The Shadow Of Decay

The shadow of decay was behind me, perpetually, like a faithful lover, pulling every hope of being loved and cherished as a unique treasure out of my heart. It was a distorted mirror reflecting my anguish and fears, filling my chamber with scarlet red incense, oppressing and stifling me, and preventing me from seeing my own portrait.

I lived this overwhelming and dreadful pseudo‑reality in constant anguish, no longer understanding whether it was truth, a surreal fantasy, or the product of my hallucinations. I perceived those grievous candles that enflamed my yearnings every time I approached them.

The cold rock walls were so thick that, however much I strove to lament and weep my pain, no one could ever hear it—no mortal and no creature from the mysterious world of immortality to which, apparently, I now belonged.

Amid dust and teardrops, I was relegated like an evanescent creature, living on the faint light of garnet candles, and thick, resinous incense smoke that enveloped me in its sacred, suffocating haze. Even the stars refused to shine into my little vault, where my pierced heart lay clutched by the crumbling walls like a macabre relic on display.

I was no longer able to harbour a desire or hope for an existence made of enchanted flowers and love spells. I had lost in the abyss of obliteration everything I had desired, and all that I had vainly pursued in my tragic life had vanished, offering me just a bleak and mortifying dungeon for my soul.

And thus I vanished into a menacing and omnipresent cloud that loomed over me. Even the decrepit walls, made of cold and insensible rock, had no tears to shed for my bitter demise. I myself had become the shadow of decay, no longer a mortal being but a creature of that world I had so long forgotten, which, despite everything, had embraced me entirely and inescapably.
Elisabetta Esther