Erik (i_haunt) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2015-05-30 00:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | erik, magdelene defoe, zz:status complete |
Consolation (Magdelene)
It had been weeks since the debut and finale of his paean for Christine, as performed by Hannibal Lecter. It had been weeks since the farewell of his friend. Erik had tried often to return to his manor, but it had been at turns too loud and too silent for him to endure.
But again and again, he found himself rising from the cellar depths, in something like shame or embarrassment, remembering that Hannibal Lecter had fought to keep Erik in the world - not apart from it. He felt as if he were shaming his only friend's memory. He felt as if he were dishonoring the efforts that the exemplary young man had extended. And so, when he could endure the shame no more, he finally returned for good to his manor on the edge of the City, behind its metal fences and cold stone walls and vibrant gardens that no wife now tended.
He found the only way to endure the ghosts in the manor was through the mocking relief of a bottle. He was deep into a bottle of gin by the time the moonlight slanted through the shades of his upstairs library. Erik half-turned toward the window, and only then recognized that he'd been sitting in the dark for nearly three hours. His night vision had always been exceptional - a freak trait of nature that had saved his life more than once or twice.
Swallowing directly from the crystal bottle in his hand, he shut his eyes and tried to find some semblance of peace in the silence of this place. There should have been his wife's laughter. There should have been the faint rustle of his friend's suit coat as the young man read over one of Erik's arrangements. Instead there was --
Nothing.
Nothing.