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But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!”
Frost was finding that as he recited the dark poem, his pain was channeled. The grief consumed him fully, but it was a controlled agony, one he understood and could predict. So, he continued.
----
We dashed through the lobby. I nearly slipped on the slick tile floor and barely kept my balance as the room spun.
There was a large clock on the wall.
11:56.
----
I laugh quietly to myself. What a fool, muttering to himself about birds and prophets while I watch him, unseen. If for nothing else, he deserved to die for his stupidity and fragility.
I lay the knife on the kitchen counter and retreat once more to my hiding place to watch.
----
The elevators were all occupied. When we reached them and realized that we couldn’t wait for one, I shouted, “Fuck!” Justin led the way to the stairwell.
We were running up the stairs when I collapsed on the second landing. Justin swore and struggled to pull me to my feet. I echoed him, swearing at myself and at Nina. We weren’t going to make it.
----
He had always thought that the reason the narrator kept asking the raven such cruel questions when he knew what the answer would be was that he was descending into insanity. But no. It was far more than that. Frost knew that now. And so, because the loss and grief were his life now, because there was no denying or escaping or ignoring what he had lost, he asked the raven,
“‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us- by that God we both adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.’
Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
----
As we continued up the stairs, I could hear people already partying on the second floor. A TV turned up too loud announced that one minute remained before midnight.
----
Frost glimpsed the shining silver edge of the knife on the counter. He didn’t even think about how it had gotten there as he stood up and lifted the blade, pointing it at the shadow as he screamed,
“‘Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,’ I shrieked, upstarting-
‘Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and TAKE THY FORM FROM OFF MY DOOR!’”
