Two-Faced by: Alexandra Williams, Silver Gelatin Print, 2019
Repeat
The low hum of a passing pendulum vibrated the air. I sat there in the field; my gaze fixated at the large brass disc. As it swayed past me again, a wave of wind pushed against me. I could feel the weight in my eyes from staring for so long at this large contraption. The arm stretched up past the clouds, almost endless in its existence. Yet here it was, dancing its repetitive movement.
Another low tune in the air, another force of wind.
Repetitive…
The word reverberated in my hazed mind, a word I’m too familiar with. As the haze lifted, my thoughts began to stir. How had I gotten here? How did someone like me survive this long? I will never understand—
My questions were halted as a sudden and intense pain shot through my head. My vision darkened and iron began to coat my tongue. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I found myself standing up.
The pendulum passed once again, pushing another wave of wind. As the breeze faded, I felt something wet touch my toes. Looking down, a body was laid out in front of me. The corpse was female and the clothes were eerily familiar. Her brown hair began to fade into an ashen white, exposing a crimson red pool pouring from the back of her skull. I walked around her to see her face. Her skin was ink black and her eyes were empty. No iris, no pupil, just white balls in her eye sockets.
Her lips began to curve into a malicious smile as gravity pulled me down.
The world around me began to shatter. Millions of glass shards filled the space as I dropped down into a dark void. For a while, it seemed like it was never-ending. The glass fragments were my only companions; the body was nowhere to be seen. The fragments shimmered like stars in the infinite darkness. They would flash images from my past, memories I didn’t want to remember. Memories of shame, guilt, humility, and pain. As I looked away from the recollections, a brilliant white helix hurtled toward me from below. I felt something pierce my gut.
Crack.
I found myself standing. Looking around, I was still in the void but now I stood on marble stairs. The stairs seemed to go beyond my eyes’ view; they twisted high into the darkness and spiraled down in its depths. On the steps in front of me was another corpse. I bent down and felt inclined to see her face. Her bones began to creak, sending a rush of chills up my back as I turned her over. Her appearance was identical to the other body. White hair, inked skin, empty eyes, and her face similar to mine. Her once white shirt was stained in blood that was oozing from a large gap in her abdomen.
The body twitched as a hushed chuckle escaped her mouth. Her lips began to curve wide, exposing sharp teeth.
“This is all your fault.”
Clash!
A giant shard of glass sliced through her. I jumped up, startled by the sudden appearance of this massive transparent blade. Smaller shards began to collide with my head. I needed to move.
I dashed down the stairs, hearing glass breaking and marble cracking behind me. As I delved deeper and deeper in the dark, I could hear whispers, repeating her words. Over and over, step after step, the whispers grew louder in my head. I made it to the last step but was halted by another large shard of glass crashing into the floor.
No, this wasn’t glass anymore.
It had a glass-like texture, but what stood before me were giant letters, jammed downwards into the ground. The whispers repeated the word in my ears.
Useless.
I ran past it and kept running. Crashes of new words slammed into the ground. The whispers repeated all the words to me, like the cries of hundreds of birds. They turned into noise, speaking new insults and threats, each with all too familiar words in an all too familiar environment. The noises began to shout their dark demands; my mind turned it all to static. My head began to split.
“STOP!” I screamed.
I crashed to the ground, trying to slow my overworked lungs. The noise went silent. The words stopped falling. I had a moment to breathe. That’s when I felt something shift in my hand.
A knife.
No… another word.
The noise began to creep back, but not in my head. They were surrounding me. All out of synch, whispering the same thing. The same as the word, now bloody and damning as I know it to be.
Disappointment.
I threw the word away, cradling myself. My jaw tightened, tears pouring from my eyes. I curled up and pulled on my hair, my breath becoming violent. The noise grew closer and I began to shake. I prayed for the noise to go away. For all of this to go away. To forget everything, to be left alone, to be at peace for once.
I thought my prayer was answered when the noise began to grow silent once more. Instead, I was given a nightmare.
A request. The same request.
In beautiful sinister harmony, they chanted the request. They sang it as if it were a message from a holy being.
A faint breeze brushed my arms. I could hear objects shift and thump behind the curtain of the song. As things settled, I slowly looked up. I was no longer in the void. I was in a dusty, dark attic. The choir began to fade into the background, quietly chanting.
I looked above me and I saw it. A twisted halo, one made of thick string and hay. It hung from the ceiling, swaying ever so slowly. I followed its swinging motion. My eyes, heavy from the tears. Heavy from the torment.
I sat there like an old stone relic watching the hollow pendulum move in the still air in its usual repetitive dance.