ABSIT INVIDIA

(Let Ill Will Be Absent)

PRELUDE:

Imagine a careful script, the libretto, of an opera. The parchment is crinkled and yellowed from too much history. Curvaceous lines of black satin ink in the slender forms of notes and words and rhythms and coloratura, the strenuous trills and arpeggios singers train half a lifetime to sing, are scribbled across the worn paper. An overture sings the sweet intro to the opera – a lush enlightening overture with a sad twist to lead into a story. Abruptly come numerous parts to the opera where the protagonists and antagonists cunningly reveal themselves. Perhaps succeeding is a tedious duet in which the two singers, with a brotherly kind of love, grow hatred for each other and finish their duet in despair. This despair is ensued by four or five voices fighting a calm battle for center stage in an altogether tantalizing fugue. Finally, as the invisible audience remains on the edge of their seats, a torn hero absently wins center stage to finish with a daring cadenza. With a glorious and flaunting voice to continue forth, the man composes his enemy, but not his raging madness, in a valiant cazone. Surprisingly however, a quiet and breathtaking prima donna interrupts the cadenza. A closure is brought upon the stage as the curtain falls. The libretto dramatically drifts shut, and the conductor’s baton falls to the ground quietly like a fallen dove. Audience is awed into a painful draught of silence. Not from dissatisfaction or disclosure or even unhappiness – only uncertainty and doubtfulness. This is the terrifying scaffold to our story.

OVERTURE:

This story begins on a day when nature was not so kind to the world. Even the heavens – usually gentle, airy, and majestic – threatened to pour its hell upon the vast land of Sicily. Gray clouds impregnated with rain were drifting over a small peninsula down below. Wind, blowing with all its mighty fury, tossed the plants to and fro. A thick fog cradled the small peninsula and a menacing danger lingered from the dreadful, treacherous nearby sea.

However, even with a darkness that could rival the mighty depths of purgatory, a fantastic battle drew out over the hungry water upon this tiny peninsula, which was hardly connected to land by anything more than a simple stretch of crawling grass and dirt. Alas, this was not a battle to rage war, but a mere child’s game of foolhardy boys. There were wooden swords made with fine timber and pointy tips to jab their enemies. All suited and fit to be knights, these two young boys battled against the horrors of the wind, sky, and sea.

Their faces were contorted with a malicious laughter of sorts as they attempted to render each other defenseless; their eyes were like empty disoriented pools of piercing, mysterious blues. Their fragile hearts and thin limbs were barely keeping them to the ground. They cared nothing for this raging storm, only for their joyous fight to see who would triumph and who would fall.

Back and forth, thrusting and lunging at one another, their feet twirled about like a lovely dance of death as they tripped over mounds of dirt. Facing danger with a formidable face, one boy would back the other into a corner, and the other would surprisingly leap from that corner to become victorious. These simple boys were bodies of true might, and anyone would have been amused.

Though, the great tempest above did not agree. The winds raged forth, determined to raise a fiery inferno and knock these boys to oblivion; it pushed and pushed the boys back and back and back until the sea was licking at their heels. However, only to the tyrant’s provocation, the boys neither heeded nor stopped. They continued to push each other away, not gaining any distance away from the lashing waves of water. So the wind blew and blew, and the boys fought and fought. In the end, only one would prevail.

Unfortunately, no matter how much one did hope, those thick, sinister clouds were tragedy’s brothers. For the wind tugged and wrenched on these boys, and they only continued to lunge deeper and deeper – one driving the other to his certain peril. Then finally, with one sturdy, finale attempt, as if everything left was hurriedly poured out, the wind threw its climatic gust against the one boy as he lunged and the other as he parried. The world seemed to stand still, holding its breath. The air grew unnaturally still, and the boy whom had parried was thrown back, his feet becoming unbalanced and awkward upon the grass. As the lunging sword leered mockingly at him, he stumbled away, and his eyes grew wide with panic as he slipped, plummeting down into the icy, unforgivable waters. And a single scream engulfed the stillness like a resounding alarm of urgency.