Prompted Writing: March 2009 Archives
The stairs to his left and to his right wound in graceful curves down to the parlor floor, upon which the people stood, champagne flutes in hand, nibbling at tiny bits of food. He leaned against the balcony where the stairs met, looking out over this well-dressed crowd, these genteel members of a high society which had taken him months to properly infiltrate. A fragment of a poem occurred to him then, as he watched and waited for the hour which had been appointed.
Yet each man kills the thing he lovesBy each let this be heard
Did he love them, these people he was here to kill? Wilde would further postulate that a coward killed with a kiss, a brave man with a sword. What then to make of the man who lines the walls and floor of his host's extravagant home with C4? The highly explosive gel wanted only the slightest of currents to bring hell to this place that once housed heaven, and he would unleash that current soon enough. In the meantime, he watched. Did he love them?
He had been sent here by men who craved those things which the people below him had. They did not love the crowd, not as individual men and women, but they loved this life that had been denied to them. They loved it with such a fierce and burning passion that in their desire for it they had mistaken the emotion for hate, or rage. They were driven then to exterminate this very thing which they loved so much, and when it was gone, would they mourn it? Would they despair in the knowledge that by their own actions they had only put it forever beyond their reach?
