As I walked down the city square towards my destination, I admired the blending colors of the setting sun. The sky seemed as if the good Lord had taken a paintbrush in the most vibrant of reds and purples and painted the most breathtaking view, as if to pronounce the beauty this world had to offer. I felt as if I was a character within a Shakespearean play, for today’s events could only be true in imagination. For you see, my destination is La Belle Époque, the highest-class dining establishment within this town, where I will be dining with the most beautiful woman in this town, Maryia.
As soon as I stepped into La Belle Époque, I had no need to glance around for Maryia, for her very presence seemed like a void, drawing all eyes to her, and commanding the attention of the room. Her dark chestnut brown hair fell around her face in a luscious cascade, catching the light in a dance of autumn. As her brilliantly vibrant sapphire eyes first met mine, I felt my soul and heart shudder, as if struck by lightning from their intensity. Oh, for how I was captivated! Her red lips, mirroring the richness of the ripest apple you can imagine, curved into a smile, seeming to whisper sweet nothings in my ear from across the room. I was enthralled while I walked towards our table, the world around me seeming insignificant and small compared to her visage.
As the evening unfolded in a hazy blur, the dinner seemed bland and tasteless in comparison to the flavorful symphony from her presence. Amid our conversation, Maryia revealed that she had just recently moved to town, remarking on how her home felt empty and cavernous for only one person. With a mischievous smirk, she extends me an invitation, seemingly with the hope to fill the spacious new home with intimate memories. As my heart beat a thunderous tempo within my ears, I eagerly accepted her invitation, in hopes that this night would never end.
The night passed us in a blissful rapture as our bodies intertwined together. After an unknown amount of time, I laid in her bed in a state of exhaustion. As I began to doze off, I turned over and witnessed Maryia ponderously staring out the window towards the night sky, the illumination of the moon-lit glow cast a soft halo of light around her face, creating an angelic profile. Before I fully succumbed to slumber, Maryia cast her gaze in my direction. Her sapphire blue eyes, once charged with playful electricity, had transformed into the fragile ice on a winter lake. Her face took on a contemplative look as she asked if I ever gaze out the window at night and drink in the stars. In my sleep-induced delirium, I mumbled an incoherent reply, drifting off into slumber with the lingering thought that I would want these moments to last forever.
For what was such an exhilarating evening, my sleep was plagued with traitorous dreams where Maryia would leave me. The image of her cherishing the beauty of the night sky, became a haunting longing. The smile that whispered the promise of happiness, began to echo with the sense of departure. In my dreams I began shouting, “Oh, Maryia! Please don’t go!”, and as her illusory silhouette began to fade, a sense of despair propelled me forward, and I wrapped her in my embrace in a futile attempt to prevent her departure. When her visage disappeared, I awoke in a frantic sweat. I desperately cast my gaze around looking for Maryia, to thankfully find her sleeping blissfully next to me. My nightmares faded swiftly, as I smiled at Maryia cozily sleeping underneath the covers, and quickly fell back into a peaceful sleep.
The next couple of days that passed flew by in a captivating flash as we engaged in various activities. Maryia and I would wake up in joyous exuberance, dancing our way to the kitchen, where I would make a simple breakfast that tasted all the better in the warmth of her presence. We’d then pick up a book to read from her personal library or just bask and lounge in each other’s presence. At the end of each day, while Maryia gazed outside the window, fixating on the stars, her face serene and happy, I’d recollect the memories of the day, smiling in bliss, knowing these moments could truly never end.
On the third day, the burgeoning morning ritual was interrupted as there were not enough ingredients in the pantry for breakfast. So, with a prompt declaration, I told Maryia to fear not! For I will be expeditious in my return to not sully our day and to view my return at her favorite window. As I walked outside, the sky seemed to take on a sense of foreboding. The rolling black clouds seemed to be holding back the very wrath of God. With a new sense of urgency, I intended to hasten my journey to make it back to sweet Maryia’s embrace.
While I was heading towards the town market for our morning breakfast, I was unaware of the congregation of the town folk.
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The townsfolk had been complaining about a rancid smell emanating from Myria’s house. The smell had become so unbearable, the unsuspecting townsfolk walking by were forced to avoid the shallow road next to her house. Fed up with the smell, the nearby town guard was informed. As the guard walked towards the home, a shift in the chilly breeze brought with it the scent of decay and death. As the guard was struck by that pungent odor, a sense of dreaded anticipation began to build. Each step the guard progressed; the fouled air began to swell until it was nearly suffocating. With little hesitation, the town guard entered the home, upon entry, a silent shudder struck the guard as he took in the home’s cavernous depths, seeming to echo the eerily silence that pervaded the area. Seeing no issue on the first floor of the home, the guard began to ascend the stairs and enter the master bedroom. Pushing open the door, the guard was greeted by a haunting sight - Maryia, lifelessly leaning on the window, casting an eternal, longing gaze towards the sky. The guard, disgusted at what he saw, quickly fled Maryia’s house to locate other nearby guards and survey the area.
While the guards were investigating the area around the house, rumors of the murder began to quickly spread around town like wildfire. The townsfolk, impatient with the guard’s diligence, began to converge into a riotous mob to seek out instant justice and purge the hidden murderer within them.
As I began to return from my shopping endeavor, ignorant of the rising troubles, I started to hear distant shouting heading my way. Nervous about what may have caused such a motion, I began to look for a different route back to Maryia’s place, but before I progressed down the other direction, I witnessed a violent mass turn down my road. I was struck still, as if I was a deer who happened across a hunter in the woods, as the broiling mob closed the distance. As I pressed into the shadows, minimizing my profile in an attempt to be passed by, one of the individuals within caught my eye. I stared in confusion as the man’s eyes lit up in fiery recognition, his face contorting in a demonic visage, as if the Devil had come to take my soul. “It’s him! It’s him!”, the man began to shout, vitriol, and hate dribbling like spittle from his lips. “I remember him eating dinner with that girl at La Belle Époque three nights ago! It must be him!”
Confused, I began to question the man, but my words were drowned out by the roar of the crowd. The crowd began to assail me, I screamed in terror, in confusion and despair. I had no clue why the mob was after me! I attempted to shout above the crowd, “I had dinner with Maryia! The beautiful woman with brown hair, the love of my life! What girl are you talking about, sir?”
“Yes!” the man shouted, “See, he even admits it! He must have killed her, he must have!”
The words of that man sent an icy chill, covering my body, and causing me to go numb with shock. My objections died in my throat, as I slowly processed the news. So deep was I in shock, the world became a passing blur, hidden in the background of my despair. When I finally came too, I realized that I was tightly bound with rope, and the mob, lost in their lust for vigilante justice, was raising me on a stake within the town square. I frantically glanced around, shouting for help, as the attempts of the guards – to quell the situation – were shut down by the mob.
Once I was raised to the top of the stake, the riotous townsfolk began to pile copious amounts of wood, near the base of the stake chanting the skin-chilling phrase “Burn him! Burn him!”
With one last hopeless glance around, I noticed Maryia’s house, her favorite window faced in my direction. I see her silhouette, with the same mischievous smirk I fell in love with, staring at me from the window.
As I begin to shout and inform the mob that she’s alive and at the window, the words die in the back of my throat, as I notice the dullness of her eyes and the stillness of her body, what seems to be a caricature, making a mockery of the woman I love. As the finality and truth of her death settled in the numbing core of my body, it is then, that the chilling revelation strikes me like a bolt of lightning. The shock of realizing her death, causes a flood of memories to come rushing back, the hallucinatory illusion shattered. What were nightmares on that first night, was a delirious rage, instead of the desperate embrace in my dreams, I physically strangled my sweet Maryia. The envisioning of her form disappearing in my nightmares, was her drawing her last breath.
The veil of delusion had parted, flooding me with memories that continued to batter my soul. My body shuddering, I recollected dancing with her body throughout the house every morning, each step a reminder of the delusional joy I had. As we laid in bed, my memories of her warm, embracing body were replaced by the weight of her cold, lifeless form.
At some point during my haunting revelation, the pyre had been struck by fire and was alight. The flames, taunting their hellish promise, continued to creep towards me, I suffered in defeated silence. My soul, my life, my love had been taken from me, by my own hands. I realized on that pyre, that my soul was dead. My body soon to follow. As the fiendish flames, cackling in their glee for hunger, began to engulf my empty husk of a body, I cast one last look towards the muse of my madness, I gaze with a sense of longing and sorrow, for what should have been. As the last vestige of air leaves my lungs, it takes with it two final words.
“Oh, Maryia.”