From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2000 21:11:47 -0600
Subject: Keening by Abra Elliott
Source: direct

Reply To: xilerui@hotmail.com


Title: Keening
Author: Abra Elliott
Classification: V; Angst; "Within" post-ep
Spoilers: "Within" 
Feedback: received with humble gratitude at
xilerui@hotmail.com
Archive: at your leisure.  Just let me know.
Disclaimer: If I were making money from this, I'd have a 
better apartment. And the Season One DVD set.
Description: Sad little fill-in-the-blank fic.
Notes: To paraphrase Jo March, it's bad, but I felt it when I 
wrote it.

***

I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless; 
That only men incredulous of despair, 
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air 
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access 
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness, 
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare 
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare 
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express 
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death
Most like a monumental statue set 
In everlasting watch and moveless woe 
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. 
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: 
If it could weep, it could arise and go. 

"Grief" by Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

***

Yesterday I cried; today my eyes are dry.  No fleeting thing, 
my sorrow is making a home among the ruins of my shattered 
soul, built with walls of unshed tears and silent screams.

I look into the mirror.  The tentative joy that had lately 
crept into my weary gaze is vanished, replaced by an 
unspeakable desolation that threatens to consume me.  I stare 
at myself knowing that I am incomplete, that my true 
reflection is not to be found here.  All I see is me, and I 
can scarcely look away.  My eyes are dry...but in them my 
heart weeps.

***

Waves of unreality wash over me as I follow well-worn paths.  
Just another day, it's just another day to everyone who 
passes me...but I know better.  It's the end of my 
world...one look at his empty, darkened office will confirm 
it, and I will sink into the abyss.  

Hope dies again and again as I numbly proceed, a silent 
mourner at my own funeral.  Stepping slower now...I can 
barely breathe.

*Please...*

I pray as I turn the corner.  He is gone.

I lash out in a rage at the trespassers; but my secret soul 
knows that their presence here, now, has perhaps saved me 
from entombing myself in this lost chamber, never to emerge 
whole again.  They give me purpose, even as they desecrate 
what I might have enshrined.  Their transgressions push me 
back from oblivion.  

And yet my heart bleeds.

***

Cold illumination in the darkness.  As I step inside, too-
still air enshrouds me, and I struggle to keep my memories at 
bay.  I glance around with a clinical eye, looking for 
answers but finding only questions.  

Memories dance at the edge of my gaze, and I can no longer 
fight them.  My eyes are drawn to his bed, and there I find 
both my salvation and my undoing.  This piece of him, food 
for the starving, still holds his slipping scent.  I grasp it, 
unwilling to relinquish what scarce solace it offers, and 
there I find, finally, repose.

But still my heart cries, inconsolable.

***

I sit like stone, a cold monument to grief.  I stare at his 
name, and only my hand silences the sound of my keening soul.  
I am set adrift in a sea of strangers, and part of me longs 
to let go, to slide under and away into the blackness.

Strong hands hold me back.  Even as I drown in my doubts, one 
voice refuses to let me go.  Looking into his eyes, I see the 
reflection of my desolation.  Strange wayfarers, we; together 
we are alone, each struggling to imagine tomorrow in the wake 
of our loss.

His faith reproaches me.  For his sake I bury my sorrow, and 
we meet for the first time as friends.  Infused with trust 
and fragile hope, our quest begins.

Yet, in the night, my heart still sobs silently.

~finis~