Work Text:
There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
The words on the page were familiar, achingly so. How many times had he read them over the many years? How many times had he recited them, without even needing to look at a page, etched into his mind and heart as they had become? This poem was a favorite of his, something he always carried with him, but looking at it now…
He recognized it. Of course he did. But the words and the cadence didn’t resonate in the way that they should have. He read the lines, over and over and over again, expecting to feel the same sense of warm melancholy and gentle yearning that he always did with this poem, but there was just nothing.
Just emptiness.
The same emptiness that he always felt, these days.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
How long had it been since he had even opened one of these books? There was once a time where he spent hours each day absorbed in the pages of literature and poetry he had been allowed to pull from the castle’s library. Though his collection was small, far smaller than he would have liked it to be, both in size and breadth of contents, it was still precious. Every page and story and spun phrase was an indispensable gift, a way to connect, a reminder of what else could be.
An escape. A memorial of better days.
When had that stopped? When did others’ words cease being a source of comfort? When did his bookshelf start gathering dust?
He couldn’t remember. There was a lot he couldn’t remember these days. Like the warmth of the sun, or the sight of his own reflection, or the sound of Altair’s laugh. Gone, ephemeral as the morning frost, leaving…
What? What was left?
Just a shell, perhaps. Words with no meaning. Ideas with no emotion. A body with no soul. An echoing refrain, once powerful and substantial, now too indistinct to have any impact at all.
None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
He stared at the words on the page in front of him and felt nothing. He was nothing. Might not have ever been anything at all; maybe he had only ever been fooling himself, thinking he was worth something beyond this almost-existence. Shouldn’t have even tried to be or feel or do anything at all.
Didn’t even have a name worth calling. The only person out there who still knew him was…
(The warmth in his mind pulsed, but he was too cold to feel it.)
And even those thoughts, that realization which should have sparked despair or alarm or horror, made him feel nothing at all. Nothing beyond a hollowness and a vague sense of grief.
He closed the book of poetry. There was no point in trying to reclaim these old solaces. There just wasn’t enough left.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.