"All that we see or seem is nothing but a dream within a dream." –Edgar Allan Poe

"Man is in love, and loves what vanishes." –William Butler Yeats

            Where has the day gone?  It is late and she is still pacing, her footsteps echoing down the hall and up the stairs.  A resounding sound, a sound to wake the sleeper.  The sleeper opens his eyes, taking in the shadows of night surrounding his bed.  What has woken him?  What is it, what is it?

            He rises and barefoot walks, walks, walks from the bedside over hardened floors.  Down creaking stairs the sleeper climbs, hearing no sound, believing no sound.  Can not anyone hear, anyone hear, in this house of stone?  Memories course through veins, sounds suppressed, grimaces murmured with exultant song.

            Mania!  Sound encompasses!  Faeries to dance wild flower dances before the running fall of water.  Faeries!  Faeries to draw up the fire raised over linoleum floors.  Sky above, earth below, sleeper's prayer, flung and flew!

            What evil doth prowl the streets this night?  

            The sleeper watches, eyes entranced, as fitful woman yes does dance.  Piano calls into moonlit realms, seeking the fingers adept.  Piano shining in whitest light, beckoning, moving, stepping cold white fingers beat out over wood.  And the sleeper runs.

            Runs!  Runs!  The sleeper runs!

            But from what?  But to what?

            The sleeper's position never changes.  Windows fly open, curtains weave in and out and long hair mingles with the air.  Still she paces as the sleeper watches.  Moon lights play over their faces, binding them to one another.

            It is a fey laugh that spills the sleeper's wine.  The blood cascades down, catching the light and devouring all it sees.  Seven years too long a wait for the glass to shatter in the sky.  Each fragment is a figment.  Each figment is without.  Each without is in the bloodfall, crashing to the tile floor.

            They laugh together in the sun's shadows, where no one can hear them, where no one can accuse them.

            The wind carries voices from long ago, telling tales of ancient days.  The wind twists about them, pulling hem closer, closer, closer.  Closer into embittered, closer into impassioned embraces.  The winds hold them.  The winds cry for them.

            The wind howls in mourning, but for whom does the air mourn?

            Those left behind, those left behind.

            What game do they play?

            The wind sends them cries and laughter and together the sleeper laughs with the other.  The wind sends them letters, letters from the dead and letters from the living.  The wind, it cries. 

            Alone, the sleeper traverses the plains of oriental rugs.  The walls watch on, sentinels of darkness.  The holes in the walls gesture the sleeper forward, gateways to the world of night.

            Blood flows freely from the wound.  Metal lies idle on the floor.  Thoughts lay scattered amongst their avatars.  White satin, satin and silk, of Persian beauty, cover the visage, cover the hardened floors.  Black bags threaten to sever the sleeper's spirit dance.

            Pale faces look on, look on at the spilt wine on the floor and water it down, water it down.

            "Oh what will we do?"

            "Oh what will we do?"

            "Oh what will we do?"  The ghost faces cry.

            The sleeper stands amid the wine, sleeping in silence.  The sleeper waits, waits, waits for the winds to tell him what rumors are rumored.  A soft whisper wakes the sleeper, taunts the sleeper.  It was all for you.  The air hisses softly.  All for you.  The air murmurs seductively.  For you.  The sleeper rises once again and can hear the wind no more.