By Laurel Hanson
The tip of the civen blade hovered above my loathsome face for only a moment before shattering it. In the same moment, the pressure within me burst. Again and again, I stabbed my proxy monitor in a frenzy that opened a flower of blackness within the frame. My senses dimmed, and I pitched forward into that dark blossom.
I opened my eyes to a long face peering down at me.
The long face spoke. “I say. You’ve fallen through my painting.” Beyond the man’s head, tatters of canvas dangled from a gilt frame. He gestured to the unmarred wall behind it. “Yet it seems you’ve not come through the wall itself.” With that, he extended a hand to me, adding, “Wild.”
“It was, indeed,” I said, struggling to my feet with his assistance.
“My name is Wilde,” the man clarified. “Oscar Wilde.” His eyes searched mine. “And you are?”
“Dorian Gray.” I blinked around the unfamiliar room. A globe on the wall cast an angry white light over furnishings choked with floral designs in murky colors, like some malignant garden. A clock beat a dull tattoo into air thickened with a haze of pungent smoke. The room had an antique, almost arcane aspect to it. I backed away from Wilde uneasily. “Where am I?”
“Chelsea, my good man.” With one bejeweled finger, he swept a lock of dark hair from his eyes. “Yet I think the question is not where but how?”
“I have no idea.” When I’d destroyed my proxy, I’d wanted only to free myself from what it had shown me. In that, I had succeeded, but how I had been transported from my own attic to this alien room I could not say, unless this Wilde fellow possessed untold powers. Before fear closed my throat entirely, I rasped, “What are you?”
The man laughed and tipped his head. “A magician of sorts. I cast spells with my pen. At least, that is what I try to do. Bit of a writer’s block at the moment. Seem to have lost my voice.” When I didn’t respond, Wilde added, “You rather seem to have lost yours, as well.”
How could I speak? This gray-eyed wizard had summoned me through space and time, yet I did not know why.
Wilde interrupted my rising panic by ringing a bell. An aged man in dark clothing appeared in a doorway. The elder was a shriveled husk, his face furrowed, and loose skin dangled at his neck. He walked with a stoop, bearing a tray with a pot and cups. I had never seen a person upon whom life had carved its mark with such a heavy hand, or in truth, made any marks at all.
It was a shock. My world may have been a galactic backwater that had yet to achieve immortality for its people, but at least we had proxies. Properly implanted, they allowed us to remain beautiful and young while the proxy monitor absorbed and recorded the vicissitudes of age until death claimed us. Regrettably, mine had revealed a person as hideous as this doddering elder.
Yet if the elder was anything to go by, proxies did not even exist in this place. I must have staggered where I stood, for Wilde gripped my shoulder and urged me to sit. As he handed me a flowered cup, he prompted me to tell him my story.
And I did. I poured out my words as easily as Wilde poured out the dark, bitter drink he called tea. As I spoke, it was clear he was wholly unfamiliar with our technology but entirely captivated by it. When I finished, he leaned back, steepling his fingers beneath his long face, and sat quite still.
The old man reappeared to remove the flowered dishware. The clock ticked, reminding me that time was on the march and would be making inroads into my flawless face now that my proxy was disabled. Having seen the wizened man in black who’d brought the tea, I was having serious regrets about what I had done.
Doubt spurred me to the mirror above the fireplace. A visage of exquisite youth and beauty returned my gaze, and I sagged in relief. But then the light flickered, and shadows inked the talons at the corners of my eyes. I steadied myself, gripping the mantel. My breath contracted into a reedy wheeze. Though my proxy had held my years in abeyance, now those years were coming home, inscribing themselves upon my features.
The horror of it engulfed me, and for some time, my thoughts were a blackened void.
Eventually, I became aware of a steady scratching sound. I glanced at Wilde and saw he was hunched over some papers at a desk, writing furiously. He scribbled as one possessed, stopping only to flick the dark locks from his eyes. Once, he looked up to blink in my general direction. “A novel!” he said. “I’ve had a capital idea for a novel!”
An unaccountable tingling began coursing up my spine. I turned to the apparition in the mirror which leered back at me, but now the natural pallor of my skin had turned ghostly. Soon, it began to shimmer into translucence. In moments, I could see the tortured garden decorating the wall behind me.
With every stroke of Wilde’s pen, I was fading.
I could feel it, a raw pain as of a keen civen blade paring me down. Before my eyes, I was becoming threadbare. What sorcery was this? I perceived only that Wilde was binding my life to the page, and I would soon disappear from the world as if I had never been.
From the fraying edges of my mind, one last thought came to me. Within Wilde’s book, I would remain forever young and beautiful. And this time, I would truly be immortal.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Excellent story! Clever to have Dorian as Wilde’s muse.
Thank you.
I love the imagery here! You capture Dorian’s story in a unique, clever way.
lol, Dorian is really going to trust his biography to a dude that met him 28 seconds ago.
VERY nice! Clever and fast-moving and great take on Dorian, and Oscar.
Wow. This was incredible!