Into-the-Dark

These city streets seem endless sometimes, though I'm far from on my own. But get back to my own patch and I know I've made it home. The bars and clubs and faces now seem more familiar, but the company following me only wants to kill her. She says what she says and she writes what she writes, but it don't make her no friends, be they left or they right. Freedom of speech means nothing if you say the wrong thing, and I'm leading them straight to her, forgive me this thing.
I relax a little now I'm on streets I know well, stop and light a cigarette, a welcoming smell. I pause outside the B.A. bar and have a look around, the rhythm of the violin washes through me, there's no other sound. Inside the place is jumping, I could call friends for aid. But I need to do this alone, and I feel so afraid. I have thugs at my back and they're ready to crack down, I have to linger only a little longer in this old part of town.
She stands for truth and justice, and will always choose to. She speaks for the many who oppose the select few. But safety in numbers is never what it seems, the power is with them and their political machine. And the migrants are migrating, they're all headed south, and the worst thing is to stay around and open your mouth. She can stay in the shadows, but only for so long, before she has to burst forth to shout out what's right and what's wrong.
And my part in this, is that I know of their plan. They'll kidnap and kill her the next chance they can. I've got to try and warn her before it's too late, but I'm being followed around and they know I can't wait. A rock and a hard place, between them I lie, and I have to keep going or someone's going to die.
It's time to go back to my apartment block, the doors off it's hinges, so much for the lock. And inside it's chaos and everythings a mess, and whatever they found here is anybody's guess. But the simplest things are the easiest to miss, and right where I hid it, I find her last list. The times and the places where she will go to meet, and the next one is an hour away, I'll have to be quick on my feet.
So with my tail still behind me, I leave my own place, and begin the last scene of this life or death race. And with my heart pounding and my lungs screaming no, I run to that place where I have to go. I arrive seconds before them and my warning I scream, then chaos and death arrive on the scene. Gunshots ring out and I feel myself go down, covered in dirt and blood on the wrong side of town. But I lift my head up and see her get away, she looks back for a second and smiles softly my way. My mission is over, I've nothing left to do, but lay down and die like I've chosen to.

On a silvery night, out here on the moor, something is cooking, of what I'm not sure. In the valley below me, I see figures come together, their movements are slow as if they follow a leader. They seem to be swaying, or is it a dance, bodies moving in rhythm as if in a trance.

And the trees seem wary and the grass starts to shiver, and my bones turn to cold and I wish I hadn't hid here. Did the moon just get brighter? Did a siren just sound? Now the figures are glowing as they open the mouths.

At first so quiet that I strain to hear, then the sound invades me and I put my hands over my ears. And the seventeen souls of seventeen songs rips through the night, and the figures burn red as the moon freezes white. And the trees run away as a new sound is heard, and up on this ridge I'm alone and I'm scared.

A grumble of drumming and the rocks dive for cover, and a piercing tune that sounds like no other. My whole body shakes as ground itself moves, and it's from the earth itself, that I feel this groove. The seventeen songs have awoken the souls, of hellish musicians and upwards they rose.

And the moon is extinguished, but the songs carry on, and in the dark I don't know where the singers have gone. In my blind state I feel every note and every beat, until I am just the songs and I rise to my feet. My senses have gone, I am only this tune, and I sway and I dance and I know it will be soon.

My mouth starts to open and I'm desperate to sing, go down to the valley and join in this thing. But the words are not in me and I fall to my knees, the tune leaves my body and I well up with tears. And I cry and cry until it is light, and everything looks normal no trace of the night.

I walk to the valley and feel nothing at all, except a humming in my brain of a song half recalled. And two years have passed and I've searched and I've looked, but found few answers and had no good luck. But today could be different as my sources have found, word of seventeen women moving around.

They've boarded a ferry and head for the isle, and they're all dressed in white and have fearsome smiles. If I run and I race and use all my might, I may just make it before day turns to night. And if I do, I won't be hiding away, I'll be dressed in white and ready to play.

And when the moon turns me silver I'll open my mouth, the eighteenth soul of the eigtheenth song will come out. And as I glow red I'll know that watching the scene, will be the next voice with eyes wide with fear. But that's for the future for this is my time, and the ground starts shaking to the rhythm and rhyme.

From beneath the depths all the musicians will come, and me and the others will sing now as one, and the answers to all questions now come to me, truth only found in our strange harmony. Why are we here, and what it's all for, on a silvery night, out here on the moor.

It's frantic tonight in the bleak house at the back of beyond. Preperarations are being prepared for a game that's afoot. And the starry windswept sky seems to blink at all this industry, and the moon's nowhere to be seen on a night like this. There's a scent of blood on the wind and a taste of violence on the tip of every tongue.

Somewhere, in another part of nowhere, they're shakin' in their boots, waiting for that deadliest of snakes to strike. Revenge is always expected, but long overdue, so she frequently catches even the most alert by surprise. Tonight she will be here, everyone can feel her, but noone is talking, safety in silence and solitude reigns.

Footsteps are muffled by the swirl of the wind, but beating hearts can be heard in beating brains as nerves become frayed. Dry mouths and churning stomachs give way to equal measures of fear and excitement mirroring the equal measures of earlier dutch courage. The mob is outside and it wants to come in.

Inside a fever of anxiety has gripped all and sundry, all this waiting, all this waiting, let them come and let it be done, anything but this waiting. And in answer to this prayer, hell fire pours in through the doors and windows and it won't be leaving until everything is burnt. And the world becomes a cacophony of squeals and shrieks and profanities and blood.

Early morning sees the beaten and wounded stumbling towards dreams of sanctuary. Prices have been paid, scores settled, eyes for eyes, teeth for broken teeth, and like every other time, everybody has lost. And the spirit of revenge leaves this sullen land and only fear knows of her return.