Waltz

He waltzed alone along the gelid, grey corridors, his own steps echoing ghostly in the distance, accompanied by a menacing pulse of faint thumps, yet he danced on, waving his arms dementedly, ripping apart the stillness of the jaded, scornful atmosphere… Yet he danced, to the sound of beautiful music that only he could hear throb achingly from the deepest caves of his conscience, he danced mystically, strolling in a vicious rhythm before the oil pantings that adorned his walls, onto ancient Persian rugs, besmirching their artistic inaccessibility. No more did he fear death, for one can only fear that which is unexpected, and the loudening thumps outside were the omen of his bloody demise, and so he danced, he strolled, he waltzed, he hummed. And as imagined the hordes of loutish villagers arrived, torches afire, shouting profanity as he felt the very floor beneath his feet shake as the unrivalled strength of an angry mob defied the solid foundation of his final refuge, a citadel to ensure the last minutes of his musical farewell to humankind. Knowingly, he sauntered in a nauseating pace down the corridors that led to the tallest of the towers, and there he stood, rocking left to right to the rhythm of his private song. Room by room, the richly decorated castle was razed by the maddened peasants; they burnt canvas after canvas, rug after rug until there was no more of the man’s paraphernalia to be inclemently reduced to vestiges of a once glorious life. Shattering whatever stood between their fury and the object of their unending hatred, the villagers left a trace of destruction after them as they rummaged every corner of the palace seeking the man whose fate had already been cruelly set, until they happened upon the very last yards of unexplored stone and lumber – one final door, kicked down. The man danced with his own spirit as the angry murderers-to-be ogled him in his unruly madness, eyes tightly shut, the thought of slaughter palpably raising from their minds like steam. Acknowledging defeat, he continued to waltz alone resolute as agony-inspiring words slipped from out of his mouth and swirled about in lunacy before they hit the ground with a cold thump of hopelessness. ‘I am your god, and ye are–’, he screamed, seconds before being beheaded.