paradigm restoration } { eckharts } { open

Twice. That’s as many times as Riordan has been broken down into an almost crushed state of being. It’s happened twice in his lifetime. The lungs that seemed to be blocked by the sobs that barely escape his already dry esophagus, carry throughout the changing room that’s been repurposed into his bedroom. The sob of a broken man with a broken life. The silence of a place that used to hold life transformed the house into a graveyard full of broken dreams and empty promises.

Three. That’s the amount of bodies that had come from the once lively and happy placed. Bodies that had once brought a wave of happiness into the house, but now only a disaster of sorrow that fills the atmosphere with death and decay. Happiness was no longer around when all of the world kept throwing sorrow and sadness to the one place that was supposed to fill people with joys of a better life. A life that could be considered better than their mediocre jobs and mediocre life that contained problems of sickness and corruption.

Notes, songs, operas, plays, and instruments. That’s all that is in the building. People fled the place for fears of bad luck absorbing into their skin, sealing their death away to the fates of the world. Riordan, on the other hand, was glued to the wretched place that held memories that caused pain to set his organs on fire and cause the salty, broken tears to climb down his face. Memories that are too hard to swallow push their way up into the present space, only to break Riordan even more than he already was.

Broken men can only create broken pieces. The melody of music that Riordan had once been able to create and perform in all elegances were vanishing right before his very eyes. Pieces of his creativity and originality had vanished into the now seemingly lost mind that sat in Riordan’s skull, waiting for the art to come back into its possession. The muse that once had a place in the world was parading in the vast world of pleasantries known as the afterlife. Life as Riordan knew it was transforming into a state of conformity and normativity. The creativity that once filled the void of averageness in his life was being taken away by death herself, just to torture his already broken soul. Just to hold it against him like some sort of bargaining chip that whispered to his very being and made him shake in agonizing terror. It’s all your fault, Riordan. You could have saved her, if you weren’t so weak.

Weak. That’s all Riordan was. A weak and broken man who had lost everything that he once held dear. Lost and misguided. The goodness in his soul being replaced with addictions and violence like it has done multiple times before. A coping mechanism that Riordan had created for himself. The golden liquid slowly burning the dry esophagus into submission. A state of numb crossing through his body giving Riordan the numbness needed to keep himself balanced on the scales of life.

The creaking of a door sending a chill down Riordan’s spine causing the feeling of danger into his bones. A silent step forward. The silence broken only for a small second allowing his body to feel something new that the broken man hadn’t felt in days, curiosity. Another silent step forward sends more chills up his spine. The curtains of red standing as they have always been. A piece missing from the fabric causing Riordan’s heart to swell up with a guilt that could never be taken out of his system.

Seat twenty three is mounted into its place, causing a grouping of emotions that range from the sensation of sorrow to the flutter of butterflies in his stomach to violently be fighting his state of being. The whites of papers litter the stage as notes of a broken memory fills the open room. Echoes of the melodic notes hitting his ears sending waves of happiness and sadness into his whole body only to break the rest of his own body into pieces. A knife that cuts him like the knife that caused a world of calm to become a world of sorrows and broken people.

The neck of Jequirity’s violin sits in the arms of a girl whose beauty could easily be compared to Jequirity’s beauty. Clear evidence of an Eckhart by any means. The woman’s presence only fills Riordan’s lost mind with thoughts of what could have been. The violin’s notes calling to its owner, just screaming to be played by the master that it once had. The instrument’s cry for its master only being silenced by the emotions of the Eckhart that was playing it in the way Jequirity would play it. The emotions that were portrayed by the Eckhart causing Riordan’s heart to want to reach out and grab the Eckhart. A want to try and make her feel something that wasn’t the consistent feeling of broken heartedness.

The notes begin to dwindle down into the silence that once filled the atmosphere of the building. A small sound of a child’s footsteps linger the echoing walls of the building. Riordan’s chest pains at the sight that stands before him. Another smaller Eckhart holds onto the older Eckhart. A hug that probably fills both Eckharts with a sense of love that can weaken the dull pain of sorrows, if only for a moment.

The broken man didn’t have the same strength as the Eckharts did. Riordan was weak in every way possible. Behind the curtains, this was the only place that felt comfortable for the broken man. Behind the curtains were the only place that he could stand still stuck in his broken soul and not interrupt the innocent and loving moment that the two Eckharts were having. Behind the curtains, there was a man. A man who couldn’t save the only people that he loved. He couldn’t save Theseus Rhodium. He couldn’t save Naveen Casovnik. He couldn’t save Jequirity Eckhart. Three names. Three deaths. Three times. That’s the amount of times Riordan Einfallen has failed.