Page 7 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
“How were you ever a counselor?” Yelina turns her head sharply, but I don’t miss the hurt that lingers on the edge of her voice. I think she’s been interested in Jericho for quite some time now. But how is a dumbass like him supposed to know if she won’t say anything? Jericho seems confused at the ire in her tone and sets his hand gently on her arm. She stiffens and shoots him a warning look.
I raise a brow at their interaction but decide it’s not my place to comment.
“Yeah, let’s split up. I’ll check backstage,” I say and start walking toward the loud, distant music.
The hallways are dark, drowned in long black curtains that hang from at least thirty feet high. The ebony floorboards feel light, like particle wood. I suppose most stages are like this though, in order to quickly change them out if needed for certain plays or sets.
I search through the entire backstage, looking in every conceivable spot I can think of before giving up. It’s been far longer than twenty minutes, so I’m not surprised when the others aren’t in the rehearsal room waiting for me.
Shit, I wonder if they already left and returned to Harlow.
There’s no sense in rushing; it’s not like I haven’t the time to spare. I decide to walk leisurely across the river viaduct near the theater house. This city is quite beautiful, and if there’s one thing I truly enjoy about being dead, it’s becoming lost within my own thoughts and coming to admire the simple things about the world.
The viaduct is a very tall and architecturally brilliant bridge. A series of arches structure the pillars holding it, creating an alluring look. Lights have been installed along peaks of the arches, illuminating the water far below, while vintage streetlamps light the world above. Wooden benches are laid out every hundred feet or so, with ornate bushes surrounding them.
I take a deep breath and pretend like I’m not a ghost, stopping at the bench in the center of the bridge, this one surrounded by rose bushes, and standing on top of it to get to the higher cement wall. Up here, the universe is silent. It’s cold and filled with many stars that no longer speak to me.
My eyes linger on the flickering stars before I look down at the dark water far below.
I find it cruelly ironic. How many times have I stood on a bridge similar to this one? How many times have I wanted to die just to feel numb to the callous world? I wonder, should I jumpnow, if I’d be able to pass on? I’m already dead, so there isn’t really anything at risk.
My foot edges the corner of the cement and adrenaline surges through me. The weary heart inside my chest patters with the dare of it. I shut my eyes and tilt my head back, debating my sanity, considering if it matters.
“You are certainly a curious man, aren’t you?”
My eyes flash open, and I look beside me, finding none other than the lovely phantom, Ophelia.
Her purple hair is calmer now that she isn’t a whirling dancing goddess. It lies in loose curls behind her, stretching down to her mid back. The breeze slightly shifts her hair over her face and I’m mesmerized all over again. By the hollows of her cheekbones and eye sockets, by the morbidity of her lithe fingers as they delicately caress the rose in her hands. Long black lashes droop heavily as she smells the flower.
I don’t utter a word.
There isn’t a manner in which I see how I possibly could. To disturb such perfection and raw beauty. She is a wilted rose herself.
Wynn spoke so much of flowers being beautiful in death; I think I finally found that depressing sentiment after searching for five long years.
4
Ophelia
Life isa circus of betrayal and dread.
Nothing good stays and nothing bad ever really goes.
Death is nothing more than a somber replay of it all. An ode to the closing of that very last chapter you perhaps never did get to finish. Is there anything quite as sad as that? A story left unfinished.
Of course, I’m a bitter person.
Ophelia is a nasty woman—a fine excuse of wasted beauty on a rotted soul.
You know what? Everyone can, quite literally, eat shit.
I’m dead. Say what you want, it’s not like you didn’t when I still breathed air.
I stopped caring about what others thought about me a long time ago. Perhaps that’s why I’m stuck here; maybe my bitterness is what allows me to haunt this world.
But something odd happened tonight. A light flickered in the darkness that surrounded me on that stage.
Something different in the last decade of my time spent wandering.
