mictlan

Remember Eurydice.

Don't look back. Just keep going. Ever wonder what Orpheus might have seen, had he not broken his promise and looked back before he reached the clean air?

Suppose he had the nerve to walk all the way up that winding path in uncertain silence- do you really think he would have turned around and seen his lady, back from the dead? I don't think he would have. I don't think they would have sent him anything more substantial than mist or dew. I think gods are crueler than that, or perhaps just smart enough to know that there is no universe in which Orpheus will not look back; that Orpheus, being Orpheus, must turn around before the right time. The house wins again.

But we haven't remembered Eurydice yet, have we? Sometimes I wonder what it is that Orpheus actually sees of her, in that fateful backward glance. Maybe the story is true as we heard it as children, and he really did see her face, just like he remembered it, one last time before she faded away.

But maybe the story is true as we knew it had to be, as children; maybe what he really saw was tatters and unravelling, bone and hag. Do you think Eurydice crawled out along that path on bone-naked hands and knees, maybe taunted by every upward spiral that gained her another layer of skin, another living artery? Do you think she bled anew on that harsh road, a lich creeping along in her fleshly beloved's shadow? Do you think she knew that he would turn, and look, and spoil it all?

Well, if you put it like that.. of course she knew. And yet she dragged herself up anyway, in hope.

Wouldn't you?

After all, Orpheus almost made it to the top. The silent Eurydice must have staggered from stumps to knees, from knees to feet, until she was limping behind him, watching him closely, maybe close enough to breathe on him (had she lungs enough to breathe), dreading the stiffening of his shoulders, the dragging of his feet, maybe a telltale tightening at his neck.

And then we wonder, did it even cross her mind, then, to perhaps reach out with a loathly hand and still that turning neck forever? To prick those untimely eyes closed with a cold nail?

Perhaps she was already reaching out when he turned- or perhaps not. Either way, I think it was him that left her there. I think he ran, in truth; I think he ran in horror and fear and shame. I think he drowned himself in Dionysius and in his muse.

Remember Eurydice.

Don't look back.

posted by: mictlantecuhtli at 23:46 | link | comments (15) |

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