Adornment of the Soul

Pillars of cold marble, crystal salt of jade. A tear-streaked dais elevates the centre of the dressing room, shawls of organza drape from the artisan-carved ceiling, embellished with accents of gold, lanterns of blistering red.

The atmosphere is solemn and quiet, twelve palace maids carefully work their finishing touches on the ceremonial robe that adorns their goddess, their all-seeing eye, their Pupil. But for what reason? What occasion would sanction such an exquisitely crafted robe?

The young goddess stands haggardly, she leans forward from the weight of the resplendent robe mounted upon her small frame. One could wonder - how long have the maids been working? With vacuous eyes, The Pupil stares into her imminent fate, reminiscing moments from a stolen, imaginary future. Her two hands contradict, each a gesture of a different faith. Her right hand - her heritage; the left - the evangelists’. Part of her wants to remain calm and composed, to inspire wisdom to her disciples; the other, is willing to embrace the new, to fulfil her newfound purpose; alas, she is aware of what is to come.

No, they cannot stop, they cannot stop, they cannot stop.
For they are under the watchful eye of an expanding empire.

Exhaustion lingers in the air, no single life in this room does not harbour the desire to repose, to object; contrary to the flutter of Pupillan butterflies, freshly emerging from their cocoons, free from their former, expendable existence as lesser nymphs. O dear irony, could it be? The silk threads from the expended cocoons is the same silk that is weaved to become the robe. For a robe that embodies the act of sacrifice itself, a robe more imposing than the wearer, it seems awfully quiet when it is face to face with the kaleidoscope of butterflies it could have been.

Look closer and you’ll realise, that The Pupil is the unfinished masterpiece. She is the one that is being adorned, she is the Magnum Opus, dressed in layers of black, white, yellow and finally red. Let it be her deliverance.

Her sacrifice will be the revelation, for the first Horseman of the Apocalypse has arrived.