I have forgotten if I am dreaming. All these faces, supercilious, like grotesques, like jokes. These scowling demons rising over me, can they be real? They seem so distant. “Words, words, words,” and the rhythm of the gavel’s keeping time. About me? Have I become the center of this turmoil? The calm eye of this storm which perceives itself; I am gazing out at the swirling maelstrom of mad judges and grim jurors, salivating journalists, like scavenging wolves, and the gawking strangers in the gallery my forgotten dreams titillate.
I will wake up, I suppose, but this dream has no beginning, reason, nor end; this perpetual accusation has become a musica universalis so ever-present as to be distinguished only in its absence: She is the silence in the noise.
She weeps and does not look at me, this raven haired angel. Her face rivals the moon, but that her eyes and nose are red with weeping. So beautiful, and in her sorrow, I find peace from the nightmare.
She is being called, I know her name, the summoning voice coming from nowhere and everywhere.
It is her song bringing peace to the courtroom, and the crazed, swirling anger dies as she names the names. The clacking gavel ends her song, but the nightmare’s heart is pierced; she spoke the truth and slew the maddened reverie.
The storm is past, but I have not awakened, only, it is a quieter sleep they now take me to, the sweet nothingness of Nevermore.
Tale Told 