Hallways

Who’s that now? beauty lies in the doorway. Murdered? slumped in the passageway, I fear to ask. Cold and mute, time and place transcended – she is still and peaceful at rest. Who has done this? If convicts and felons were about, I would better understand. Corruptible minds and broken spirits come near. She is master, I am slave. The minstrel should sing - songs of glory and loss and remeberance.  Where is the cenotaph, who lays the wreath that commemorates the loss?  He is too late; the deed is done. Old men stare at her ruins; old women grin at her demise. They have done this. Conspirators circle in the gloom - contemptuous eyes and nimble fingers steal the fragments of dignity. Even in death she is magnificent. The curious and the victorious living wait in silence.

Only scratches and footprints mark the spot where she lay. Alone in the hallway - she is gone. Trespassers and spectators have moved on. No headstone will mark where she lies. Passed - the world grows poorer. But the reckoning is not yet completed, losses not yet tallied and accounts remain unclaimed. Whose loss? she is gone and the absence is ours.

I sit in the gathering darkness. Vermin, blackness, and dust erase the last traces of beauty. Time has won and we are the unfortunate witness to her demise. Knees to chest, I crouch in the corridor and wait for release. Staring blankly at the spot where she lay, I cry softly and mouth the words of the song. Tears drop to the dust at my feet. Outside, the sounds of the city slowly permeate the solitude. I can hear the children playing in the park nearby. Giddy and fresh, they do not know yet that beauty is gone.