The Velvet Curtain

Chapter 1, Bolero

Picture this: You are sitting in an audience, in a balcony of your very own, staring down at the red velvet curtain that is hanging over the wooden stage, De Gouy’s “Bolero” is being played by the pit orchestra for entertainment before the rise of the curtain, and the beginning of a most wonderful play.

Now, picture this: You are behind that velvet curtain, you are close enough to reach out and touch the folds of the gentle red material, and just as you reach out to do so, the curtain opens, leaving you alone on that empty stage, with all the eyes in the glorious auditorium turned to you. You need to say something, but what? You need to recite your lines as though you have known them for your entire life, but you cannot bring yourself to do so. You know what you have to say, you know what you must do, but the words and the actions have escaped your mind. Now, I will tell you of my predicament.

It was as though I was on a stage, and all of my lines had disappeared, but I was not on a stage at all. On the contrary, I was on the floor of the courthouse, before a very few amount of people. I was not there for entertainment purposes; I was there for judgment, and punishment, should the case prove to be. Welcome to the time of the trials, where the smallest mistake, no matter how trivial, is enough to get you hung as a witch. This is not the time period you may think; this is not the time when Salem was new, when twenty people were tried, nineteen hung, and one crushed with stones. This is a different time, a different era. This is the Twenty-Second Century, where the priest rules.

Here on the courtroom floor, while the judges decide what is to become of me, I envision myself behind a red velvet curtain, the beautiful fabric hiding me from my audience’s eyes, the sounds of “Bolero” drowning out the sound of my heavy breathing. I wish that this were the case, more than anything in the world, but it cannot be, my situation is far too dire for such pleasantries.

I am a witch, to this I confess, but I am not the kind of witch that you imagine. I am not a decrepit old hag with a hooked nose and a mole on the very tip of it. A thin black cloak and a pointy hat do not shroud me. I am a young woman, with a special gift that has been chastised, feared, and hated for almost an eon. I have a gift that enables me, by pure fancy, to get what I desire, and to see exactly what will happen at a given moment. That is all, I have committed no crime, and I have committed no sin towards the Priest’s God. I pray to him as well, though the Goddess is whom I follow. The only crime I have committed was being different, and difference is feared in the world now. And for that, I must pay the price of death, or life imprisonment.

As I ponder this, the dictators have reentered the room. They come with a decision, then, and I fear for what it will be.