round 14 Captain Blueheart - Hands

[Blueheart]

((Captain’s Ready Room, USS Atlantis))

:: Sliding open the top drawer of the desk, he drew from its chamber, a yellow-paged journal bound in red vellum, the skin soft and supple after years of handling with love and tenderness. Tonight however, love would be left out of the equation.

He had the rest of the room bathed in darkness before lighting a single ivory-white candle, standing apathetically in a brass candle-stand. Shadows danced across the room. Shadows fell upon his face. His eyes glowed like nebulae. A fragile thin wisp of smoke snaked through the still air like a somnolent serpent, wandering aimlessly and unwary of its destination.

Also from the same drawer, he obtained a striped pheasant quill and a delicate inkpot, into which he dipped the vicious point. Turning the crisp pages to where only blank ones stared back at him, he began to stain it with the blackest of inks, with the most sorrowful of words..

Where are your hands

In this sea of black

I only see the shadows

Holding us back

I reach out for you

I miss you

But nothing remains

Hands that once stilled my heart

Lost in the dark

All the memories

All the sweetness

Gone in a heartbeat

What love is left

Slips further down the abyss

Down where no hands can reach

I fill the ocean with tears

Tears of pain

Tears of regret

Tears we thought we would never shed

Who will hold my hand

Through the dark of night

For not even your ghost

Graces my sight

Only tears in my hands

I can offer Fate

For no more love

Lingers in my world

No more light

Shines in my gloom

Dead is the flame

That once lit our hearts

Only the cold, cold hands

Of a savage universe

Smothering

Choking

What once was ours.

Where the tip still lingered on the page, a dark, grotesque shape was growing. It was both the shape and color of his own weeping heart. His heart wept black where his eyes could not bleed scarlet.

He placed the journal, the inkpot and the quill back into their secret hiding place. He stared into the golden flame of the dying candle, trembling for what was to come. Then he reached out with his thumb and index finger and killed what light was left in his world. ::

TBC

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Captain Raj Blueheart

Commanding Officer

USS Atlantis

NCC-74682