Sonate voor de pianist

The chamber of the heart is empty and dark.
Not the kind of pitchblack darkness one fears. More like the dark that veils your eyes when you come inside, after lying in the garden in the sun all afternoon.
Not the kind of painfull emptiness of a broken home left unrepaired. More like the silent emptiness of a desert, that can burst to life in a few hours when the long awaited rain comes. The kind of gentle emptiness of a room, when the sound of aproaching footsteps echoes through the hall.

In the middle of the heart, in this anticipating emptiness, in the gentle veiling darkness, stands an old piano. Its strings brittle, its wooden keys so very old. They don't make them like that anymore. It is the last remaining treasure of a forgotten age. No one knows how it got there, in fact, very few people know that it is there at all.

An unseen pianist feels his way through the arteries. He sits down on the weathered antique wooden bench, his fingers exploringly caress the keys. Faded black and greyish white, but all the same in the dark. With a sigh he pours the music from his fingers into life. The body resonates. Forte, pianissimo, andante, allegro... A smile unfolds, unexpected tears, a glow of happiness, the sudden pain of forgotten desire.
Broken strings cannot be fixed. But the pianist plays around the missing ones. They form the beautiful tears, the meaningfull pain. It adds character to the music.

In de donkere kamer van mijn hart
Zit een virtuoos pianist aan een oude piano
Vanuit zijn vingers stroomt het leven
zoals het hoort, op het gevoel.
En als je nu eens heel goed luistert
hoor je misschien wat ik bedoel.

Noodlotsbestemming

Fantmories haunt her as she stands in the doorway, staring at the nightly garden. The moonlight rustles trough the leaves of the old cherry tree. What lies behind the garden fence? This question has been on every mind since the beginning of time (cfr. Adam and Eve). She wants to scream but smiles, and a tear rolls over her cheek (the left one), bittersweet (Apocalyptica). The starlight is deafening tonight. She goes in and quickly locks the door. But there is no escaping destiny. The vines of destiny creep through the mailbox and wind their way upstairs. Silver moonlight. Vines of destiny. Sleeping beauty. What lies behind the garden fence? Who stands outside the gate?

Inside my head, I can be anything.

Onweer

Een diepe schaduw verspreidt zich over de heuvels rond de toren.
De zonsondergang wordt afgeschermd, op een laatste rode gloed na, ver weg in het westen.
De wind huilt, eerst zacht snikkend, daarna schreeuwend, alles overstemmend.
Dan wordt het plots stil, stiller dan normaal, stiller dan nodig, stiller dan gewenst.
Elk levend wezen zit met verwijde pupillen vol angst te luisteren.
Een flits verlicht gedurende één schrikwekkende seconde het landschap.
Het noodlot barst los.

Vergeten, maar niet vergeven

In het oude, schimmelige tempelboek stond geen afbeelding. Enkel een naam, en wat achterhaalde prevelteksten:

"Wij groeten U,
Godin van Morgensterre
Wij smeken U,
O Edelste der Goden
Die de velden besprenkeld
Met tranen
Wij smeken U,
O Machtige Vrouwe
Wiens witte sluier
Over het land zweeft
Voor het ochtendgloren
Wij smeken U
Waak over ons
In dit koudste der uren."

Een gniffel ontsnapt aan de lippen van de vijf avonturiers. "Dit belooft makkelijk verdiend geld te worden." In honderden jaren kwam hier niemand meer. Het dak is sedert lang ingestort, maar het slot zat nog steeds op de zware houten deuren. Het altaar ziet er sinds lang verlaten uit. Een grote barst loopt over de linkerkant van het oppervlak. Druppels regen bespikkelen het grijze graniet. Achter het altaar vinden ze de zilveren Morgensterre. Ze galmen alweer de tempel door wanneer plots een vlaag van woede de deuren dichtslaat.

Daar staat ze, op de door regen en schaduw mossig geworden grijsgranieten treden voor het lang ongebruikte, gebarsten altaar. De ijzige noordenwind die als een omstuimige minnaar aan haar lange witte nachtkleed trekt. Regendruppels doen de resten van het ingestorte tempeldak, de vloer licht ermee bezaaid, glanzen in het toortslicht. Met gebogen hoofd staat zij, doorweekt, haar lange haren hangen in lange slierten, half voor haar gezicht. Breekbaar, eenzaam.

Een van de avonturiers, wiens gelaarsde voetstappen weergalmen tussen de oude tempelmuren, stapt naar voren, en spreekt met een buiging: "Zo, vrouwe, wij zijn hier gekomen op een queeste van uitzonderlijk belang. Een prominente koopman heeft ons gezonden. Kan u ons misschien..." Ze slaat haar ogen op. Kleur lijkt de rest van de ruimte te verlaten, enkel het groen van haar ogen blijft in kracht toenemen. "Eerst acht U zich waardig, Heer Huurling, mijn herinnering te wekken."
Tastbaargeworden woede streelt de hals van Heer Huurling. Het gedonder weerklinkt van wegrennende laarzen, zo een stuk of acht. Zijn spieren weigeren dienst. Breekbaar en eenzaam plots.
"Nu galmt u door mijn tempel, voor uw eigen verijking."
Hoe hij ook probeert zijn blik af te wenden, zijn ogen blijven gefixeerd op de felgroene oogopslag voor het altaar. Alle gevoel verlaat zijn onderbenen. Hij stort neder op zijn knieën.
"U acht zich waardig mij aan te spreken, Heer Huurling, mij toe te spreken zonder enige aanbidding. Zonder te knielen zelfs, tot zonet"
Een vraag doemt op in het hoofd van Heer Huurling, terwijl zijn bloed in de aderen stolt en hij met zijn gezicht op de trappen voor het altaar neervalt: Wat gebeurt er, met vergeten goden?
De Morgensterre rolt uit zijn uitgestrekte hand, tot op de natte vloer voor haar voeten.
Ze kijkt op. Haar aangezicht is beprenkeld met tranen, haar witte nachtkleed wappert als een sluier rond haar lichaam. Een lang grijs litteken op haar linkerwang.

You can't spell end without beginning

In the early mornings sun, the trees, the river and the streets are basking. The night still lingers in corners and alleys, while the day's warmth fills the world with rushing life. A butterfly awakes from its slumber in the grass, and opens its wings to let the sun dry the dewdrops. The wind chases through the new leafs of the trees, producing the noise of rustling fine silk robes. The sound of running, stealthily, through a distant garden gate, in rustling fine silk robes. In an age long past it was, this running to that gate. Even then this gate was ancient, green with moss, a creeper draped over, with little white flowers on spring mornings. The gate is set in a thick brick wall, that seems to rise all the way up to the clear mornings sky. In this enclosure of numbness, a girl sits staring. Underneath the apple blossoms, next to the first roses, in the finest silken robes, she sits on a chair, on the grass, in the sun.

Why doesn't she cry. This painted picture of a long forgotten age does not seem complete without her tears to break the mornings light. Unhappiness has left her, along with all other -nesses. Her suffering is like her pleasure. Soft as a feather, and therefore unable to produce neither tear nor heartbeat. She has been sitting in her gold-cage-garden since the earth was new. Is she just a girl? Maybe she is a nymph, an apsara, a goddess? Who is to say? It is intrinsic to life itself that every creature thinks itself special, different, chosen. Divinity is in our heads. And if we all think ourselves gods, who is there to claim otherwise. So to know whether she is a nymph, an apsara, or a goddess, we have to know which one of these she is in her thoughts. Can we know that? Can we know what the girl in the enclosed garden in long lost times thinks? Yes we can, for this is a story, and storytellers have special powers.

Once, before time, she was a nymph. She did see moons rise above the ocean, and golden fields in autumn. Her feet know the touch of grass, her lips have felt what it is like to smile, she has known that will and love make blood rush faster. That was, however, long ago. The world has now grown old. And sitting in the garden, she forgot. Once she was a nymph.
But now, on the chair, next to the rosebush, she is empty. That most human ability, intrinsic of life, has left her. No longer does the blood rush through her veins; it has become almost stagnant for loss of will to power it. In her head, she is just she. A vile condition indeed.

Why is she there? Is someone keeping her prisoner? Who could it be? Her evil father or stepmother perhaps? How closed is that old gate, at the back of the garden? Is it locked? Have the creepers entangled it securely through the ages? And how securely is securely? It doesn't matter now. She does not feel anymore. Nothing. Empty. Her blood, ever slowing from the beginning of times has almost stopped completely now. The sun is sinking, turning the garden into a red and golden palace hall, worthy of a nymph, an apsara or a goddess. She sees, but doesn't feel it. A creaking noise makes her hollow eyes turn.

Times end. They can’t go on forever. The world becomes old. It has to come to a close, for otherwise, it might loose the ability of beginning. In the last soft golden sunlight he watches the old earth, with love and resolve in his eyes. To the world, it is like the echoing footsteps of destiny, or like someone else once put it: drums, drums in the deep. Yet, there, just at the horizon, there is a flicker of silver in the antique golden evening. Something out of place. Something younger… Younger, because it has not lived at the usual pace. Deep underneath the surface, underneath layers of ashes and dust life energy and life fantasy are stored, unused and forgotten. Drums, drums in the deep, which now only he can hear.

The God of the End, radiantly beautiful, strong and young, stands in the garden, at the gates. He calls her by the name she had forgotten. She stands, for the first time in eras, and goes to him, her robes, finest silk of course; rustle through the grass. With the fires in his eyes, he rekindles hers. “O beauty from the olden days, you shine like the millions of stars that have burned out since last I came ‘round here. Do you not know, the world and times, they are ending?”

Life, the long caged creature, creeps uncertain to the gates of its enclosure. Open. Open your wings, o life, my love, and fly. So returns, first the memory of wind beneath wings, then the blush to her cheeks, the divine to her thoughts, the tears to her eyes.
"If all things are to end, if this indeed is the end of times, O wondrous maiden, star-eyed nymph, wilst thou walk with me along the borders of old forests and on the banks of rivers that bear the echoes of past ages, so that the end has some beginning in it too?"

In the early mornings sun, the trees, the river and the streets are basking. The night still lingers in corners and alleys, while the day's warmth fills the world with rushing life. A butterfly awakes from its slumber in the grass, and opens its wings to let the sun dry the dewdrops. The wind chases through the new leafs of the trees.
Quote the raven: "Evermore."