C A R O L Y N N E   W I L C O X
  • Home
  • Writing
    • CaroBlog
    • PR Writing >
      • Blog Articles
      • Press Releases
    • Playwriting
    • Creative Writing
  • Theatre
    • Multidisciplinary Production
    • Headshots/Stills
  • Visual Design/Art
    • Visual Design >
      • POSTERS & POSTCARDS
      • LOGOS
      • MAGAZINE & NEWSPAPER ADS
      • BUSINESS CARDS
      • PROGRAMS
    • Visual Art >
      • Photography
      • Collage
      • Divination Cards
  • Coaching
  • Resumes
    • Multidisciplinary Resume
    • Performance Resume
    • Playwriting Resume
    • Marketing & Graphic Design Resume
    • Curriculum Vita
  • Contact

Queen of Knives

5/22/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture

Queen of Knives


 
Mother has been weeping for three days. Each time I go outside to
pick blackberries for supper, or even to take a dip in the pond, she looks at me as though she’s seeing me for the last time. She thinks I don’t notice – just tells me not to catch cold – but I see her wiping her eyes. I hear her at night. She always turns her back.

Mother, why are you crying?

I’m not crying my love, I have something in my eye. Allergies.
(laughs, brushing it off)

(shivering)It’s cold in here. Why is it so cold?

Autumn must be coming.

What is Autumn? 

(sighs deeply) You don’t remember, do you?

Remember what?

It is like this every time. Always like it was the first time.


The first time?

You’re going back to your husband, my love.

Husband? I don’t have…


But then something stops me, because I remember…something…someone. I remember being afraid and I remember dark kisses and promises…I remember dead people and six pomegranate seeds laid out carefully
before me. I remember a choice…

She turns around to look at me and in her eyes I can see the memories that flood back are not simply dreams but the truth.

Your duties my dear. As a queen.

Queen? But I’m just…


More memories…darkness. It’s dark there, but not without its majesty. Rooms…caverns? Tunnels, and…ghosts. Parades and parades of ghosts, and I, next to my dark paramour on my throne…

He wants me back, doesn’t he?

He always does. As I’ve said, you and I, we have our duties.
 
We…?

You have your throne.

And you?

Autumn. Go dress yourself in something warm. The messenger will
be here soon.


___

It’s only while I’m in transit that I remember everything, and the memories build. When I reach either destination, I have no memory of the other place. I get there and it’s like I’ve never left…and my memories of the other place become cloudy and disappear and my time int hat place is untainted…until I’m travelling again and everything comes flooding back, is put into context.


Every six months, I do this. Follow the messenger up, or follow the messenger down. I am a rope, a sinewy, knotted rope, growing frayed with age as millennia pass. A rope in an ancient tug-of-war between stubborn and unyielding siblings. My mother. My husband. Six months here; six months there.
Neither of them has every asked me what I prefer.

___

He’s formidable, my husband, and the air perceptibly changes as I spiral closer and closer to where he is. Each time I see him, it’s like the first time, and he takes my breath away – why anyone would ever want to be blond and hale when dark and gaunt has such a profound sway – 

My husband.

My love
. (breathing)

And my life up there starts to disappear again. There’s something so intoxicating and present about being here, being with him that it makes everything up there seem like a dream as I deal with the ever-present reality of the state of things here: The truth of the matter is, the dead pester me with their attentions. As though I could do something for them.

Queen! They call me, as they prostrate themselves at my feet. Mistress!

And it all comes flooding back to me, all the many names they have called me for millennia and my little life with my mother in our cottage by the pond is laughable, trivial and so very innocent!

Mistress of the Damned! Snow Queen. Spirit of Winter. Lady Ice. I slip my mantle on and the ice, like a thousand tiny knives settles back inside me as I hold court for the legions of ghosts who are my subjects with my dark lord by my side…and the tug-of-war begins again.

***


0 Comments

    CaroBlog

    Day to day thoughts, rants and mental detritus.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    April 2020
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    January 2015
    June 2014
    May 2014
    February 2014
    October 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    April 2012
    February 2012
    May 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Addiction
    Archetypes
    Art
    Blockage
    Comedy
    Creativity
    Damnation
    Demeter
    Demons
    Depression
    Difficult People
    Eating
    Existentialism
    Failure
    Family
    Food
    Getting Fired
    Ghost Stories
    God
    Hades
    Hazmat Suit
    Horror
    Identity
    Marriage
    Media
    Mythology
    Name Changes
    Nature
    Nourishment
    Persephone
    Playwrights
    Poetry
    Ptsd
    Recovery
    Seasons
    Self Sabotage
    Self-sabotage
    Stage Kiss
    Success
    Suicide
    Supernatural
    Theatre
    Unemployment
    Universal
    Victory
    Wall Street

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.