A Kiss, Nothing More
George Smillie
ERIK sighed. He looked out around the opera, his eyes slowly wandering to the stage. It was strange. As he sat in Box 5, he noticed how the seats in the Opera House had become dusty, tired of life. Like him. When the Opera House had closed down, everything had been taken. It seemed that the life and spirit had gone as well. And yet, Erik had stayed. Stayed in his labyrinth. Stayed in this personal hell. Why? He did not know. It wasn't that he enjoyed life there. On the contrary, he could think of many places he would rather be. However, he daren't go out in to the open. To the jeering faces and hateful crowds. He would be shun. Like a freak and a monster. Erik stroked his hand against his unmasked face. He hadn't needed to keep the mask. He had no one to hide from anymore. However, he had kept it. As a personal reminder, a memento of the monster he was. How his life mattered so little that even if he had died in front of his mother she wouldn't have shed a tear. A teardrop of his own rolled down his face, and he wiped it away angrily. How he indeed wished to live again, out in to the open of the Paris streets. How he wished he could speak to another person, after all the years since Christine had left. After the years the Opera House had left. Erik had been ignored. Not a soul had thought of him as they shut his home down. Condemned him to another life of misery�
* * *
THE shadowy corridors were silent. Erik walked down them, humming a tune. His hand brushed against the dusty walls, leaving an ugly smudge on his white gloves. "Masquerade�paper faces on parade." His mask. The mask which hid everything from everyone. It seemed to Erik that in some ways, the mask gained him more ridicule than the face itself. He remembered the songs he would sing, as the angel of music would sing songs in his head as well.
Erik was terrified. Terrified of the world around him, and terrified as he slowly reached the brink of insanity. Terrified of being alone. And yet had been alone all his life. So why should it bother him so much now? He remembered the first day he began to see things. He had been sitting on his throne, and he had heard her voice. It had called to him in a whisper. "I love you Erik�come to me Erik�" He had stood up immediately. "Christine?" he had called. Christine had stood there, plainly in front of him. He remembered the joy in his heart, as he walked towards her. He reached out to kiss�but she was gone. Disappeared. Dead.
After that, Erik had truly considered suicide. His life had reached an all time low. He had come close. He had found an old letter opener in the draw of the manager's office. However, as the knife pricked his skin, he had drawn it away. "Madmoiselle Daae will come back to me," he had said to himself. That had been the first time he had called her by her formal name. That frightened him as well. He was trying to grab one shred of self-respect by being polite! He had said this to himself many times afterwards, using the name Christine, to keep him from turning to that dark path again.
"Christine will come back to me." He found himself saying it once again. Why was this happening to him?
* * *
"NO!" Erik screamed. He picked up the picture. It was a picture of Christine. "No!" He ripped away at the picture. "It can NEVER happen!" The pieces of the pictures fluttered slowly to the floor. Erik collapsed to the floor. "Why Christine? Why did you leave? Left me alone once again! Well! I have always been alone! Always! This changes nothing! Nothing!" he cried, shaking his wrist in the air, as if cursing God above. He stood up, and stormed out of Christine's old dressing room. "He ran through the hallways. "Damn it! Damn Him! Damn it!" It was time to end it.
He burst open to the doors to Box 5. Erik slammed open a drawer, and pulled out a knife. "Just one kiss Christine. One more. Nothing else. Nothing more." Tears welled up in his eyes, and as he prepared to dig the knife in to his chest. " I still love you Christine. I always will." As the knife pierced his skin, Erik fell silent. The pain stung like nothing he had ever felt before, and yet�he was content. It was finally over. All the pain�all the cruelty�The Phantom of the Opera was gone�there was only Erik�
