Page 4 of A Dance Macabre

It’s a powerful experience to gaze at one’s divinity.

I study my reflection: Jaw clenched under a short trimmed beard, brown hair slicked back aside from a few strands falling onto my forehead due to the erratic movements of my arm.

I stare and play and stare and play and stare and play …

Until I begin to experience it.

That vague and uncanny feeling.

It’s a heady but peculiar thing, and it happens when I gaze into a mirror for too long.

It starts staring back.

Reality bleeds into the imaginary, and I’m left wondering who is real. My reflection begins to feel like something wholly apart from myself.

Maybe I’m the one stuck inside a mirror.

And maybe, just maybe, I’m the mirrored rendering of this other Wolfgang.

The ego falters. It questions.

But then I close my eyes. And the heart beating wildly inside my chest, the lungs supplying sweet oxygen to my blood, they remind me who I am.

What I’mworth.And what my birthright as a Vainglory entails.

Then I begin to lose myself in the music all over again.

The restlessness turns into something a lot closer tolife, the notes seeping into my skin, and charging me, enlivening me as my mind races alongside the melody.

There’s no greater feeling than privately communing between me and the Self.

I let the last note stretch and whine, much longer than the song asks for.

Then it’s over. I drop my arm and the silence returns.

All is quiet.

I take a deep breath and give a small bow, my reflection mirroring me.

I take another long moment to study myself.

It’s intoxicating. Mesmerizing.

Then I return the violin to its case and place it back inside the bench, leaving the Hall of Mirrors with a renewed sense of tranquility.

3

MERCY

My heeled boots echo through the alley, grit crunching under my soles as I turn onto the main avenue heading toward Manor, a high-end strip club located inside an old turn-of-the-century building. Pravitia is a blur of noise and lights this evening, bursting with the never-ending humdrum oflife. I clench my jaw, shoving a pedestrian out of my way. Even with people dying every day, this world is still dreadfully overpopulated.

As I get closer, I see the line wraps around the corner. A crowd of unlucky commoners who've been refused entry congregate on the sidewalk near the entrance just for a glimpse of something special.

Like a glimpse at one of the heirs from the six ruling families.

The paparazzis’ cameras are aimed my way, my jaded glare clearly not a deterrent for these vultures as their flashing lights make me wince. My dagger beckons me from beneath my black mini skirt, throbbing against my thigh as if sentient, reminding me I could kill any of these loafers in a heartbeat.

Naturally skipping the line, eager heads turn when I walk up to the bouncer as he quickly ushers me in. Shrugging off myleather overcoat, I fling it to an attendant, readjusting my bustier as I walk down the dark corridor, a cold stare permanently etched on my face.

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