Gerald Avery (tenebrisme) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-03-17 22:18:00 |
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Vernice Cattermole looked like a limp bird, slouching her way through "Cathleen ni Houlihan" with none of the mystery or the vigour inherent in this most sacred Irish symbol. The theatre in which she performed was small, shabby, half-empty. A theatre of forgotten grandeur and unrealised ideals. A perfect place for an actress past her prime. A perfect mark to teach a Phoenix that there would be no ash from which to rise. And the teacher sat in the front row, program in hand, attention rapt upon the tired old Cathleen. "Perhaps it was the beauty of Yeats' diction, the majesty of Lady Gregory's own spirit which visited me tonight from the stage," she trilled at her supper companion, cheeks flushed with the ghost of beauty which hard and lean years had robbed from her. A profession which required her to be younger, to be thinner, a mere glass for the aesthetic vacuity of the age. But with attention? She sparkled. She was unique. Beautiful. The dinner companion smiled over his glass of Rioja, nostrils flaring with the dusty scent of vanilla. He took a thoughtful sip and sat back, taking time to gather her full measure. When at last he spoke, it was brief -- "I have a part for you, my very dear Ms Cattermole. A part that I daresay you were born to play. The question is, are you willing?" Gerald Avery then leaned forward, lips parting with bared deeth. "Or will I have to force you?" The revelry of Saint Patrick's Day surged on into the night and ever drunk, the crowds purposed to be drunker still. As if the terror they existed under would become less real by drinking it away. It was certainly well into the night that Ms. Cattermole debuted her new role and though throngs of people milled around, it took several moments for anyone to stop and look. But at last, a scream rent the night sky. A young woman pointed. Screamed again. With one aesthetically pleasing dribble of blood lacing from her mouth, down the column of her throat, the body which was once Vernice Cattermole sat at the base of a statue of James Joyce. Protruding from her chest there was a long, coiled iron spike holding a parchment in place. In delicate, precise script it read: For Dedalus Diggle |