Hemlock: Shadow Pages Read online

  The lights promptly go off. Leaving the only two lights on stage the two burning candles. The black being holding Devlin’s candle snuffs the fire out and disappears into the dark wall. This leaves the only light on stage being Kaine’s candle. Slowly the lights come up to reveal Kaine alive and well, despite exhausted, and Devlin slumped over in his chair, there is blood running out of his mouth and nose. Kaine nods at a shaken Lewis, who with the help of Kaine’s bodyguard takes Devlin’s body reverently out of the room, leaving Kaine alone in the chamber. Kaine rises from his seat and the black being with his candle recedes into the dark wall as the candlelight goes out. Kaine looks slowly around the room and straightens his clothes. He walks over to the desk and picks up the picture Devlin was looking at earlier, and stares hard at it for some time before returning it to the drawer. He picks up the grimoire and walks over to the window. After looking out the window for a moment he closes the blinds and turns around. He looks around the room and then speaks.

  Kaine: My coat please. (the coat hanger comes out of the dark wall, he takes it and dons it as he makes to leave) Begone. (the hanger recedes into the darkness)

  Kaine opens the door and leaves. Shortly after the stage returns to full darkness.

  Eventually the stage in completely dark again and a spotlight comes to rest upon solitary figure.

  Voice of History: I am the Voice of History. All things pass through Me. (hits staff on the floor twice) Amen.

  END OF THE LINE

  Well chummer, there you have it, my shadow pages.

  A wise man that fools often called Woodcutter had this to say:

  “Honorable men die hard, but they still die.”

  Never more true than in the Twilight City. Sentimentality is a one-way ticket into the ground, and yet, according to the Editor it is the only way for the world to make stories worth telling. The frozen of us don’t know love, and so never rise to take it. So we linger on, cold, and hard, while the true lights of our world burn and gutter. Someone has to tell the stories, someone has to do the digging, someone has to write the words.

  This I have done.

  Now the debt is paid you motherfucker.

  Meanwhile, in a world beyond the Twilight City…

  And yet closer than you would imagine…

  Somewhere on the streets

  In the darkest part of the witching hour

  A voice whispers as I cross the threshold

  If you’re gonna go, it had better be all the way

  I looked into her eyes and that was it

  Whatever her history

  No matter the burdens

  Or the scars she maps them with

  Her enemies become mine

  Her light shines and I am renewed

  Of all the gin joints…

  You’re telling me bub

  --- Sean-Michael Argo

  In The Blue

  You don’t ask me where I’m at

  Cause you can’t see that I’m gone

  And in the crystalline morning, colors abound,

  But you and I carry on

  In the blue

  Good enough to keep me tethered

  Even as I dream of flight

  And though I’m soaring, exploring another life,

  I come back to you each night

  In the blue

  I’m praying just to keep my heart from going to sleep

  If something better is always calling,

  Better just to let it ring

  It’s a song I’ll never understand,

  A song I will always sing

  In the blue

  Got a fantasy for every color

  Got a fantasy for every color

  Got a fantasy for every color

  Got a fantasy

  --- Bekah Kelso

  A Chorus I Never Saw Coming

  My heart beats with fragile impermanence

  An inner rhythm given to all men begins

  Plays its march, and one day ends

  The orchestra of muscles beats in double notes

  In joy, in grief, and in hopes

  One by one until the song of my life has been all the way sung

  No man knows how long the music plays

  A youthful haze fills our eyes and we disguise the fact that we will all

  One day

  Take a deep breath and die

  But I, for one day, cast this mask away

  Within the shifting shade I lay

  Wide awake, aware, and okay with this truth

  For I am the believer

  The resounding gift receiver

  Of a chorus I never saw coming

  Blinded in the southern sun by a man whose song rang out so loud and long

  And beat in time, it fit with mine

  His cadence was dissident in all the right places

  We swelled in deep crescendo

  Again, and again, and again

  And we bent notes and time , music divine

  Sweet and painful his song played with mine

  So how could I mind life’s metronome

  The double note drone

  Clicking on, reminding me that time, you see, is fleeting

  And this beating heart will one day start to stop

  For I am the believer

  The resounding gift receiver

  Of a chorus I never saw coming

  Lyrics penned in steel and stardust

  Love and bloodlust

  Words made to release a Keeper of the Keys

  And even more dreams made manifest

  Tested by fire

  We will only rise higher

  Up this scale

  Each note pales to the new

  To you

  And your sweet drifter’s song

  I will listen my whole life long

  Till my song is all the way sung

  For I am the Believer

  The Resounding Gift Receiver

  Of a chorus I never saw coming

  Grateful to the Ancient Music

  For giving us a chance to do this Wild Love Song

  Together

  We aim our Voices at forever

  And fire

  --- Bekah Kelso