[the confrontation.] that unmistakable sound i know so well.
Once upon a time, there was a man with two faces, one red and one white. Now, this is not unusual, for every man, woman and child wears a face like this: when we speak unkind words to one another or laugh for the strangest of reasons, that red face for a moment is visible. It is the shared secret of humanity that in each of us exists at once the possibility of beauty, and just as much the possibility of brutality.
Once upon an earlier time, there was a little boy with only one heart, but he was wholly alive and wholly awake with a mind full of secrets and mysteries, just as every human being was before the angel pressed her finger to our lips and said never tell what you know. This is why each of us has a mark above the mouth, to hold inside the dreams we knew before, that each of us is beloved by something larger than ourselves, that we are whole only in the meeting of our red and white faces: for that which is wicked is hidden, and that which is hidden is holy.
Once upon a time a young man lost his image of God, and when his heart broke, it split with a great rush of blood into two, each only a half. One heart stayed the heart of a child and knew a child's grace, but the other at once filled in all the space left over with a terrible sound like rushing wind. His father was lost on a long, dark path, and he knew from the other children at school every house had to have a grown-up in it. The boy learned how to balance a checkbook and fix a blown out fuse, which was easy for him with such a fierce, sharp, mind, the mind he had gotten from his father, his lost image of God. But there were other things he could not learn with no one to teach him, such as how to ask for help when he really didn't understand what The Scarlet Letter was supposed to mean, anyway, or what to do when a girl smiled at him, or how to move on when he fell too hard and too fast even to scream. Eventually the child's heart withered and died from neglect, but the young man didn't notice, you see, he was really very busy with his work.
Once upon a time there was a man with only half a heart. One beat barely at all; when one lives half-asleep half as many beats are sufficient, and so he lived happily in the graveyard of his own memories. Real happiness of course is never possible only half-alive, but he had spent so long without knowing anything else that his eyes were shut to the deepest mysteries of the world. This man spent his life making tiny golden lanterns, which he hung in the caverns of darkness where his father was lost, but each light was so small and so faint - even though they shone with all the light his heart had to offer - that it was never enough to lead him back. He gathered knowledge from every place in the world and took it into himself until he slept and ate and breathed only this, until his half-beating heart and his throat were clogged with pieces of numbers and words like thorns. When he was full enough he took all these things he had found and crumbled them into powder, and then he mixed them into two potions: one red, and one white.
Henry Jekyll never really got fairy tales. Maybe it's because he didn't hear them much growing up, maybe after a certain amount of pragmatism you grow up and your heart dies, as Ally Sheedy - that adolescent bastion of wisdom - can tell you. The problem is, now he's stuck in one anyway, and he doesn't have the right kind of armor; he keeps trying to fight the red face with science when only magic will do.
This is what's left to him: a silver gun and a plexiglass cage, built by his own hands in the time he spent locked in his house, every piece put into place in the few moments that passed when his mind was his own. It stands ready now, in a corner of the lab where everything has been cleared away, this empty room that once held every dream he's ever had. Nothing is left here but three transparent walls, one mirror, and a man prepared to end his own life as long as it will kill the monster inside him.
"Mirror, mirror-" he's almost surprised to hear his own voice, "am I a good man?"
The mirror says nothing, but the hollows under his eyes speak louder than bombs.
"A madman, then- is this only the inevitable coming for me? If I end this- is there peace beyond this place? If I've lost my mind is it really so terrible to lose my life?"
(He doesn't let himself think of Hasi, of amber eyes bright with unshed tears- he thinks only that she is safe and far away. This is what matters: she can cry, and then she can forget she ever knew Henry Jekyll.)
Do you really think I'll let you do that, Dr. Jekyll?
The voice in his head sounds so like his own he can almost ignore it now.
Almost, but not for long; it is abruptly not only the voice in his head but the voice in his throat- he looks in the mirror and looks not back into his own eyes, but into Hyde's. "It's over now, Hyde."
Please. Let it be over; he is so tired. At once the tearing is so great he thinks it will be this that kills him, and as he has wished once before he prays to no one listening that it might. Where he goes when Hyde is in control is somewhere locked behind his own eyes, sightless but hearing that voice like his and not, sinuous like crawling things and jagged like glass: "But it isn't, you see, I'll never let you go."
Jekyll claws his way back up, screaming for the surface: "You don't have to! I'll stop this, I will--"
and he rushes headlong for the mirror, slamming headfirst into it, blood streaming at once from a thousand gashes, blinding him. He feels the iron grip of his left hand around his throat, enough pressure to make him see stars and grabs for it with his right before falling back down into blackness.
Hyde's voice is there, it's always there. "It's too late! There's nothing you can do, soon there will be only me, only Hyde."
Jekyll seizes within the confines of his own mind and drags one of Hyde's fists into the side of that smirking face, no blood there yet even though when he finally pulls back into the world, his own vision is still obscured by red like stinging paint.
"No! You disappear when I close my eyes, you'll never be real- you're only my face turned inside out, you're only every nightmare I've ever had-"
His feet carry him at impossible screaming speed toward the mirror again, when he puts his hands up to stop himself he feels a jagged spike of glass shoot deep into the meat of one palm, and then he feels nothing.
"Wake up, Henry, this nightmare will never end-"
Hyde's jaw knits back up almost as fast as it's broken, but the crunch is still deeply satisfying.
"I don't need you like you need me, not anymore! Every chance I ever had of coming back from this is gone, isn't that enough for you? What more can you possibly take from me?"
The mirror rushes up and he screams
Blackness
the mirror
and blindness
and back
and forth
and again
and again
each of them flowing into the other with the same wet ripping every time
it never hurts any less
"I can take everything, Henry- all I want is for you to die; when you die in me, I'll be you."
"--no, never, we're not the same-"
"But we are! I am pure, and you're only my shadow!"
"God damn you, Hyde-"
"God is dead, Dr. Jekyll."
Henry sees his reflection swim large in what's left of the mirror, and just before he loses consciousness, he supposes that's probably true.
Once upon an earlier time, there was a little boy with only one heart, but he was wholly alive and wholly awake with a mind full of secrets and mysteries, just as every human being was before the angel pressed her finger to our lips and said never tell what you know. This is why each of us has a mark above the mouth, to hold inside the dreams we knew before, that each of us is beloved by something larger than ourselves, that we are whole only in the meeting of our red and white faces: for that which is wicked is hidden, and that which is hidden is holy.
Once upon a time a young man lost his image of God, and when his heart broke, it split with a great rush of blood into two, each only a half. One heart stayed the heart of a child and knew a child's grace, but the other at once filled in all the space left over with a terrible sound like rushing wind. His father was lost on a long, dark path, and he knew from the other children at school every house had to have a grown-up in it. The boy learned how to balance a checkbook and fix a blown out fuse, which was easy for him with such a fierce, sharp, mind, the mind he had gotten from his father, his lost image of God. But there were other things he could not learn with no one to teach him, such as how to ask for help when he really didn't understand what The Scarlet Letter was supposed to mean, anyway, or what to do when a girl smiled at him, or how to move on when he fell too hard and too fast even to scream. Eventually the child's heart withered and died from neglect, but the young man didn't notice, you see, he was really very busy with his work.
Once upon a time there was a man with only half a heart. One beat barely at all; when one lives half-asleep half as many beats are sufficient, and so he lived happily in the graveyard of his own memories. Real happiness of course is never possible only half-alive, but he had spent so long without knowing anything else that his eyes were shut to the deepest mysteries of the world. This man spent his life making tiny golden lanterns, which he hung in the caverns of darkness where his father was lost, but each light was so small and so faint - even though they shone with all the light his heart had to offer - that it was never enough to lead him back. He gathered knowledge from every place in the world and took it into himself until he slept and ate and breathed only this, until his half-beating heart and his throat were clogged with pieces of numbers and words like thorns. When he was full enough he took all these things he had found and crumbled them into powder, and then he mixed them into two potions: one red, and one white.
Henry Jekyll never really got fairy tales. Maybe it's because he didn't hear them much growing up, maybe after a certain amount of pragmatism you grow up and your heart dies, as Ally Sheedy - that adolescent bastion of wisdom - can tell you. The problem is, now he's stuck in one anyway, and he doesn't have the right kind of armor; he keeps trying to fight the red face with science when only magic will do.
This is what's left to him: a silver gun and a plexiglass cage, built by his own hands in the time he spent locked in his house, every piece put into place in the few moments that passed when his mind was his own. It stands ready now, in a corner of the lab where everything has been cleared away, this empty room that once held every dream he's ever had. Nothing is left here but three transparent walls, one mirror, and a man prepared to end his own life as long as it will kill the monster inside him.
"Mirror, mirror-" he's almost surprised to hear his own voice, "am I a good man?"
The mirror says nothing, but the hollows under his eyes speak louder than bombs.
"A madman, then- is this only the inevitable coming for me? If I end this- is there peace beyond this place? If I've lost my mind is it really so terrible to lose my life?"
(He doesn't let himself think of Hasi, of amber eyes bright with unshed tears- he thinks only that she is safe and far away. This is what matters: she can cry, and then she can forget she ever knew Henry Jekyll.)
Do you really think I'll let you do that, Dr. Jekyll?
The voice in his head sounds so like his own he can almost ignore it now.
Almost, but not for long; it is abruptly not only the voice in his head but the voice in his throat- he looks in the mirror and looks not back into his own eyes, but into Hyde's. "It's over now, Hyde."
Please. Let it be over; he is so tired. At once the tearing is so great he thinks it will be this that kills him, and as he has wished once before he prays to no one listening that it might. Where he goes when Hyde is in control is somewhere locked behind his own eyes, sightless but hearing that voice like his and not, sinuous like crawling things and jagged like glass: "But it isn't, you see, I'll never let you go."
Jekyll claws his way back up, screaming for the surface: "You don't have to! I'll stop this, I will--"
and he rushes headlong for the mirror, slamming headfirst into it, blood streaming at once from a thousand gashes, blinding him. He feels the iron grip of his left hand around his throat, enough pressure to make him see stars and grabs for it with his right before falling back down into blackness.
Hyde's voice is there, it's always there. "It's too late! There's nothing you can do, soon there will be only me, only Hyde."
Jekyll seizes within the confines of his own mind and drags one of Hyde's fists into the side of that smirking face, no blood there yet even though when he finally pulls back into the world, his own vision is still obscured by red like stinging paint.
"No! You disappear when I close my eyes, you'll never be real- you're only my face turned inside out, you're only every nightmare I've ever had-"
His feet carry him at impossible screaming speed toward the mirror again, when he puts his hands up to stop himself he feels a jagged spike of glass shoot deep into the meat of one palm, and then he feels nothing.
"Wake up, Henry, this nightmare will never end-"
Hyde's jaw knits back up almost as fast as it's broken, but the crunch is still deeply satisfying.
"I don't need you like you need me, not anymore! Every chance I ever had of coming back from this is gone, isn't that enough for you? What more can you possibly take from me?"
The mirror rushes up and he screams
Blackness
the mirror
and blindness
and back
and forth
and again
and again
each of them flowing into the other with the same wet ripping every time
it never hurts any less
"I can take everything, Henry- all I want is for you to die; when you die in me, I'll be you."
"--no, never, we're not the same-"
"But we are! I am pure, and you're only my shadow!"
"God damn you, Hyde-"
"God is dead, Dr. Jekyll."
Henry sees his reflection swim large in what's left of the mirror, and just before he loses consciousness, he supposes that's probably true.