PrologueA Chapter by The CynicAn introduction to our heroine, Very Anne (Veranne) Delasko. As the successful entrepreneuse who discovered immortality, she begins to have suicidal notions before being visited by the Grim Reaper.
Previous Version This is a previous version of Prologue. How
often do dreams turn to nightmares? How often do nightmares turn to dreams?
Aren’t both the same thing, two sides of the same coin that is REM sleep? And
what of memories? If one dreams a horrible memory, is it a nightmare? Or simply
traumatized sleep, a reflection of a horrible figment of past? And
what of a dream involving the best of memories, one so fantastic it cannot be
relived? Is it fair to say, in such a scenario, that dreams have already come
true before they were even dreamed? * * * Somewhere
in the Northern Siberian city of Blight, where the perpetual night December
cast its surreal daze on the pale inhabitants, a woman was experiencing an
enormous amount of distress. She
was sleeping. As it happened, sleeping very soundly, and she also happened to
be caught within a dream. A dream of inescapable unreality, which however had
once occurred, and no matter how many times she dreamed it and was reminded of
its occurrence, she couldn’t admit to it ever having occurred; the notion was
much too horrible. This is what she experienced. Bright
sunlight. Too bright. A slight migraine at the front of her skull. The shape of
a man walking next to her, they both heading towards a building at a distance,
with a gleaming glass roof and sturdy concrete walls, with a gleaming finish. After
a silent period of walking, the man says something. She can barely hear the
sound above a synesthetic whine within her mind. She grasps the meaning,
though. He will be leaving, not of his own choice, but because he’s forced to
do so. To be seen with him is to tempt outcast status. Meet him at the port to
say farewell later, abandon him now. A
blur of bright light and tears as she runs to a metallic structure on the
immensely reflective Antarctic waters. The soft taste of salt water or tears.
No ice. That’s fortunate, ice is extremely reflective. Waiting.
Standing. She feels like she’s in a solar oven. She takes off a sweater, and
her eyes become blocked by her action for a brief second. After this, the man
stands in front of her. Low talking. An embrace. She says goodbye. But before
he goes- The
unmistakable sensation of human lips on human lips. A salty tear caught in
between. She pulls herself back, surprised, and he smiles as if it didn’t even
happen. Did it ever happen? What
does it matter? The sunlight is killing her. She runs off, away from the
migraine and away from the one person she understood. Her headache remains,
however. It cannot be remedied. It grows. She shuts her eyes but it’s within
them, the tears emanating a light of their own. She falls to the ground,
grasping her head. Her friend attempts to run to help her, but he’s stopped by
two guards and put on the ship that will take him away forever. A
blinding pain on her forehead. A blinding sound, and a deafening smell, an
unbearable light within her mind. * * * A
woman opened both her eyes. It wasn’t so much a direct separation of her
eyelids, but rather an extreme separation, followed by a slow lowering of her
upper eyelid while her pupil, which remained half concealed by her upper
eyelid, dilated languidly. The
pupil was not dilated because of the extremely small amount of light available,
coming from the window of her room, although the dim ambience definitely did
help. Rather, it was dilated because of a sudden rush of adrenaline she had
experienced shortly before, but which was now dwindling out of her bloodstream in
exponential decay. This
rush of adrenaline, in turn, had been caused by a dream. Or rather a nightmare.
Well, partly both anyway. The dream was not made up, or, more adequately
speaking, a result of the usual daily release of repressed thoughts from her
unconscious mind, as happens with every healthy non-psychotic human on the face
of the earth. No, this dream was a memory. Memories,
more like. Plural. Weeks had gone by within that dream. Months, maybe. She
didn’t know any more. It had been such a long time ago. How long ago? She
didn’t remember that either. All she could do now was close her eyes and relive
the experience. * * * “An
idealist. A bright-eyed, sanguine romantic. That’s what you are,” said Veranne
as she looked past a veranda at the chilly Antarctic sea. Any way I look is north, she would muse, as long as I look at the sea. She wasn’t that far from romantic
herself. But at least she could hide it well enough. She
turned to the young man she was conversing with, tilting her head to the side
and placing her cheek on the palm of her hand while her elbow rested on the
handrail separating them from the sea. “So I am,” he said. “And I will be till
it kills me, Annie”. She
slapped him on the shoulder playfully. “Don’t call me that; you know I hate it.
Besides,” she said, looking around suspiciously, “nobody here knows my real
name and I’d appreciate it if it were kept that way.” The
man raised his eyebrows. They were thick eyebrows, and were just short of being
one only. “Oh, clandestine, now, are we?” “No.
Just embarrassed of our full names, that’s all. You should know all about
that,” she glanced at him mockingly, “Tiberius” Tiberius
dropped his jaw in mock surprise. “Why, I never. Very Anne Demetra Delasko, you
know better than to try and embarrass me. I do a good enough job of it myself.
And I’ll have you know-” She
put an arm around his head and smothered his words with a gloved hand. “You
talk too much, my dear,” she took a deep breath and paused before uttering his
full name, “Ernest Nekholian Tiberius Polanski” “Why,
how very Annie of yours to pull something like that, Veranne,” Ernest replied
with the typical pun on her name. “Mock
me if you will. It’s not my fault a half-deaf man was assigned to register my
name. I was lucky he got Very Anne out of Mary Anne; he could just as well have
called me Gary And, Barry Land,” she looked at him again with a slight smile,
“or Tiberius for that matter. Now that
would be horrible, even for a man.” She
turned her head and let out a slight cry as Ernest intercepted her and, picking
her up, playfully swung her around in the air. No, they weren’t lovers, she
regretted as she remembered the context of the memory, and, at the same time,
remembered that this was but a memory. She caught a glimpse of the harsh sun
and her mind burst into a migraine. * * * Migraine
headaches can be the worst pain some people will feel (short of a blow to the
crotch for a man or child labor for women, of course). Triggered by a rainbow
variety of factors, a common start to them is through sensorial or emotional
stimuli. Of course, these have to be stimuli of great significance and power to
trigger this kind of neurological response; or, on the other hand, the subject
could be extremely sensitive to them. In the case of a more susceptible subject,
as can be the case with those of greater photosensitivity or a keener sense of
smell, these kinds of headaches can become a common, day-to-day experience,
with different people even finding their own homemade remedies, or simply
dealing with them when they arrive if they are of the least painful variety. In
the case of those of greater pain, however, their routine nature does not make
them any less painful or annoying. Quite on the contrary; those in need of
anti-migraine drugs will eventually develop tolerance to them, intensifying the
nature of the headaches when not under the effects of the drugs, and increasing
the doses needed in a vicious and, by moments, excruciating cycle. * * * Veranne
Delasko would start her days in the same manner. This had gone on for countless
years (decades, even), so that she barely remembered her age. If it weren’t for
her birth records, kept safe in a security box at the most remote corner of her
apartment (between the western and northern walls of her study), any
information as to the duration of her stay in the realm of the living would now
surely be lost. Yes,
she’d been immersed in a routine for God knew how long. God? She couldn’t
remember the last time anybody had mentioned him, even. But to any routine
there must be a defined start, which went as followed: Step one, get out of
bed. This
wasn’t as easy as it is for the common human; this is because, unlike the
common human, Veranne was not awakened by a squealing rooster, by an alarm
clock, or simply by the first rays of the sun. No. She
was awakened by her head splitting in two, with substantial throbbing on her
left temple. Always the left. She jumped out of bed, toppling over, falling on
her face, nothing mattering as long as she got to her nightstand, which kept
her salvation in a small plastic container: medication. Putting five pills in
her hand (her tolerance was getting out hand these days), popping them in her
mouth, and taking a gulp out of the water bottle she always kept beside her bed,
she allowed herself to fall, her bare back against the white carpeted floor. She
waited there five, ten, fifteen seconds, until they kicked in. Sudden as it
came, it was gone. She hardly remembered the dream she’d had, or the memory it
contained. All she knew was that it was something out of her past; something
distant, so distant it would never connect to her present. Not
worrying about it, she got up and walked over to her mirror. How many years had
passed, and the same reflection staring back at her, as always. She’d never
thought herself Dorian Gray as a child. Or had she? She really couldn’t
remember, this far into the future. Was this the rest of her life? Waking up
like this every day, in her large, empty apartment, having fulfillment and
success already made, nothing to keep living for, nothing to struggle for? Wasn’t
she merely asleep, waiting to wake up, by some benevolent light that wouldn’t
give her a migraine, some easy sound that wouldn’t alter her state of mind?
Couldn’t a memory bring back the person she thought she was? She
mentally turned away from such thoughts. Memories were done. Everybody she’d ever
known was no more, and would be so forevermore. She turned to look at her
beautiful face, the face of a twenty-year-old in her prime, cute cheeks, green
eyes, sharp eyebrows and a nose that was only slightly prominent. Her face
pointed in the direction of her chin, and chestnut hair cascaded down the sides
of her temples, down behind her ears and onto her shoulders. As
for her body, this needed no description. Men would turn, usually, only to
remember their manners and turn back to their business. Not too skinny, of
course, as nobody likes that; a middle point between both extremes, as all
healthy characteristics go. Yes,
she was young after all this time. She was wealthy. But she was alone, and this
thought she could not shrug. She was alone, and she had been for all these
years of passive sleep she’d been through. What was she doing? Everybody she’d
ever known was dead, and this last question in her mind she couldn’t stop
asking: Why wasn’t she? The
doorbell rang. It was as if the ringer had been reading her mind to show up
now, after all these years when she could’ve been visited. She covered her
body, naked up until then, with a thick robe that had rested on her bed, and
straightened her smooth hair. Opening the door after traversing the lengthy
hallways of her spacious (but empty) apartment, her eyebrows lifted in surprise
at such a specific house-call by such a curious individual. Her
visitor wore a dark cloak, and carried an hourglass in one hand, a scythe held
by the other. “Just
who I wanted to see,” she pronounced, extending her hand in a businesslike
gesture. © 2010 The CynicAuthor's Note
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2 Reviews Added on October 17, 2010 Last Updated on October 17, 2010 Tags: Veranne, Delasko, entrepreneuse, immortal, suicide, death, grim, reaper, introduction Author
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