Finished Death is the Mother of Beauty PV • A. Duncan

The library used to be something of a home for the Duncan boy.

Now after the event he barely stepped foot in there, having finally understood how little roles futile words actually played when fire so easily reduced paper to bare ashes. Once heat had been such a pleasant solace, the beating down of the summer sun on bare arms while tea is served with a Hatter, a toad, Ratty, maybe, or whatever that faraway, childhood name was. Now the uncomfortable tinge that pricked his skin would forever be associated with that licking inferno, not sparing his mother’s resilient body much less the mountains of works of hers. Now the only text that would ever truly matter was tightly secured in Archer’s pocket, easily reached considering the vigilant nature he had developed. It was full of her meandering handwriting. It was full beautiful, meandering handwriting.

Yet here he was. And before Archer was a sight he did not expect — one that most certainly would not be the answer to the questions he had come armed to the teeth with anyways. Or what if the sprawled out possessions of a hapless girl would miraculously bring an old friend he no longer knew by the name of serendipity?

Of course, instinct called for him to pick up the book. An almost entirely black cover with starkly contrasting text typed out with a title he knew well. Acted out as if it was an ancient Greek play were figures drowned in illusion chasing the picturesque at all costs. Tartt’s writing had always been captivating; perhaps it was time to put captivation to good use — ominous foreshadowing that, considering the state of a psyche as unstable as the ladder seemed to be and considering the juvenile age of our anti-hero, may become no more than a red herring as time moved on.

“Here,” he said simply instead.

Standing on tiptoes he was about to hand the book back to its assumed owner. He studied the raven-haired badger as Archer did most people. He was starting to lose the usual observant nature to grief, though today he managed to summon it back as eyes landed over Aurelia with more scrutiny than they usually carried at the unsuspected disturbance. Unkempt hair — though considering the nature his own now resided in, coming to his shoulders in an inglorious manner of clear indifference — was a ferocious curl, with a seemingly permanently set frown and accusatory eyes that made for an ironic comparison considering she was the one who screamed in a room meant for quietude. Watching her with curiosity as she jumped down in a manner that seemed uncouth, she hurried to collect her dropped possessions. Archer watched, unaiding, though not out of genuine indifference, more uncertainty at how to respond to the odd sight. Hoping she might finally stand his hand was still outstretched with the thick paperback offered.

“Isn’t it odd how our perceptions of literature change so dramatically when we have been faced with their idealised themes in real life?” Gods of Illusion — five people no more than students drowned in a velvety sheen of dark romanticism, idealisation of their pretentiousness, their drinking and smoking, their eventual lead to murder played with Richard’s life as much as flames did his. Soon when words sprung off their glazed counterparts on pieces of parchment, they were not so easily defeated by shutting the novel. As their bacchanal ritual descended into a slaughtering hysteria, donning the white tunics of an era impossibly removed soon became a bloody endeavour. As Archer employed his graphs and scales to solve problems of flesh and the lack thereof, the more removed and cold the ashes they never even found felt. Fatal, to some, how the picturesque cracks and washes away in the riverbed.

"...Well, have you? It is fascinating, indeed—have you considered performing a bacchanal ritual before?"

Aurelia, though of course her name was still a mystery to Archer, seemed to have more sinister intentions than the usual voracious reader, for rather than going down his tangent of discussion, pivoted to ask while he had considered one of novel’s highlights, yet at the same time, one of its most treacherous scenes. Leading to the death of two innocents and no matter one was merely a literal deer in the headlights, for even Camilla, despite being the unattainable, pure, Diana-like goddess to Richard, was as much a part of the horrific, reckless, maniacal bacchanalia as any other of the five. Her supposed fascination with the mad activity could have been compared to how Alice found the world of lunatics only curiouser and curiouser, eventually destined to become but a hatter herself if she was not to have woken up form the dream. Despite noticing the first sudden widening than slow narrowing of the girl’s eyes even if she might deem Archer the antagonist the juvenile was none the wiser, seeing Aurelia in a darker light after her proposal.

The mania, and of what Archer inferred, the catalyst that had led to all of the group’s future crimes, was not the beginning of their toxicity but the point of which they romanticised their sins — saw themselves as if they held a greater, self-righteous purpose, like the argument Raskolnikov made comparing himself to Alexander or Napoleon to justify the death of the old pawnbroker and her sister. The idea that Aurelia was comparing him to a murderer sickened him, especially already being fairly sure he played a part, however indirect, in the death of his mother.

Raising his chin in what might have been challenge or defiance, his voice came out oddly quiet in comparison, though as blunt and straightforward as it always was, “No. Even if I did, what answers would it give me but a dead farmer?”

Unlike his younger badger counterpart Archer had no interest in acting strange just for the hell of it. And an act was merely all it was, with Archer unable to find any true difference between it and the despicable charades of elitism worn in the novel, if only that the latter one of uncanniness proved to draw more raised brows than appreciative nods. Although he was aware of the complete shift in behaviour and persona after Christmas and the inevitable baggage death had left on him the boy chose to completely dismiss it, waving away concerned glances and comforting words until he could no longer hide behind a mask of strength and ultimately relented to the unbearable pain. When he had sobbed into the arms of his father he felt no reassurance, rather than pure vulnerability and shame, even in the arms of the man he loved most. There were little people he trusted with his weaknesses and least of all some bookish underclassman. All those prim acts could be damned as long as he doesn’t break down in front of this stranger; her humiliation was enough for the day. So strange he would be, he decided; after all Aurelia had made the first move by asking a question of such nature.

Because in truth, if such a bloody ritual could actually prove itself useful he would jump on the opportunity, uncaring for whose — or how many — bodies left in his wake. If the death of few unlocked solutions for immortality, for necromancy, for that obsessive, yet all the same subconscious seek for solutions at the back of his mind, that was a sacrifice worth being taken. As a boy everyone had praised him for his cleverness, so if he could outsmart this one opponent holding the scythe, no one would feel the same pain anymore. As a boy he had also worked closely with numbers and statistics, and to him, this utilitarianist, ends justified the means. Of course he was willing to try anything, and living in a world of wizardry only proved what one might once think impossible not only the utter opposite but a common occurrence at that. But for a child his age and almost with nonexistent strength, it was mere fantasy that would never happen, but convincing oneself of an answer amongst the never-ending haze made for a fine enough distraction. Archer could only imagine, if donning some bedsheets and running through the woods would solve such problems, what the world would be.

“Well,” he asked, voice barely a whisper, which he could convince himself was simply to conform to the rules of the library, rather out of fear of sounding like he had absolutely lost what little tether he had left, “what do you reckon your almighty wine god wants?”

banner by Alyssea Brown| interacting as Archer Duncan

archer heard the bare whisper of a single word resonate through the library, before realising it was directed at him. Her eyes squinted, in a manner that made Archer’s muscles tense in defence, oblivious to the fact that they were out of wonder rather than the accusation he expected.

Then — “Why didn't I think of that?”

Archer smiled to himself slightly as he caught the whisper of a self-accusatory question when he brought up the point of the dead farmer, the same smile one may bear as a debater who found himself victorious over his opponent. There was a thrill in it, almost, a simple one, It had been so long since he had engaged in anything even similar that despite having just begun their backs and forths he was already more than engrossed, hanging onto to each syllable, then each question mark.

“A pity then,” she continued, and he waited at the clear of his throat, wondering where she was taking the conversation, and finding out disappointedly that it would be in the same direction as anyone else would, “Winter often states that death is the mother of beauty and therefore beauty is terror.”

Ah, there it was. How many times had Archer heard or read the same sentence quoted from Tartt’s book he would not expand on.

“Are you certain that reasoning is absolutely straight though?” He asked pointedly, first focusing on the point she had assumed as truth before anything further. His voice was raised slightly, perhaps to a point above library regulations but he was not going to engage in a conversation as such in whispers. “Is death the mother of beauty therefore beauty is terror, or is beauty terror, therefore has death as its mother? Awe is beauty; awe is fear, and the two subjects have never been apart. Rodya had never attempted to romanticise death, per se, he only thought he was too morally superior to experience guilt. Henry Winter, on the other hand, saw the death as a consequence rather than a catalyst. It was a consequence of his search for the aesthetic, not what began it.” Archer was certain the romanticisation of such things were impossible and had always been. Perhaps once he could have viewed them through the safety net of literature but not anymore. Not when he had experienced grief for himself — then, no metaphor, no matter how florid, could be strong enough to stitch up the scars left by death. If they could, by the flick of some magical quill, drawn over in golden letters, then he would gladly allow it to. Although neither character had been correct, neither had harboured enough rashness to try either.

“And onto your second point,” Archer continued. He was losing himself within the statements, in that philosophy that suppressed all emotion, if only for the slightest of moments, to draw on logic and examples to summon arguments rather than the blind sentiments that had led to screams and kicks. Perhaps he had never realised this was the distraction he needed: other people. Yet it would be foolish to deem the girl as such, for for all they talked of he did not even know her name. No, perhaps the boy only saw her as an extension of his own troubled, chaotic mind, a reverberation where his own thoughts could bounce off of. Anything, however, he would take if it swept him away from reality. This time his point was far shorter, harbouring only one lone rhetorical device and little more, “Why would regret flash in their mind when no true emotion was experienced? Are you so blind to believe that the joy was only a deceptive part of the inevitable insanity?”

He watched passively as the younger student shrugged her shoulders, seemingly unconvinced by the question. If Archer had to hazard a guess she was an atheist, no different from him, and certainly did not believe in the existence of the “almighty wine god”, as he had put it. There were various reasons for this belief or lack thereof, ranging from familial issues of his parents’ potent atheism, the author choosing not to attribute any deity to his muse and the explorer preferring much more scientific powers, to his exposure to atheist literature, which not even Dostoevsky had shaken. Above all, however, especially in the case of the capitalised God that the Russian author believed in, life proved to be far too taxing and the Problem of Evil, drawing examples from his own life, prevailed over any arguments a theist could give. Yet maybe the tragedies in his lifetime only ought to have made him a believer, considering how incredulous they seemed in real life, out of place not in a Euripides play.

“Perhaps if he finds one worthy enough, their wish is his command. Perhaps he would pity us.”

But Archer only scoffed at the notion, pitying Aurelia for that belief more than anything. He knew, from the personal experiences since Christmas that had landed him glares and chastising that Dionysus reigned over a part of the psyche that refused to be controlled by any semblance of rationality. It would only be a matter of time before Archer, too, would fly into fury most illogical, when emotion overruled what little logic like alcohol entering the brain, and after that, he was completely in the god’s domain. He acted as if not the being within his body but one watching himself, a raging, ridiculous newly-thirteen-year-old boy, and that had been the point of the farmer’s death. No matter what sort of good people they could be in the daytime (though that was another argument to be made for the classics group), behind drawn curtains and under the haze of intoxication laid entirely different people. There was a reason he controlled both the fermented beverage and madness — after all they were not too different from each other. “Devastated? Perhaps only after the wine worn off and he was brought to his senses. That still does nothing to revert the damage left in his wake. Dionysus may be benevolent in a good mood but let’s not forget he is, in fact, the god of mania.”

Then, as their words tapered away into the stillness of the library, returned silence once more from their respective points. It was a state Archer was comfortable with, and had been for thirteen years already. From the days of quiet reading with his mother, noiseless bar from the rain pattering on the windows, to his current predicament in this often tortuous school, finding the places where words failed to reach him, sat below crumbling archways or leaned onto forgotten trees, content with himself and only himself, and his thoughts broadcasting on the loudest volume in his mind. That was in a time when his thoughts were pleasant, cordial discussions, of literature rather than sorrow, at least. Now Archer wished for nothing more than for Aurelia to continue, if only to give him something else to focus on that was not the roaring in his head.

And so she indeed provided. “If death is the mother of beauty, do you think a death of someone should be glorified and celebrated - just like the Egyptians did; who believed that death is the blessing of all?”

Two words caught him off guard from the entirety of her question. Death was not a word that went well with “glorified” and “celebrated”. If it did, then the brilliant mind of the Hufflepuff ought to explain to him why, after experiencing it so close to his own self, he felt no godly ecstasy of any sort but only a weighing sensation in his chest, threatening to drag him down to Tartarus himself. Why, then, could he not bring himself to burst into song and dance with a bottle of contraband champagne, instead of into tears so plentiful he could drink it rather than the alcohol? Why, then, could he not dance in even a semblance — for he knew it did not have to be real for him to convince himself he was experiencing such pleasures — of this temporary ecstasy and instead chose to rot away in his dormitory, hiding in books and behind spells rather than face his own emotions? Clearly, the innocent little girl had never experienced what he had, and for that, Archer was more than happy for her untainted soul.

No, Archer did not think the death of someone was an occasion ought to be celebrated or glorified, he wished, with every breaking bone and every bleeding cell in his body that it was, for at least he could bless himself with some relief. But he, just as he expected, said none of that.

He said none of that because his mind wandered to a far, far different place, and a far, far darker place. Of course he had considered the notion; who else in his position would not? In this unfair world it was no easy task to live, and after all the injustices he had went through there was nothing more prevalent than guilt. Guilt, because he could have done something; guilt, because he could have been faster; guilt, because the world could have chosen to punish him in any other way that did not involve taking his mother. Maybe that solution was one for cowards, but he ought not to pretend he did not stand on the cliffs where he once picnicked, no longer holding the hand of Marguerite, no longer laughing as he looked out to the ocean and the jagged rocks below. And there he must have pondered, convincing himself it was a mere hypothetical, just intrusive thoughts playing with his mind, yet Archer knew himself far too well believe such lies. Perhaps there would not be an afterlife as the Egyptians believed, and perhaps he would not spend his life preparing for death, but that was something he could live with — or, rather conveniently, die thinking of.

Was that what Aurelia sought for in an answer? No, she wanted nothing personal, and he ought not to include anything personal, for they were simply discussing a novel, philosophies, things meant to be written down into research papers. Because art never imitated life, right?

“In my present predicament,” he begun warily, though not with a certain undertone of conviction that ran through the veins of his voice, like a sewer under a bustling city, “I would not dare argue. There is no greater blessing that could be bestowed upon m—” some of the decisiveness in his voice left him as he changed his mind on the pronoun, realising that he was, in fact, spilling his innards out of in front of a mere stranger whose only good trait seemed to be a shared enjoyment of literature “— one than death.”

Silence was an uncanny existence, a truth once found so comforting yet between the two of them, it was a stamp with nowhere sloppily printed on the address. It was an invitation, yet all the same, it was an ostracisation. Two cogs of the same design, belonging to two far different machines — one user gentle with its handling, the other abusive and explosive, leaving stains of tar and mechanical scars carved over the labels. Until he would forget, entirely, who he was.

There was a time when Archer enjoyed the nature of silence. The nothingness. The solace. Sat in quietude under a blanket of stars, curled up in bed with only a flickering candle and dripping wax, the company of another with softly held hands and tentative gestures. Tentative, yet graceful, loving. An ice skater hesitant to disturb the translucent web of frozen awe, yet elegant as she jumped and danced over the silently sealed lake surface. It hid secrets Aurelia would never know.

Finally, out spilt words Archer felt like he had been containing for an eternity, phrased with manipulation, presented merely as another argument in their endless debate.

Archer half acknowledged, half dismissed Aurelia’s sudden snap of the head, glancing down on him upon her high horse, their distance both metaphorical and literal. Archer had to crane his head to see her, an action he did not enjoy. His eyes flitted away on their own accord, entirely without permission from his mind as they found more interest in his boots. A hue of red crept up his cheeks, as if he had been out in the cold too long. Perhaps, but at least weather was a more forgiving mistress.

“You do?” She asked with an oddity, and Archer found his own head snapping to meet her gaze of introspective brown.

“I do,” Archer replied softly, the will gone from his voice. The same two words repeated throughout the word, whether at negotiations or marriages, yet there was no firmness in his own. It was replaced by some tentative semblance of decision, an announcement meant for the silence between the two of them. Despite the certainty in his tone there was something vaguely hesitant of the way he spoke, as if he were a headstrong birdling first learning how to fly: so sure of himself, so scared of the void. There was a silent cry for help beneath the surface of his words, a nature to his language he did not realise even himself, much less would one expect a stranger to sense his ambiguous undertones. Perhaps in him was the same fear for the unknown, and he was no better than a bird. Would that be everything he would amount to be?

“For me, I believe that is all gobbledygook.”

Archer furrowed his brows curious befuddlement. “What? Why engage in it then?” There was an edge of bewilderment to his voice, yet beyond confusion was the sharply pointed attempt at making a point. Such thoughts were for the tortured, such thoughts led to the tortured — there was no reason to participate in intellectual agony when all it brought was the torment of overthinking. He paused, then asked with sincere curiosity and the genuine tilt of a head a question he had long wished to inquire, yet never had the guts to admit: “Why engage in life at all?”

To live was a horrendous thing, ugly and dirty, rotten and decayed. Life was not a blessing but a torture, and maybe to be brought into this world was to suffer the consequences from the mistakes of one’s own mother. Yet Archer, poor, lost Archer, was motherless, a helpless bird still uncertain how to fly, yet plunging into the depths below all too premature. It had taken all meaning away from life, made it into a downward spiralling hell he was now forever lost in. Perhaps the question he had meant to ask was if it was all truly worth the pain.

He did not want to die. No one wanted to die. Archer Theodore Duncan just did not want to suffer any longer.

But was that not what life was? Suffering?

Should he not learn to accept that?

“Although, who could blame them? They must be suffering beyond comprehension that they conjured up the idea that there must be something so much better and rewarding after the life they had lived, that there must be a logical explanation for the pain they endured.”

Then, silence, once more, hung heavily in the air. Perhaps Aurelia would never know it was a pain he endured.

“Do you know of the Garden of Proserpine, by Swinburne?” He asked suddenly, seemingly losing the plot of their previous conversation as he jumped to the new topic, absentmindedly watching Aurelia as she sorted the books back onto the shelf. Rising his hand to his face, he rested his cheek onto his palm, before slumping forward and laying his chest down on the table, the old structure creaking slightly under his weight. His head lolled gently to the side, fingers halfheartedly playing with the crooks and dents in the wood as he stretched out his arm.

A thought fluttered into his mind the way a dove flutters through a nest of thorns, calling for a land of peace even in a world that belonged violence, begging for stillness in a field of chaos. Yet it had struck him with the certainty of a knife, almost attempting to force itself out of his lips before he could say anything.

He did not straighten when he began, merely ran his other hand through his hair in some semblance of preparation, then spoke with the essence of a trance-like state:
“Oh how… We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever
That dead men rise up never
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.”

He finished, and let out a long breath, looking towards Aurelia expectantly, letting the lines settle in the air.

@Aurelia Valentine | banner by Adeline Spinks

Death was a tireless subject, yet so quickly did it grew to tire. Archer, an accumulation of brooding and ire, wished to dwell on the comfort of its embrace forever, yet was all the same time so desperate to escape its grasp. A paradox that was destined to hold him forever in this quagmire.

Archer listened through her interpretations of the Garden of Proserpine with little reaction, merely offering a nod here or there. His attachment towards the piece of work extended beyond its literal meaning and connected with the pragmatics of context. It was the work that shaped his childhood, scribbled onto the front of every notebook, and recited like a prayer.

It was still. One of the only things he could cling onto anymore.

Perhaps it was for that reason that it was almost intrusive when Aurelia delved to dissect the poem’s details. He watched halfheartedly as she spoke, and offered no answer to her question but a shrug. It was as if she had snatched away something personal from himself and created her own understanding. An understanding that struck into the sentimental weight it carried in Archer’s heart.

No matter, he thought, shaking his head. She was just an oblivious girl, while he was just a melancholic boy, drawn together by a shared love for literature that transcended emotion.

As she cleared her throat, revealing what an age that seemed to be far older than her eleven years, Archer too leaned forward, and positioned himself to better hear the wisdom of his younger counterpart. Archer lent an intent ear to Aurelia’s own poetry recital, yet his mind was half elsewhere. As short and gentle as she had promised, it was almost inane, yet endearing in its absurdity. A tale of kindness, a story for children, yet one that most adults desperately needed to hear. He nodded slowly in response, hands clapping halfheartedly as she finished.

Walking away from Aurelia, book tucked under his arm, eyes set on the ground rather than the corridors ahead of him, Archer’s mind could not help but linger on the conversation that had been. His head pounded with the remnants of the dialogue, and as he trained his gaze on each footfall and the creak in the floorboard that followed, he still found himself uttering the words, to know one in particular. His voice was soft, low, and barely audible, and despite being meant for no one in particular, trailed after him in his wake.“Beauty is the mother of death.”

He turned the words over in his mouth, a twisted reversal of Tartt’s infamous line. Perhaps he found some inkling of semblance in his own life, but as the afternoon sun beat down on his shoulders, he was oddly complacent.

@Aurelia Valentine | banner by Adeline Spinks