The Tomb of Memories

He looked at them and stood suddenly motionless. Moments before he was scrambling in the cramped, darkness of the wings, his arms raking in the jumble of costumes that had been frantically discarded. Now, standing in the underbelly of the theatre, the stagehand was scrambling instead to process the scene before him.

At the farthest end of a dimly gaslit corridor walked two familiar figures; a middle-aged woman accompanied by her daughter. Although separated by over twenty years, both were slender, radiated beauty, and moved with an effortless grace.

The scene transfixed him because, although the pair moved naturally, they were both incomplete. The older woman was without the lower part of a leg, the younger missing her right arm.
The two were also dead.

He watched them walk a short distance, conversing, arm in arm, then they slipped casually into an adjoining dressing room.

A few seconds later, a short, elderly man emerged.

‘Did… did you..?’

The old man didn’t reply. His expression remained fixed ahead.

‘How many times is that-?’ the stagehand asked, but the question tapered off when the old man turned and lumbered slowly down the corridor.

At the end stood a heavy stage door. He passed through it and out into the cold night. Around him, the evening jostled. He lit a cigar and, as he waved away the match, he fell into his memories.

They would come out here together when they were young. Between shows.

Gossiping.

Laughing.

Loving.

Those years were the happiest of his life. Years he took for granted. The adulation. The career. The people.

He never imagined they might come to an end. That his looks would fade. His faculties fail. That the people he shared the stage with would one day cease to make their entrance.

Though they still hit their mark.

Only now, when the end felt so palpable…

Those times.

When she dazzled. Show after sell-out show.

Capturing hearts. Conquering critics. Year upon year. Defining her generation.

Until the arrival of the only star that could ever shine more brightly. The one that she herself created.

Harmony.

Her prodigy.

The concentration of herself that she nurtured and refined, shielding her from the world until she was ready to blossom.

And oh, how she bloomed.

For a brief, but magnificent time, the two flowers co-existed, complementing, and creating beauty and talent, the likes of which had never been seen on any stage. Before or since.

Night after sold-out night.

She soared.

She burned bright as a fledgling sun, drawing all into her orbit.

Until one anonymous day, a dormant, merciless black hole emerged. That grew.

Slowly at first.

Yet unrelenting. Until it consumed.

Extinguished.

The brightest light.

In death, as in life, where one went, the other was soon to follow. And so it was, that in less than a year, the cold, unforgiving night sky lost two stars.

And yet.

And yet…

Soon after people started to glimpse the pair around the theatre; sometimes standing in the wings, opposite unsettled performers awaiting their cue; sometimes seated patiently together in an empty auditorium; but more often they were to be seen wandering the labyrinth of corridors and passages that ran beneath the theatre.

Like tonight.

Flattening his cigar underfoot, the old man walked back inside and passed through another door, behind which sat a dusty set of stairs. He lit a nearby candle.

At the bottom lay a vast storage area, the air thick with dust and decay, which housed a variety of old props, costumes, and sets. Few people used the space, most were unaware it even existed. But this was where the old man now spent most of his time. Submerged in this tomb of old memories.

A solitary chair sat by a table. On it a lamp, a glass, and a bottle, half filled. Sighing, he sat and touched the candle to the lamp’s frayed wick.

He poured.

And waited.

In time, the lamp flickered, then two vague figures – one larger than the other – slowly formed before him. They were dancers, as if leaning at an invisible bar. Feet pointed, the elder raised her arm gracefully and held it aloft. Momentarily, the smaller, childlike shadow mirrored her.

Enraptured, the old man absorbed the fragile, ethereal vision. Almost afraid to breathe, he watched as his wife and daughter were momentarily reborn. He watched until he felt his heart could stand it no longer.

And as the light faded, he welcomed the darkness.