which had clearly never been touched, a reading room with a leather sofa, widescreen TV, an old projector a VCR and stacks of video tapes, DVDs and film reels.
While the kitchen and the bedroom were never used, the Wisp used to hover in every other room for long hours on end, he would spend his time staring at the music room with an expression not unlike the one he wears perpetually, gaze at the paintings while standing or while sitting on a chair, directly in front of them or a slight way away. He seemed to spend most of his painting-gazing time in front of impressionist and post-impressionist works: Monet, Cezanne, van Gogh, Renoir and Sisley amongst others. Possibly, one could say that the Wisp was partial to these types of paintings as opposed to others, but if it was so, he didn’t show it. The Wisp tended not to show things in his expression, mainly because, according to him at any rate, he didn’t have anything to show. The Wisp, if you hadn’t figured it out by now, had no feelings at all. He was like an unmoving pillar of solid rock in the midst of a vast ocean of emotion. Emotion was a human endeavour and the Wisp, not being human, could not partake in it. He was a higher entity and hence did not succumb to the human weakness of emotion.
And yet, to some extent, the Wisp was fascinated by it – if he could be fascinated by anything that is. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬I would almost say that he coveted it, were he capable of being partial to anything. It was a bit strange – the Wisp could perceive emotion, he could understand it and grasp its concept even though he had never actually partaken in the act his entire time of existence. He saw it in the art he collected: in the paintings, the sculptures, the music and the films but above all in literature. The Wisp would devour books, reading at inhuman speed, and absorbing knowledge of human culture, norms, afflictions and began to try and recreate and re-enact these ideas. He built a home even though he did not require one, filled it up with anything that emanated any form of emotion – from the smallest piece of junk to the original manuscript of Dante’s La Divina Commedia (something the rest of the world believed to be lost, may I add) – he wore clothes, bound his form to appear human and yet due to his perfection he could never achieve anything he sought for. He could imitate a human emotion to awkward perfection but he could never really feel it and so through the eyes of a human being, it would seem perverse.
The Wisp assembled his smoky tendrils in his home and stood in the middle of his Art room and gazed at his tempera painting of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. The woman in the middle was supposed to evoke feelings of beauty and wake in any man a lust for flesh. The Wisp was able to appraise it and analyse it critically, noting its strong emphasis on the natural element and he was able to perceive the social commentaries behind it, what with its reference to ancient mythologies, a throwback of sorts – which was in fact what the renaissance was all about. The period, not only in terms of art, but also in terms of rational thinking looked back to prior forms of thought. To most of the people of the time, it was a revolution – to the Wisp it was just a severe lack of originality. Still, it produced things that fascinated him – if fascinated was the right word to use.
In time, the Wisp stopped looking at the paintings. He left the art room, his footsteps echoing with almost perfect resonance and found a place to sit down and observe the prize he had just won. He held the suitcase in his hands and put it on his lap and proceeded to stare at it for a while. Nothing happened. He opened the suitcase and gazed upon its innards, noting the gilded golden cover of the book and feeling it over with his fingers. Again, nothing happened. The Wisp took the book out, placed the suitcase on the floor and opened the book. He looked at the title and with a more intense gaze than before scrutinised the beautiful, handwritten words. The scripture was Arabic, graceful and flowing, contained within decorated boxes, perfectly aligned and symmetrical and also, they were illustrated with simple pictures of men and women. The Wisp read every word, deciphering the script with apparent ease, as if it were his own mother tongue. Time passed slowly and the only sound within the Wisp’s cave was the intermittent turning of the fine paper pages.
He had little else to do. He did not require nourishment and so he didn’t need to hunt for food or water. He had no work to do, no particular purpose as far as humans could conceive. He was an existence infinite and unbound, beyond the limiting grasp of natural instincts and human inter-relations. He needed no socialisation. He needed nothing. Hence, from a human’s point of view, his ‘life’ was quite boring. There was no excitement, no definition nothing that we humans hold dear and close to our hearts. In fact, conversely, the Wisp saw our lives as boring what with our filling them with what according to him are needless and pointless endeavours that have no meaning whatsoever.
But still, every now and then the Wisp would decide to go up into the world of humans, usually at the call of some poor soul and commit to an exchange. The Wisp would gain something that he wanted and in return he would do whatever the human would ask. Oftentimes, however, the Wisp would not do the jobs as the human would want them to be done. The deals were often precarious and resulted in disastrous effects such as the one with the plane. The Wisp did not care for human limitations and oftentimes did things the way he saw fit. He was very arrogant, from a human’s perspective anyway, in that respect, insisting that his way was the best for reasons nobody could really fathom. Either way, though, he got things done. You could always count on him for that.
***
The boy turned around, his red-streaked hair flailing about in the pent-up anger of the wind. Everything seemed to gain the connotation of anger around the boy. Rage flew in sparks around the boy’s essence and in this wallowing of anger and wrath the boy’s figure seemed mighty. His green eyes shone like cursed rocks as he cast their light about. He was in what seemed to be a corridor having backtracked because he realised that he had skipped the room in which he was meeting his friends. He fumbled with a piece of paper that he got out of his pocket and sought to adjust his mistake.
He entered the right room, marked 707, and sat down in one of the chairs around a large central table. No one else was there yet. The boy leaned back in his chair and threw his feet onto the table. He stared down at his hands, looking for amusement, and suddenly flames licked up from his fingertips, grabbing at the air with their tapered ends. At first, the flames were only slowly crackling and playing with the air, but soon enough they became an excited bunch of mischievous children. They danced to and fro, sometimes even jumping around, poking and prodding at the air. They grew into adults and raged on, screaming and searing the air. On the boy’s face, the only noticeable change was a growing smirk. He raised his lit hand, aiming at the table, seemingly intent on destroying it. He only laughed.
“Tame yourself, Ignis.”
The voice came ubiquitously from nowhere. A curious gust of wind entered the closed room and blew the boy’s flames out.
“You blew out my light, Aer.”
The gust of wind moved as a collective body and spun around, forming a miniature twister in the very confines of the room. Out of it walked another teenage boy, presumably Aer, who bore a striking similarity to the other boy whose name we have just discovered to be Ignis. And yet this Aer was completely different in his complete similarity to this Ignis.
“Can’t have you burn the entire place down now,” spoke Aer, his voice somehow sultry and ethereal.
“You suck,” replied Ignis, his voice betraying annoyance that wasn’t very well hidden.
“Shh,” Aer looked away, “Aqua is here.”
With the ensuing silence, there was revealed a dripping noise. Drops of water seemed to be falling from nowhere in particular. Slow, at first, and intermittent. But then it began to rain in the room. Heavier and heavier still.
“Do you always have to make such a dramatic entrance?” Ignis spat.
A voice replied. “Yes.”
Ignis rolled his eyes and blew at his wet and now flat hair in order to get it out of his eyes. There was an intense feeling of dislike in the gesture and of annoyance. The rain stopped falling eventually. And all the droplets of water came together, and coalesced into the form of a woman. Her hair was long and dark and the colour of her eyes could be defined as nothing other than aquamarine. She wore a blue mini-dress and matching heels but still looked no older than the age of sixteen. Her facial structure oozed perfection and beauty of a terrible and cruel kind. With regal posture she moved behind Ignis and put her hands on his shoulders, a half-smirk appearing on her face. As soon as contact was made, her hands began to smoulder.
“I’ve missed you, Ignis,” she whispered into his ear, disregarding her burning hands.
“You annoy me greatly, Aqua,” he replied.
“The feeling is mutual.” With that she removed her hands. “But I like that hot feeling you give me.” She smiled, her face reflecting nothing but sarcasm.
Ignis made a grunting noise. “What’s taking Terra so long?”
The door burst open. “I’m here, I’m here,” a female voice said, almost out of breath. She seemed…normal. And by normal I mean, normal when compared to the other three people she kept as company. Her golden blonde hair fell clumsily onto her shoulders and flailed about with her every motion. She closed the door behind her, turning her head in a swift and graceful motion. She looked like a dancer. She stood tall, taller than the girl called Aqua, and her eyes were an earthy brown and unlike her female counterpart, she wore no make up. Her feet were bare and everything about her seemed natural.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, half-laughing. Her hearty voice filled the room with warmth.
“Now that we’re all here we can start the manifestation,” said Aer, completely disregarding the newcomer.
“Finally,” Ignis’ voice betraying his impatience.
“Let’s get it over and done with before Ignis blows a fuse.” Aqua interjected.
“Let it be done.” Aer closed his eyes. And prayed.
Pater noster qui es in coelis,
sanctificetur nomen tuum;
adveniat regnum tuum,
fiat voluntas tua,
sicut in coelo et in terra…
A strange light began to glow in the middle of the room, hovering above the round table at just about its center. It began to slowly spread itself around the room, filling the space with its apparent nothingness and yet existence could be felt all around. If someone had to happen to walk by, unsuspectingly, he or she would most likely get this feeling of closeness and of oneness to nature and wouldn’t be able to explain it. This would be a direct consequence of the fact that the entire planet had been contracted into the five beings present in that one room 707. For the prayer was calling another presence – not the Catholic god, as one would expect. One must know that the act of prayer did involve a sort of connection being made by the one doing the praying and the entity receiving the prayer. There were unscientific phenomena occurring that few could deny – all in conjunction with this very act of prayer. However the truth behind this act was still up for interpretation. And here is a possible interpretation of it: for the purpose of this tale the act of praying is a means to an end and not a way of establishing a personal relationship with a higher entity. Instead, it was a means of coming into synchrony with the Good, as Plato puts it, which is nothing more than the continuity and infinity of the world. But more will be explained later.
Within the room, the light enveloped everything, the table, the walls and the people inside it. A strange warmth, not physical, could be felt through this strange light. As if it had depth, a figure appeared in the distance of this blinding white light, in silhouette. It walked closer, apparently taking its time and eventually got close enough. The light suddenly disappeared and retracted into the heart of this figure. And thus he was apparent: the manifestation. His hair was white, of an almost luminous kind, and his eyes as blue as clear sky. His face was angular in all the right places and a soft round curve in the others. Cheek-bony with skin so pale it was perfection. His body was marvelous, chiseled to perfection – every muscle curve and every bone perfectly placed. It was hard not to be in complete awe of the creature that he was.
“Lux,” Aer said, inclining his head, “you are among us.”
“As was written,” perfection replied. His voice sultry, earthy, radiant and, above all, warm.
He was speaking of what we know as the most basic principle of the universe: each action causes and equal and opposing reaction.
“Thus the council begins,” narrated Ignis, who despite how his character came across before, seemed to respect this figure of apparent divinity.
“The first meeting of the Circle of Existence in the second age,” announced Lux, taking his seat, “Our topic of discussion: The Black Wisp.”
***
The Black Wisp could hear everything. His presence was worldly and ubiquitous. He made it manifest in physical form, true, but it remained everywhere. But he particularly kept an eye (or an ear out) for his own name. Or the many names by which people referred to him. It’s not that he was vain, he didn’t care enough to be so, but one’s name holds a natural attraction. The utterance of names is an assertion of existence and thus it held interest to everything. Including the Black Wisp. He would often catch himself tuning in (as if it were a radio) on those who were talking about him. So he knew of the particular occurrence mentioned before. One could say he knew pretty much everything that there was to know. He simply didn’t care enough to access certain parts of his knowledge. Or he never came across an opportunity that would require his omniscience. Although omniscience is a rather sweeping term: the Wisp did not know everything, he simply knew everything that all humans knew. To some that would comprise everything but to the Wisp he simply knew enough.
What is relevant however is the Wisp’s ability to hear everything that goes on in the world, with keen affinity to anything that involved him. Having explained it rationally I go on to make my point. Not only did the Wisp listen in on everything the strange people in room 707 had to say afterwards but he also tuned in on a particular reference to him that sounded a lot like a form of summoning:
Black Wisp!
He heard it calling. Amusing.
Black Wisp!
He wondered if he should go. He had his doubts whether it would be interesting.
Black Wisp!
Ah well. He had nothing better to do.
“What’s with the dead goat?” He whispered into his beckoner’s ear. The floor was stained with blood that originated from the dead animal’s slit throat. The goat was hanging upside down from a cord tied to the ceiling of what seemed to be a cave.
The man who ‘summoned’ him leapt with fright, his long trench coat flailing into the air. Quickly, he collected himself.
“It’s part of the summoning ritual,” he said, gaining confidence as he walked closer to the Wisp.
“Interesting,” the Wisp sniggered, exaggeratedly, “is that pentagram for me?”
The man looked down. The Wisp was not contained in the restraining circle that the man had drawn; rather he was walking outside it like it was the easiest thing in the world. The man was now scared.
“I’ll insert myself inside it for your comfort then,” the Wisp said, his voice plunging into the emptiness of his abyss of emotion. He walked towards the circle and stood in the middle. There was silence. The man did not understand a thing.
“Wisp, I have summoned you here—”
“Yes, Mr. O’ Mallory, why have you summoned me here?”
Stunned silence. How did the creature know his name?
“I’m not a creature, Mr. O’ Mallory, you are.”
So the Wisp could hear his thoughts.
“Yes.”
“Then you know why I’ve summoned you here.”
“Yes.”
“And will you accept?”
“You want me to be a protector of your city. You want me to capture criminals and transform your city into a place of perpetual peace. You think that I can create for you a utopia.”
“Yes, if you knew that why did you have to repeat it?”
The Wisp’s eyes shone. “No reason.”
Again the man did not understand a thing.
“So will you do it?”
“What will you give me in return?”
“Souls.” O’Mallory put on the best poker face he could muster.
“Why would I want that?”
O’ Mallory was stunned.
“You seem to think I’m some sort of Devil.”
“You’re not?”
“Well yes and no.”
This was going nowhere. This was a mistake.
“I’m afraid if you’re not going to offer me anything that I want, I’ll have to decline your offer.”
For some reason, the Wisp’s words made fear course through O’ Mallory’s veins. If O’ Mallory could not offer the Wisp anything what use did O’ Mallory have? The Wisp would kill him.
“What do you want?”
The Wisp did not reply.
“I’ll offer you anything!”
Still, the Wisp did not reply. It was almost as if the Wisp did not know what he wanted.
But then, one of those curious moments: O’ Mallory’s phone began to ring. Little did he know that it was Fate calling. Or rather his wife. He had forgotten to put it on its silent mode and so his ringtone was louder than he would have wished it to be. The Wisp listened to the luscious piano that came out of the tiny gadget. Its intonations rose and fell with an inherent grace, relishing in its own beauty, as if it was aware of it. The sound echoed through the cavern and the piano suddenly gave way to a voice. The voice belonged to a woman, and seemed to be a paradox of itself: powerful and frail at the same time; it sped across the notes with technique and with a meaty tone that would lull anything human into a passionate frenzy. The Wisp had never heard this voice before and now knew what he wanted. Although ‘wanted’ is still stretching the term to its broadest possible meaning.
O’ Mallory fumbled with the phone, wondering how it was possible to have service in a cavern. He swore under his breath and pushed a few buttons. The ringtone was silenced.
“I-I’m sorry about that,” the inspector stuttered, his hands trembling as he placed his phone back in his pocket.
“I want the lady with that voice,” the Wisp stated, wasting no time.
“What?” O’ Mallory knew what the Wisp had said, but couldn’t help wanting to hear once more what he had got himself into.
“I want the lady with that voice.”
“I-I can’t just do that – it’s impossible.”
“Didn’t you say that you’d offer me anything? I want that girl. That’s all. Have her here in the same place in seventy-two hours. If she is here I will be the official protector of your city and will do anything that you wish. That is the terms of our deal. See you in three days.”
The Wisp disappeared. O’ Mallory was left there, speechless and thinking to himself how the hell he was going to convince a young girl to give herself up to a fearsome creature. Then his mobile rang again and he swore.
***
“So that’s it?” The High Commissioner asked, wanting to hear his re-election confirmed once again, “it’s done?”
“To my knowledge, it is,” O’Mallory replied, letting out a deep sigh.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The High Commissioner didn’t like this uncertainty seeping in.
“We can only hope the Wisp sees it the way we do.”
“Oh, some faith Inspector O’Mallory! Or should I say Council Member O’Mallory! Minister of the entire Police force! I won’t hear no for an answer! What do we need to ship off in return?”
O’Mallory gulped. He had never wanted to be called Council member. It scared him. “Gemma Myers.”
A slight pause. “The singer?”
O’Mallory nodded his head.
“This is going to be harder than I thought.”
***
Gemma Myers was a slight girl, having achieved much during her very short twenty-four years of living. Her blonde curls hung over her head with a sense of regal reluctance, creeping down till the middle of her body. It was not unlike a lion’s mane, yet slightly more unkempt-looking in its style. Her blue eyes shone involuntarily, as if they had no choice. But there was a smile on her face at the time, when she knew nothing. Ignorance is, after all, bliss.
She lived in a small mansion, still large enough to get lost in, but smaller than those of her peers. She had always been a bit more modest than some of her friends but everyone had to have a mansion. It was a sort of pre-requisite for anyone who is known all over the Nation. She supposed if she wanted anything to last, she had better go with the flow. And for that she was smarter than your average celebrity. She was streetwise, as it were, to the fickle territories of the Nation’s heart. It was inevitable that she would worm her way in and she had done it sooner rather than later.
The mansion was most of the time empty except for herself and the sound of her piano. She enjoyed nothing more than being alone with that sound and crafting it into something beautiful. She was one of few people who actually enjoyed what she did for a living.
Sooner or later she got a phone call from her manager. He told her that the High Commissioner of the Nation wanted to meet with her. That same day. When the conversation ended, she raised her blue eyes to the ceiling. A feeling came over her and she rushed towards the piano in order to capture it. Poignancy. That’s what was coming out of her. Notes meshed together which struck at the heart with their pointedness. She didn’t know why it came out like that. Perhaps a sense of foreboding.
The meeting with the High Commissioner was slightly blurry, in the sense that it passed rather quickly and not much of it had registered. She entered the High Commissioner’s mansion and was swamped with the colour red almost instantly. The floor was carpeted and red, the walls wore a more opaque form of the same colour and the ceiling glistened in the only yellow she could see. But it was the red that stood out, like a sore thumb.
As soon as Gemma went in she was ushered upstairs into a tearoom as large as a ballroom. She was asked to sit down at the small coffee table and wait for her manager and her host. She was used to waiting. One had to be very patient when waiting for good things to come. Luckily, or unluckily at that, she had barely sat down for three seconds, when three figures entered the room rather boisterously. Her manager had a sickly look on his face, the High Commissioner ever smiling and the third figure, wearing a beige trench coat, who Gemma did not recognise, stared at his feet.
Pleasantries were exchanged first. This was not the first time she had met with the High Commissioner, having seen him at various functions prior to this summons and exchanged a formal greeting or two at the time. But now, things had somehow changed. She had not met the man she was seeing before her. He exuded a form of warmth and cold at the same time – seeming a blizzard of a man, with a warm, sunny smile. His words were greasy yet suave, falling from his mouth as if there was an overflow pushing out one after the other. Nothing lingered in the air, and Gemma, despite being exceptionally bright, found it hard to keep up. But she could not really be faulted – the game of politics was very slippery for those unversed in its ways.
When it came down to the nitty gritty, the Commissioner still insisted on mincing his words. But the message was crystal clear: Gemma had to give up her freedom. What had she done to warrant this? Nothing, apparently. It just happened – a design of the fates, as if it were straight out of a Hardy novel. She could see the comparisons now to Tess of the D’Urbervilles – except things were not so unwitting. She knew exactly what she was being put into: slavery, albeit in a slightly different form. They were selling her. Against her will.
But what was she to do? What choice did she have? How does one refuse the High Commissioner. She had looked to her manager for help, calling upon her training to communicate her desperate plea for help with only her screaming eyes. Her manager deliberately looked away. Of course, he had no say in this. She couldn’t blame him. And yet she did. She needed someone to blame. Though the blame soon shifted as the name was dropped.
“You will give yourself up to the Black Wisp.” The words escaped from the Commissioner’s mouth with a hiss, almost like poison gas.
Things started to fall into place. The gravity of everything began to sink into her skin, burning her with its bubbling, noxious fumes coursing through her blood. Rage. She felt rage – but the sort of rage that was helpless. She could do nothing. She was being made a martyr – refusing would paint her as selfish and ruin her career. The Commissioner, with his sly, poisonous words would see to that. Either way she was doomed.
The blame would go to the Black Wisp. It was the Black Wisp’s fault. Why had he/she/it chosen her?
“Wouldn’t you like to warrant the safety of your nation? Be the cause of eternal peace?”
Now came the seduction. The words became less like a noxious gas and more like a fruity-smelling sleeping gas. It would sap the strength from her and tempt her with weighty words such as “martyr”, “cause”, “heroine” and “saviour”.
“Are you willing to do this?” The Commissioner finally stopped talking. Silence suddenly hung in the air, seconds ticking away, and in that silence Gemma relished her last few ticks of freedom. Beats. Two. Three.
“I am but the servant of the Nation,” she whispered, as if possessed, “I will do as you see fit.”
The grin that appeared on the Commissioner’s face was infuriating. Gemma was struck by a sudden urge to pull forward, over the coffee table and rip it off.
“This is a joyous day. It must be marked – it must be a national holiday!” Enthusiasm could not help but seep into his voice.
All four figures in the room stood up. The Commissioner put forward his hand. Gemma wanted to spit in it, but instead she shook it and looked deep inside her for the strength to say what she was supposed to.
“Thank you for everything High Commissioner,” She said, trying hard not to let the venom in the words pour out of the cracks.
“Please,” the Commissioner chuckled, “call me Gabriel.”
***
The first national Gemma Myers’ day came on the eve of midsummer’s day. There was something strangely poetic about that fact and Gemma held on to the little comfort she found in it. The news of her martyrdom had spread throughout the Nation like wildfire. Commissioner Gabriel had launched what was probably the quickest campaign Gemma had ever seen. Within forty-eight hours of Gemma receiving the news herself, she had been forced to attend photo shoots for the new billboards, record speeches, appear on talk shows and basically forgo the few days she had left belonging to herself for the good of the Nation. Many mouths passed words to her, telling her that what she was doing was brave, selfless, and beautiful. No wonder she had achieved so much in her short life! How could anyone so selfless not be touched, no, showered with blessings?
But Gemma didn’t feel that way. Being a pawn often came with feelings of frustration, anger and resentment. She resented this nation, which would so easily believe she had done this for them. What did she care for them? Nothing! But they threw adoration at her, as if it were the most commonplace thing to do. They cared nothing for reason, for rationality. Surely, in their minds they would muse and wonder that if it had been them in her place they would not have the strength to do what she did. But more often than not they would fail to correlate the fact that she would be just like them. After all, who could blame them? The reality they saw before them was that she in fact had done the undoable. They would never even bother to check whether the reality they saw was something fabricated by their government. Then again, why would it? Their government protected them, why would it lie to them?
Gemma hung her head. These were the last few moments in which she could let her weakness appear. The last few moments in which she could actually muse and debate with herself about the government conspiracy in which she found herself. Who knows how many others were there and she had never cared enough to see past them? For all her brains, Gemma felt pretty useless. She scoffed at the irony in that thought.
“Ten minutes ‘till curtain-up, Miss Myers.” A voice and accompanying figure manifested at the entrance to her tent. Commissioner Gabriel.
“If only it were a performance, Commissioner,” she replied.
“Why in the world would you think it isn’t, Miss Myers?” He insisted on calling her that. Gemma found it irksome, but kept it to herself.
“Because a performance comes to an end, Commissioner.”
The Commissioner was silent. When he actually responded, Gemma saw the true Gabriel flash through. He was unable to resist the temptation.
“We do what we have to do, Miss Myers.”
Footsteps signalled his leave, but his words hung about tormenting Gemma, like imps sniggering into her ear. “We do what we have to do.” The phrase summed up the Fall of Man in such a concise, romantic way that Milton would be proud. Seven trumpets signalled the necessity for Gemma to leave her tent, and with it, her security, her life and her most sough-after career.
***
The festivities began at noon. They consisted of twelve hours of celebration, speeches by important people, the High Commissioner’s speech, and the farewell performance. The final show would, in turn, consist of several artists’ tribute to Gemma’s own work, together with their own and finally – Gemma would sing two songs she wrote herself for this day. She had poured her heart and soul into these last two songs that she would probably ever write, for who knows what the Wisp had in store for her? Her label, on the other hand, knew exactly what was going to happen to the Gemma Myers that the world knew. They had planned to market these last two songs and wring every coin they could out of them – for Gemma would probably no longer require payment. Who knows how much money they would make off of her work?
Gemma was seated on the stage in the middle of National Square, her back facing the front of the Commissioner’s Mansions. In front of her stretched out a mass of people that covered her eyesight down till they blotted out the horizon. Never had she dared to dream of an audience this large – there must have been a million people, squinting to see the saviour of their great Nation on the stage or on the multiple screens strewn across the square, intermittently appearing down to the horizon. One thing was for sure: with so many people watching, there could be no escape.
First to speak was a member of the council. Gemma didn’t recognise the plump man standing on the podium, taking laboured breaths as he spewed out words of seeming wisdom. He was well fed and oddly round in shape. Gemma often found herself drifting off into thoughts of rolling him down green pastures and watching him flatten various figures: the Wisp and Commissioner Gabriel being foremost. The thought seemed to comfort her and from it stemmed a new pastime of making fun of whoever stood up to the podium to deliver new forms of the same self-righteous words.
After the council member stepped down, wiping his brow of the sweat that had formed and shifting his weight onto each foot till he got back to his seat, another man stood up to take his place. His pace was brisk, seeming lithe on his feet unlike the fat council member, and Gemma recognised him as the man in the long trench coat who had said nothing the day before at the Commissioner’s briefing. His name was apparently Inspector O’Mallory. Hatred began to well inside her as she remembered his quiet stature, shrinking back into the chair. He had said nothing, opting to remain silent. Why? Was he too righteous to lie a bit and comfort her? She wanted something from him, anything. But she had got nothing. So she spent the duration of his speech imagining herself sewing his lips shut with a red hot needle carrying blue thread. For some reason she found that image even more comforting than the hilarity of rolling a fat man down a hill. It occurred to her for a split second of the violent and morbid nature of her thoughts. She had never known such hate, such burning rage. Then again, she could easily rationalise it: she had never been sold so explicitly before. All her hate was justified. And just wait till they heard what she had to say in her music. She would not go down without showing the fight she had in her. She was quite proud of the hate that she had captured in her music. Soon she would unleash it.
The honour of the final speech went to the Commissioner, obviously. Hatred was not what Gemma felt as she saw his smug figure rise even further up onto the centre-staged podium. Hatred was too small a word, too minute to contain the maelstrom of cataracts and hurricanoes that raged their way into her gnarled heart that pumped them throughout her body. She imagined mutilating him, tearing off his lips and wondering if they would still spew spent, unmeaningful words even though detached. She wondered whether, on cutting him open, the colour of his blood would be red. She wondered further, wondering if his cold, cold heart had stopped beating as of yesterday or whether it was like that from birth.
“Today is the Nation’s greatest day.” Gemma wanted to wretch. “No other day shall be as great as today! Past or future – today we culminate our Nation’s history!”
Gemma had to hand it to him. The Commissioner could work a crowd almost better than she could. Intermittently, people yelped, screamed, clapped and wooed their heads and hands off for every golden one-liner the Commissioner was pulling out of his bag of lies.
“Today,” the Commissioner stated, pausing for dramatic effect. Gemma held her breath: here comes the catch phrase, the punch line. “Ladies and Gentlemen, proud citizens, we are Utopia.”
The roaring crowd deafened all ears in the square. It roared so loudly, but to Gemma, it felt more like silence. A silent, obedient consent to her death sentence.
Gemma’s moment of triumph came with the farewell performance. People she knew and had worked with before came to congratulate her and wish her the best of luck. Pure pleasantries. A lot of shaking of hands, exchanging of “Wow, you look great” and “Great job out there”, together with an alarming amount of shifty, insecure looks that said “Is s/he better than me?” consolidated a typical, star-studded backstage area. There was much anticipation to Gemma’s performance – everybody wanted to listen to what she had written for the occasion. It was less out of concern for what she thought about the entire affair, than it was about curiosity as to how it all transpired. What she had to say was actually rather inconsequential. Which celebrity had anything meaningful to say at all really?
As per all her performances, the stage was bare – save for a single piano and mike stand. Her hair had been done by the best hairdresser in the Nation, and his hands had worked her sun-gold hair into beautifully sprawled curls that cast nets downwards onto the rest of her body. The dress she wore, was very pale silver – almost white. It hung loosely from her and was reminiscent of robes that decorated the figures of angels in Renaissance Painting, pleating loosely as it went further down. It shimmered as it reflected the light, producing a somewhat dazzling effect. Coupled with her genetically superior facial structure, Gemma looked nothing other than “stunning”. And that is what she intended to be: in a broader sense of the word. Stunning.
The presenter droned on and on while introducing her, showering her with all sorts of praise. He mentioned all the awards she had won, all the records she had sold, how many hearts she had touched and most importantly, obviously, what she had done for the Nation. The wording he used made Gemma smile. There was no doubt that the Commissioner had come up with it: his forked tongue had been all over it.
“She, ladies and gentlemen,” the presenter bellowed, allowing his voice to take a graver tone, in order to denote the seriousness of this next statement, “has made herself a hero here today as she brings us Utopia with her bare hands!”
The crowd roared and set the scene for Gemma to come onstage. A deep breath and a moment to concentrate and blot out the rest of the world completed her pre-performance ritual. She took a sip of water and walked out to vulnerability.
She took her seat on the piano, flexed her fingers and took a few more deep breaths.
“This song is called Hurricanes,” she said into the microphone, hearing her voice, crisp and clear, in her ear monitor, “dedicated to the High Commissioner for this wonderful opportunity.” She tried not to leak too much sarcasm. Just enough to make the audience question it.
Her fingers were nimble on the keys. The introduction to her statement was not long and did not showcase her mastery of the piano all that well. It was, however, sombre from the start, clearly in minor key and she wasn’t budging from that. The tone soared into the air with a dragged heaviness that leaned over everything and made the air thick and opaque. The hurricanes she spoke of could almost be felt in the circularity she put into her pitch and melody. Swift and slow tempos alternated between themselves in a strange psycho-dramatic dance not unlike a tango.
Hurricanes
Preparation for this rainy season
Began when I was asked to commit treason
Or die
He turned his face and told me nothing
Giving me the choice of something
Futile
I’d be better as a hurricane
Ready to blow you all away
Nothing will ever redraw the cost
Of everything that I have lost
To save you today
I’d be better as a hurricane
So when you’re thinking of this day now
Remember what I have to say now
I’m gone
I gave up my freedom for you
His design to collect you
And your votes
I’d be better as a hurricane
Ready to blow you all away
Nothing will ever redraw the cost
Of everything that I have lost
To save you today
I’d be better as a hurricane
So remember this day
When you sold me away
Remember this day
When you lied and you cheated and you said it’d be OK
Remember this day
Cos I’m going my way
I’d be better as a hurricane
Cos I’d get to blow you all away
You will never know the cost
Of everything that I have lost
To save you today
But there was no saving anyway
I’d be better as a hurricane
I’d be better as a hurricane
Get ready to be blown away.
The song finished on the same sombre chord with which it started, bringing a heavy finality to it all. The chord hung in the air, by aid of suspension pedal, and Gemma lifted her fingers slightly off the keyboard holding on to the sound that would mark the end of her career. She let go of the pedal and let the sound dissipate into the silence that had taken the crowd. She could almost hear the hamster turning in the wheel trying to make sense of what happened. But Gemma valued her dignity. Instantly she leapt into a clear tango melody, ready to take her prior statement up to the metaphorical level. The tone of the piano took a less serious, more bouncy tone as Gemma deftly retracted her fingers from the keys in perfect time and mood.
“This last song is called, Tango with the Devil,” she whispered in perfect timing to her music, “and again, I dedicate it to the High Commissioner.” She couldn’t help but let loose a small snigger. Perhaps a snigger of slight insanity.
Tango with the Devil
You took me by the hand and dealt me a couple aces
Then twirled me all around while keeping various paces
You looked me in the eye and whispered a goodbye
Little did I know, you were gambling with my life
A tango for two
For me and for you
We twist our limbs in slight
And try to reunite
We grow further apart
And wring and gnarl our hearts
And I tango with you
It took me by surprise when you hissed and spouted lies
To cover up your insufficiencies and realised
That you could make me dance in any way you pleased
And you wouldn’t be satisfied till you had me on my knees
A tango for two
For me and for you
We twist our limbs in slight
And try to reunite
We grow further apart
And wring and gnarl our hearts
And I tango with you
A tango with the devil can be very temperamental
Its nuances are varied and it beats upon your temple
Many conundrums of a fashion you can’t bear to ponder on
Philosophical conclusions seem to be the only way
To relieve me of some tension
I can’t bear the apprehension
Of retention of this mentioned
Quite delusional portension
I’ve tangoed with the devil and now I have to burn
I was forced to and was made to but now it is my turn
To take things into my own hands
And ruin his plans
Cos I tangoed with the devil
And I fucking made him sweat
Cos I tangoed with the devil
And I made him regret
A tango for two
For me and for you
We twist our limbs in slight
And try to reunite
We grow further apart
And wring and gnarl our hearts
And I tango with you
I tango with you
You don’t lead but I do
No one cares but I do
You don’t lead but I do.
The last couple of scherzando notes bounced about in the air, sniggering and scheming, dripping sarcastic wit. She was so proud of this song that she almost dared to wish she could see its lifespan in the world she was going to leave behind. The abrupt interrupted cadence ended the song, and it was met with silence.
***
“I’m sure you think that was rather clever,” Commissioner Gabriel hissed, his mind clearly elsewhere, trying to compute the damage control of her ultimate act of spite and rebellion.
“I wasn’t really going down without a fight, now was I?” She replied, seated at the back of the Commissioner’s limo driving to the drop off place, where the Wisp would collect his prize.
The Commissioner suddenly got angry. “Going down? Really Gemma, someone would think we were sending you to your death!” He bellowed, turning his full concentration onto Gemma.
“Well isn’t that what you’re practically doing? You’re selling me to some psychotic entity that kills people left right and centre! What do you expect that he’ll do to me? Dote on me till he gets bored? Then what?”
“You think we were going to let that happen? Even if we didn’t care about you, like you think we don’t, if word got out that we’d sent you to your death wouldn’t that be counter-productive? Besides for all we know, the Wisp is a registered citizen of the state, living in some mansion with a front door you can just walk out of when you feel like! Nobody knows how he works so it’s useless to assume it’s all doom and gloom!”
Gemma remained silent. Inside she was fuming. Her rights were being impinged on. Of that she was certain – and she was also certain that the Commissioner himself knew that it was so. But she couldn’t help but feel he was right to – part of his political charm no doubt – and that was even more infuriating. She was the one being wronged here. He had no right to make her feel this way. If she wanted to be dramatic she would damn well be dramatic!
Nothing else was said for the duration of the journey. The Commissioner had had the last word, to Gemma’s intense distaste, but she wouldn’t take the discussion any further. When they arrived, the Commissioner opened the door for her, in some form of gentlemanly conduct, and led her out of the car and into a warehouse of some sort. Symbols had been drawn on the floor: concentric circles with strange scripts and runes written into them, pentagrams, triangles, stars and various shapes adorned the length. Also a dead goat hung upside down from the ceiling, it’s gut throat dripping blood onto the centre of one of the pentagrams.
“Sir,” O’Mallory said, “it appears there was no use for the dead goat the last time.”
“That’s what the Wisp told you,” The Commissioner replied, “and I wouldn’t trust that trickster. I won’t take any chances.”
O’Mallory didn’t say anything else. He thought it was wiser not to mention the fact that even the circles were useless.
“Begin the Summoning, Council Member O’Mallory,” bellowed the High Commissioner, almost unable to contain his excitement. O’Mallory took a moment to compose himself, clearly taking the lead of what was about to happen. Gemma looked on in fascination.
“Black Wisp! Black Wisp! Black Wisp!” O’Mallory chanted, each utterance more dramatic than the other.
And then he was there. Emerald green eyes, skin as pale as a Japanese princess, jet black skin and all round utter perfection in his facial features. His perfectly fleshy lips parted slightly to let a humourless voice manifest itself in words.
“Must you insist with the dead goat?"
-------------------
Interlude the First
Conversations with the Author 1.
It occurred to the Black Wisp that for the first time, he didn’t know where he was. The sensation, though absent in any metaphorical or emotional sense, was strange. It felt like a sort of brushing sensation, as if he were touching a cold, stone wall with his hands mingled with the sensation of void: things that he could usually comprehend well but in this case there was a nothingness where there was usually information and calculation. This sense of nothingness was new. He had never brushed with his limitations before.
But to some sense, he always guessed, presumed and supposed he had limitations. It was illogical if he didn’t: there is no such thing as that without limitless. But, ontologically speaking, the fact that the limitless could be linguistically thought of gave him several doubts. The feeling of doubt was also strange to him but doubts did fill part of the void at those times, so the sensation of complete void was never there.
Presumably, the Wisp knew all this. And yet he didn’t. It was a strange paradox: it outlined the difference between thinking and experiencing, to some extent. Previously, the Wisp had no need to think about these things, having never experienced them, but due to his nature they were inherently there only never accessed. Now that the experience became accessible so did its knowledge. However, the situation being as precarious as it was, the knowledge was not complete. The knowledge that the Wisp was not omniscient, nor omnipotent was somewhat obvious to the Wisp himself but only now had those facts been consolidated.
Thus were the Wisp’s thoughts, as presented to you herein. Things are in motion.
“Who’s there?” the Wisp shouted. Around him there was black. Everywhere, as if he was contained in a room that had been painted with the thickest, darkest black on all four sides. Except it didn’t make any sense. There was no light source, and yet he could see himself within the blackness and rather clearly at that. Of course, the Wisp could be his own light source had he wanted so, but that ability of his was not being accessed at the time. Things here did not make any sense.
Suddenly, there was a boy in front of him, sitting on a chair, his knees up by his chin. He was a slight boy, with big green eyes, light brown hair cropped at the side and left longer at the top, slicked back clumsily without any wax or grease holding it in place. He was rather skinny and pale, and his face no particularly pleasing sight to behold: spots strewn across his face, a slight mouth and a crooked nose.
But enough about me.
“Who are you?” The Wisp asked, realising that he had never had to ask that question before and mean it.
“I am the Author,” I replied.
The Wisp was not stupid. He didn’t need further explanation. Obviously this is so because I say so. I am the author and so anything I say is law. At least within this text. The only limitation I have is sensibility. And this is particularly sensible.
“So…” the Wisp began, asking the question he wanted to ask in just that single word. That and the fact that I knew what I would get him to say anyway.
“Yes,” I replied. “Yes.”
But perhaps I should elaborate. My reasons are my own.
What the Wisp really wanted to ask is.
“So you wrote me?”
And I replied, “Yes.” As you well know.
The conversation will go/went/is going to go as follows, in dialectic.
-So I’m a figment of your imagination?
- I suppose so. But enough of your questions. I’m pretty sure you’ll work things out eventually, and besides we’ll be meeting again quite a few times. Every two chapters or so. I haven’t really decided yet. What I really want to do is ask you questions Wisp. And hence we shall begin. Why did you bring down that plane?
- What do you care? Aren’t you supposed to know already?
- Oh I do. But they don’t.
- There’s no one else here.
- For now. But people will be coming. And they’ll be curious. So answer me.
- I’m assuming everything I say is your doing so I will eventually.
- Yes.
- I brought down that plane because I wanted to.
- Why? Could you not have spared everyone in that plane and simply eliminated the Donovan family?
- I could have. But I didn’t.
- Why?
- The lives of the rest are inconsequential to me. I can and so I did. I suppose their time had come.
- And you knew this?
- Then perhaps not. But now I do. Natural disasters happen all the time.
- So you’re saying you’re like an earthquake? Happens for no reason other than the fact that conditions happen to be right.
- I suppose that’s one way of putting it.
- Ambiguous.
- You made me this way.
- Of course. You’re supposedly a higher entity than I am, since I’m human, but having created you, you are still limited to being portrayed through the filter of human reasoning.
- So basically, you’re not a very good author, are you?
- That remains to be seen. I might get away with it yet.
- Whatever that is supposed to mean.
- I’m prepared to offer you a deal, Wisp. Out of perhaps morbid curiosity I wish to bring you up to my level and give you a dimension no other literary character is known to possess. I have concluded that the best way to do so is to pass over control of you to what is also in control of me: fate. I will roll dice to decide your actions. Hereafter, everything that happens is no longer my doing – it is Fate’s. Do you agree?
- I don’t really have a choice do I?
- Smart. For now no.
- Then I guess I’m answering yes.
- Good man.
Gender:
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