Ode to my Beloved!
"And therefore if to love can be desert,
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart, -
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music,--why advert
To these things?"I paused ( Read more... )
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart, -
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music,--why advert
To these things?"I paused ( Read more... )
I sat down in my chair once again, foldin' my head under my arms, beads of sweat dottin' the file below me, tryin' to avoid her taunts, but I had aready done that before and it didn't help.
I jumped up, a piece of file stuck to my forehead. If there had been a mirror in front of me, I might have laughed, but there again were her taunts.
I swatted the paper away from my face and watched as it fell to the floor before turnin' around, ready to say somethin' to her, but as I did, there was George, not Alanna.
This shit happened to me every once in a while. I couldn't help it. I had failed to save my sista, and I had left some of my friends to die when I went to help Angel.
Yeah, Angel had a real mission and all, somethin' worth fightin' for, but that didn't mean that I should have abandoned my friends, that I should have left them behind.
I had been wit them everyday since could remember, way before I could drive, and I had just up and left them, and now George stood here before me, as I stood tall, my shoulders raised.
'Hey bruh, we need you,' he said, and I smiled. "I'm ready to go, George, just let me see if I can go..."
I smiled at him and realized that I was in a three-piece suit.
'Nah, man,' he said, 'we just need your truck.'
I looked at him in disbelief. "But, I can be there for you guys, I should be there!"
He smiled at me, lookin' me up and down. 'You haven't been there for a longtime man, just give us the keys to the truck, we'll handle the rest.'
He put his hand out and as I reached in my pockets, irritated about the way that I was dressed, I found no keys.
I turned, pretendin' that I had them somewhere, gettin' an argument ready, but still, I couldn't find them, and as I turned back around, he was gone and my head was spinnin'.
Rushin', I bolted out of my office, turned a corner and heard a little bit ofpoetry being rattled off, and then an unmistakable voice talkin' to someone.
Spike was readin' poetry to somone? It was probably Fred, but as I peeked in, he was the only one there....well, kinda there.
He looked up at me. "Uhh, Spike, are you okay, man?" He looked a little weird or somethin'.
I wasn't exactly goin' to call him on it. I didn't know him like Angel did. Maybe this was how he relaxed? Especially since he was all ghostly.
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I looked about, attempting to discover where the spike was that the seemingly nice person from Morocco had spoken of. "I beg pardon, but..." I lowered my voice considerably lest someone overhear us.
"Are we in some form of... mortal danger from a spike?"
This would most certainly not do. My poem would have to wait, and Mother needed her tea. Oh! Also a blanket -- that cough of hers had only gotten worse within the last fortnight.
I reached out toward him, but my hand seemingly passed through his body. How odd! I tried it again, and again, but was befuddled each and every time!
My eyes searched his as I stepped back a few paces, looking about for a cross or something to shield myself with. "I've... I've heard of you Moors! You are shape shifters! Or..." Then, the thought hit me.
"You! You're a ghost!" I accused, pointing a shaking finger at him as I continued to move further away.
I needed to locate Angel. He would have the answers to all of this, I was certain!
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I didn't know what he was playin' at....but he had to be playin'. Yeah, the moors, they conquered sicily, Othello, knew all about that, mostly from the upgrades, but DAMN!
I almost walked out of the room. I mean the ghost had called me a ghost, and a moor and a shape shifter.
I stepped closer to him, stickin' my nose slightly forward, slidin' my hand through him. Tryin' to prove to him that he was the ghost.
I could tell, wit the way that he jumped back, that he wasn't playin'. Angel had told me about him and one of the things that he liked to do was drink, but unless he could hold a bottle and tip it into his non-coporeal body, that wasn't happenin'.
"I'm a moor, a shape shifter, and I'm a ghost, and your William the bloody, guardian angel and world renowned-poet."
I was gettin' the I have two heads look, when I wasn't the one talkin' all crazy. "Yeah, Spike, are you seein' somethin' or somethin'...Gunn here...."
I didn't seem to be gettin' through to him and then a voice came, from behind Spike, only he didn't seem to hear it.
"Did you hear that, Spike?" He was probably goin' to freak out on me for callin' him Spike again, but it was George, tauntin' me.
'Just like Gio said, Gunn, You friends wit all of the vamps.'
Now I was gettin' angry, like charge through Spike and into him angry. "Shut up, George! SHUT UP, MAN!"
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Confirmed!
I gasped a bit in shock, and tried once more to replace my glasses as he continued speaking.
"... and you're William the Bloody, guardian angel and world renowned-poet."
He knew my name... and that I was a...
"Wait." I adjusted my jacket and touched my tie for comfort. "I am in no way a world-renowned poet, sir, I..."
"They're just words."
Deja vu... I shook the thought from my mind as I spoke. "They're just words."
"Yeah, Spike, are you seein' somethin' or somethin'...Gunn here...."
What? First our lives were in danger from a spike, and now men were wandering about brandishing firearms? I spun this way and that, trying to determine where the danger was coming from, but... there wasn't anyone here save for the Moorish Ghost and myself.
Odd. Perhaps he was some sort of manifestation of mine from that time I fell asleep reading "Macbeth"...
"Shut up, George! SHUT UP, MAN!"
I peered closely at him. "You-- you're quite mad, aren't you?" I whispered in a shaky tone. He was yelling at no one, after all, and I was most certainly not George... why, the ghost himself had known my name!
"Perhaps I shall leave you alone with... err... George?" I began backing up once more, determined to make my way past this beast before his friend, George, could come about with a gunn and kill me.
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It was like Spike brought them out, or maybe it was somethin' else, entirely?
Yeah, it definitely was. I could hear Gio and his annoyin' Miami voice, tauntin' me, raggin' on me about my associations, and George talkin' about me abandonin' everyone, and then Alanna sayin' that it was him that was in that van, and then, once more, I could hear Gio, sayin' that she was right, and that anotha vamp that I had made one of my best friends was responsible for Alanna.
I wanted to cover my ears, and did, as Spike acted weird in front of me, talkin' about how I was mad, but it didn't help.
I could still hear the voices, and for all I knew it was a sign.
Maybe Spike wasn't in the warehouse that day, but he could have been in the van.
I screamed and pulled the stake from my pocket. Screamin' I held it firmly in my hand, bloody coming from my palm, Spike wit fear lookin' at me, just like as he should have.
"Yeah, big bad vamp. YOU killed my sista!" I charged him, saw his hands go up as the stake went right through him, nearly seperatin' my shoulder.
Then I tried repeatedly to connect, and then nothin' comin' from behind him, only slight bursts of laughter from indistinguishable voices.
Sweat covered my forehead as I backed away.
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"Yeah, big bad vamp. YOU killed my sista!"
My brow furrowed at his words... whatever was a 'sista'? Perhaps it was something from his native tongue? I would've attempted to speak to him, to discover exactly what he meant, but he walked through me. I gasped in shock again and spun to face him.
"Do--do--do not do that again, sir," I whispered, backing away as I searched for some form of weapon. But a ghost? What could one use against a ghost?
"My poem!" I realized finally. My Beloved could very well be in mortal danger! And he would never hear my words...
"You! You are attempting to distract me with your strange way of speaking and your incorporeal form! You wish to keep me here so that harm might come to my Beloved!"
Well, I certainly would not allow that. I backed off some more, and then broke out into a full-run, screaming as loud as I could.
"SAVE ME FROM THE MOORISH GHOST!"
Strange how no one appeared ready to assist me... oh, bother. Perhaps I should simply go home to Mum, then. Yes. Yes, that would be quite good.
And after I sup, then my Beloved can hear my words of love!
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Damn vamp thought that I as the ghost and that I was goin' to harm his beloved. His beloved, in his eyes was across the country and then the big damned pond and probably didn't even know he was alive yet....not that he really was, but she didn't know it.
Guessin' that Angel didn't exactly tell her, guess what....
Angel.
Said his name and then the whispers started again and with a pained expression, I covered my ears.
They were tauntin' me, tellin' me that it was Angel's fault that Alanna had died, and that Jason had died.
The voices started to fade away, or at least the mass quantity of them did, and then there was just her voice.
It sounded like ir was so close, like she was actually on me. I could feel her breath on my neck.
'I can take all of the pain away, big brotha, so you don't have to be so strong anymore, so you can be like the one in front of you.'
I turned away from Spike and she wasn't there. There were no more voices, and I had seen her in my dreams...well nightmares, before, but I had neva seen her when I was walkin', and the others too.
Maybe that was it.
"Spike...excuse me, William. Am I sleepwalkin'? Are my eyes open? My eyes were open, and his ghostliness was in front of me. Man, I needed to get out, get some air, because this was just freaky and Spike really wasn't doin' anything for me to help it.
He needed some help. This had to have somethin' to do with the whole ghostly thing, it was makin' him mad, and it was rubbin' off on me.
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I could hear him from behind me as I ran off to find Mum and also to hopefully escape his dreadful noises... voice! No, he had been most definitely a ghost, a spectre of sorts to haunt me and... no. Why had he chosen to haunt me?
To deter me from Angel!
Yes. And that had surely been the reason I was walking so hurredly... had it not?
Why could I not recall my poem? Or where my Beloved had run off to... or why I was even here? Wait, there was a mirror and my ties wasn't quite straight so...
Gasping, I reached toward the looking-glass before me. No! It was impossible... no reflection? Fingertips brushed against the mirror and then...
THEY PASSED THROUGH IT!
"THE ENTIRE BUILDING IS A PHANTOM DESIGNED TO ENSNARE ME!"
I ran off, hopefully toward an exit, but fearful I would never find one. Thank God I was in my right frame of mind, though.
Heaven knows what would happen if I were not, after all.
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