The Stage (IV/IV)

Posted on January 22, 2004 by Jenna

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The lady sits in her room. She weaves a tapestry. She looks out towards the sea.

“Ms. Brown, ” she says.

Ms. Brown attends her. “Yes, milady?”

“The sea, ” she says. “Does it seem altogether well?”

Ms. Brown looks out the window. “It’s a bit ragged at the edges. The horizon’s coming undone. I suppose the world’s ending.”

“There are angels who promised that this place would live forever,” the lady says.

“Angels forget.”

“And gods,” the lady says.

“Gods forget, too.”

“And all the others. Dragons and women and beasts and men and the spirits of the sea; they said they’d give this place their shelter.”

“It’s been a very long time, milady.”

“Ah,” she says.

“It’s not painful,” Ms. Brown says. “It’s very gentle. The world just comes apart, and then there’s nothingness. You and the sea and the land—you all fade away together.”

The lady looks up. “It’s happened before?”

Ms. Brown shrugs.

The lady smiles, lightly. “It shan’t again,” she says. She takes the tapestry and folds it under her arm; and she walks from her tower, and down to the land, and out across the sea. All around her, chaos eats at the edge of the world. She steps beyond it.