#an exciting new presentation of depression to accompany my boring old depression?

[keyofjetwolf]

Can we just not for a while? I'm so tired.

[baronessblixen]

Let’s Bee Together

This is for the awesome @realmofextremepossibility , destroyer of straws and my intercontinental everything 😘 

Once upon a time she asked me to write this story for her: Set during IWTB: Scully comes home from the hospital to find a bored and restless Mulder has picked up an interesting new hobby: apiculture. 

It took me this long to come through, but tada! Here we go. Tagging @today-in-fic

The sun is low as Scully steers the car towards the house. She parks, not caring how bad of a job she's doing. They've got enough space out here in rural Virginia. The warm breeze tickles her skin and she takes a deep breath. Home. Her steps are heavy as she walks up the porch. There's no sight of Mulder. She steps inside and is surprised how cool it is and how dark. Scully switches on a light, hangs up her coat and looks for Mulder in his office. The room is just as dark, abandoned and messy. That makes her smile. But he's not there either.

"Mulder?" She's shocked how brittle her voice sounds. She rubs her hand over her eyes, exhaustion at her fingertips. She switches into her comfortable sneakers and puts on Mulder's old sweater that he's thrown over a chair. It smells like him. The air is turning colder and licks at her skin as she walks outside. When she hears a buzzing sound, she's convinced she's going insane. Until, finally, she finds Mulder. If that man is indeed the man she's spent the last 15 years with.

"Mulder?" She doesn't dare walk closer to him. He's wearing… something. And he's surrounded by… bees. Lots and lots of bees. She rubs her eyes again, not certain she is here, is awake and not dreaming. But Mulder is still there, as are the bees, as is the buzzing. "Mulder!" she yells, needing him to explain what the hell is going on.

"Scully, hi." Even through the veil, she can see him grin. She'd never thought she'd see him like this. Mulder is in full gear. Veiled hat, full protective suit and boots. He's a vision in white and she'd laugh if she wasn't completely frozen. Not to mention confused. How long has she not been home?

"Surprise," he says, lifting his arms. His polyester rustles as he walks closer to her. He smells like plastic, the warm sun and honey. Scully can't do anything but stare at him. She can't even find her voice to ask him what all of this is about. "We have bees."

"I can see that," she says with a hard swallow. The bees seem content over there at their hive, buzzing happily around, not coming closer. But bees make her nervous, even after all these years. Her skin is itching under her clothes and she wants to go away, back inside, and never see these bees ever again. "Why do we have bees, Mulder?"

He shrugs, his smile spreading over his whole face. If she's honest, she hasn't seen him smile like this in a while. A long while. After the Monica Bannan case and Mulder's reinstatement as a non-dead and non-fugitive person, he's become restless. Scully thought he'd be happy to be able to go out again, like a normal person. Except Mulder has never been normal. Isolation has changed him. The first time she asked him to accompany him to a hospital function, he hesitated. Told her to go on her own and have fun. As if she couldn't have fun with him. She's waited years to be with Mulder out in the open. She dragged him with her, pleading with him, and he went. It wasn't a full-blown disaster, but close to it. After that, it was hard to get Mulder out of the house at all.

Now she realizes that his pale complexion has taken on color. His cheeks are rosy, healthy. His eyes are sparkling again.

"I was bored," he admits with a boyish smile. "You kept saying I needed a hobby. You were right. My novel is going nowhere and I wanted to do something."

"But… bees? Why didn't you tell me about them?" That's when his expression gets sheepish. He's been planning a surprise; she recognizes the signs.  

"I thought I'd wait until I could present you our first homegrown honey. I had this whole thing planned." With a cheesy line about her and honey, no doubt. She smiles at him, feels guilty that she's ruined it now. She eyes the hive, the bees around it. "They're harmless," Mulder says, sensing her discomfort.

"They're bees, Mulder. Bees sting. You can talk all you want in your protective gear."

"I might have bought a suit for you, too. It was supposed to be part of the surprise. Do you want me to get it?" She shakes her head no and if Mulder is disappointed, he hides it well. He takes off his hat.

"You really know what you're doing there?" From her standpoint, it looks like he's got everything he needs. It looks, and she barely dares to think it, professional.

Mulder nods, stepping closer to her. "I've been reading a lot. I didn't want to go into it and not be prepared."

"How is it that you have no stings?" Has she just not seen them? When was the last time they've made love? The last time she's touched, let alone seen, his naked body? She gets home late at night, with Mulder already asleep. In the morning, when she leaves, he's still in bed. She's been missing everything. There's a beehive behind her house and she had no idea.

He shrugs. "I'm good at this, Scully."

"You're good at everything you put your mind to." She means it, too. Shortly after they went on the run, Mulder decided he needed to learn how to cook. It was the easiest, safest way for them to eat. And learn to cook he did. Every once in a while he still cooks for her and it's never been anything but excellent. She never would have thought he'd be interested in beekeeping, though. After all this time, she's still learning new things about him.

"You know," his whole face lights up in a smile, "there's a book called Bee Sex Essentials. That one really held my interest."

"Does everything come back to sex, Mulder?"

"Well, doesn't it? Anyway, it was the first book I read."

"Of course it was," she chuckles and Mulder continues.

"The title spoke to me but ever since then, I've been so fascinated by bees. Scully, these little insects are amazing." She takes his hand and smiles at him, hoping he'll keep going. How she's missed seeing him like this. His enthusiasm has always been contagious. He loves this. She sees it in the way the corners of his mouth twitch.

"I've been thinking about joining a beekeeping club."

"There are clubs?" He nods, a quick, excited movement.

"There's one not far from here. I'll show you later. They've got a website and everything. If you want," he adds, like an afterthought.

"I want," Scully assures him. "I feel like… Mulder, when did all this happen? When did you do all this?" His smile wavers, a shadow flickering over his face. She understands. She hasn't been home much lately. It's not just that they haven't made love. When was the last time they spent an evening together, doing nothing? When was the last time they talked, really talked? She can't remember and it's not Mulder's fault. Her whole life is at the hospital.  

"I'm sorry," she says before he even gets a chance to explain. The simple words chip away at her and she feels a deep longing to hug him, to keep him close and not let go.

"I'm happy you love your work so much, Scully. I am. Seeing you as a doctor, doing something you love, it's… it's breathtaking. I just needed to find something for myself that made me feel the same way."

"And then you found the bees."

He chuckles. "I found the bees. It's a hobby, Scully. This is not my calling. It's a way to spend my time and do something so I don't… you know." She nods. So that he doesn't become restless or worse, fall into the cold abyss of depression. She shudders, thinking about it. Mulder draws her closer, shielding her from the cool air and her own thoughts.

"But how did you- where did all of this come from?" The fact that there are approximately hundreds of bees living in the backyard now makes her uneasy. She wants Mulder to be happy and she wants him to have this. But… does it have to be bees?

"I bought them. Well, I bought a nuc," he laughs when he sees her confused expression, "it's just terminology. And of course, I bought a queen." The pride in his voice is evident.

"You have a queen?"

"You need a queen, Scully. I have two, actually." He kisses her nose softly.

"The queens tolerate each other?"

"We'll see." He winks at her and takes her hand. Now she understands. She lets him lead her over to the small wooden hive. The buzzing gets louder the closer they get.

"Mulder, I'm not sure-" he puts a finger on her lips and then puts the hat he had on earlier over her head. It's too big for her but it will work for the moment.

"Aren't they just beautiful?" Squeezing Mulder's hand tight, she watches. Her fear vanishes with every second. The bees won't attack her. They're working. They're busy little bees, doing their job. A smile breaks across her face, the sheer joy of watching this little world overwhelming her. Mulder's eyes are on her face, warming her. He, too, is smiling.

"So what does my queen bee think of my… honey queen?"

"We both think you should come up with better lines." But she grins at him.

"Come on, let's go inside."

"Why?"

"It's getting cold and the bees don't need us here. I, however, would like to kiss you and we don't have the best track record when it comes to kissing around bees." He tugs at her hand and she follows him but stops him once they're far enough from the hive. The buzzing is a distant hum, like music.

"I missed you," she says, interlacing their fingers.

"I missed you, too." She feels like he wants to say more but doesn't. Maybe tonight isn't the time to have a serious conversation. Tonight is about sweetness, like honey, about starting to find a way back.

"This residency is… it's a lot." He nods, understanding. In all of this, in everything they've done since they went on the run all those years ago, Mulder has been nothing but understanding. Now it's her time. If Mulder wants to keep bees, then he will keep bees. Standing here with him, she realizes it's not him who is restless, it's her. She's been trying to sprint towards more, towards other things. Mulder is just here, trying to make a life. As unremarkable as it may seem. Ages ago she asked him if he ever wanted to stop, to have a normal life when their lives were anything but. Now, he's making a new life; he has settled down, with her. Bees and all.

"Can I kiss you now?" he asks with a hint of the impatience she knows so well. Hell, she even missed that part of him. She misses all of him. But she doesn't answer him and she doesn't let him kiss her. Scully gets on tiptoes and presses her mouth to his. There's a hum that gets closer and she breaks their kiss just as Mulder's mouth opens under hers. He mewls and looks disappointed.

"I think… Mulder, I think maybe one of the bees followed us." As if it were 1998 and not 2008, his hand sneaks to her neck, wanders along and under her collar. She shivers, goosebumps exploding on her skin from his simple touch.

"No bee this time." His smile is as gentle as the hand clasping her neck. He leans forward again and right before their lips meet, Scully moves away. "Scully," he whines. "I told you we should go inside. I'm not letting another bee stop me from making love to you."

They giggle all the way upstairs to their bedroom. They close the door behind them and find each other.

With no bee in sight.

[themalicealyce]

Sarcasm and Puns: Chapter Two

You’re an introverted person, have been all of your life but it wasn’t as if you were shy, you were just content to have your only friends be your brother and your roommate. Though when your brother’s young daughter makes friends with the human ambassador of monsters you open up to the idea of having a larger group of friends.

Everything seems much slower in autumn, the chill in the air causes the world to screech to a crawl as the leaves change, even the city seemed less lively. You always thought this was true but over the course of the last couple of years you discovered there was an exception to the hushed state that this time of year brought. This break from the lull of dreary, sluggish afternoons came in the form of a hyper six year old, fresh out of school, tugging you towards the playground with the single minded determination of a freight train.

Slow burn, like really slow and lots of friendship with the whole group. Originally posted on AO3.

You basically had to drag Morrigan away from the park and by that time the sun had started to sink low in the sky. It wasn’t quite setting, but it was definitely getting late in the afternoon. The earlier azure expanse had been morphed into a gradient mixture of oranges that faded from red to pink to an inky indigo that was partially obscured by the looming grey clouds. These clouds seemed ever present during this time of year and they had only drawn closer together since this morning in a threat of rain, darkening further as you continued in your walk. Unaware or maybe just blissfully uncaring of the general lethargic look of the world around her your niece had held your hand and skipped the whole way back to your brother's place. She told you about her day at school, her hair and backpack bouncing along with her carefree rhythm. Morrigan finally seemed to be settling into the new city and that made you able to breathe a little easier about the decision to press your brother into moving closer to you. For the past few months she had pouted and protested about leaving all her first-grade friends behind and had seemed just as resistant to the unfamiliar school. Your brother seemed to immediately pick up on her sudden change in mood as well, happily taking Toriel’s phone number when you gave it to him in a whirlwind of relieved excitement.

Lost in a haze of your thoughts, you barely even noticed when you came face to face with your apartment door. You chuckled to yourself. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence to find yourself suddenly home after a long session of daydreaming. You pulled your keys out of your pocket with a small smile, you were prepared to sit back on the couch and spend the remainder of your day pleasantly zoned out. Life seemed against you though. You heard a clattering noise followed by a loud yelp coming from inside the small living space. You briefly let your forehead fall against the solid wood of the door with a dull thud accompanied by an annoyed sigh that passed through your lips in a manner that felt all too routine. Pushing yourself away from the door you steadied yourself before easily managing to get it unlocked, taking a moment to mentally prepare yourself for whatever could possibly be waiting for you inside. You flung the door open, perhaps a little more dramatically than strictly necessary, though you would make an adamant argument for your theatrics. You scanned the open layout of your apartment for the source of the disturbance.

Finding it quickly, you stood in the door frame frozen in your tracks, unable to do much more than stare, slightly bewildered, because this was certainly a new sight to come home to. The living room was much more of a mess than normal. All of it seemed to culminate in a cluttered disarray towards the center of the room. You felt yourself caught somewhere between a disappointed groan and unstoppable laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of what was happening.

Your roommate was sat with his back to you, pressed against the coffee table with his legs crossed. He had gotten out what appeared to be one of your old decks of playing cards and was surrounded by what had to be a new case of shiny store-bought plastic poker chips that were scattered haphazardly across the hardwood. He had ditched his usual jacket, it lay flung across the sofa and his hair that was cut short on the sides with the top was dyed a slightly metallic cyan color was messily sticking out in nearly every direction looking like a melted mohawk. He had grabbed onto a tiny black and white kitten that squirmed and let out annoyed little mewls in his hands. He had been trying to force it to play cards, of course he was. He whined distraught when the cat knocked over one of the few stacks of chips that was still standing, even though they were stacked far too high and were bound to fall over anyway. Your recently adopted kitty mewed indignantly and wriggled again, though still weakly, in his hands trying to wander off, unamused by his antics.

"Aw, come on! You’re not even trying!" he reprimanded the cat in a huff before snuggling the small, bored animal closer to him. "Vincent Evan Warren. Will you stop harassing my poor kitten every time I leave you unsupervised?" you asked using your best scolding mother voice as you finally shut the door behind you and tossed your keys onto the kitchen counter.

Vincent, to his credit, managed to look sheepish for a moment at the stern use of his full name, though that quickly dropped into a child-like frown. "I'm not harassing him! I'm teaching Sir Hemsworth how to play Texas hold 'em. He's not a very good at it though." You sighed, failing to repress the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose in a defeated gesture even as you felt a small, amused smile start to creep its way onto your face. "His name is Hemlock." you told him calmly for the umpteenth time since you brought the kitten home. Vincent looked at you as if he was considering the information then lifted the cat up to his ear like a small child might when speaking to a stuffed animal, his short stature and large, round eyes completing the innocent look.

"What's that? Yes?" Vincent thoughtfully nodded along, playfully over acting. "Okay, I'll tell her." he looked up at you pulling the cat away from his face and setting the ball of monochromatic fluff down on his lap. "Sir Hemsworth says Hemlock is a depressing name and prefers the title that the Queen of Kitties bestowed upon him after he was knighted for saving that bus full of baby red pandas." he commented in an off handed manner as if it was common knowledge, already dealing new hands for himself and the tiny cat. You couldn't stop yourself from giggling maniacally because your roommate was such a child sometimes and you knew it was one of the reasons he was your best friend.

“You are a complete and utter dork.” you smirked when you stifled your laughter and regained your breath. He broke into the first real smile since you came in. “Na.” he waved off the comment and made a vague attempt to gather up the poker chips near him into a sloppy pile.

"You don’t get to just say ‘na’ dork.” you shook your head as you walked over to the couch. "Yeah, whatever. Even if I was a dork, not that I will ever admit to that, you would love me anyway." Vincent smirked pushing the cards away, abandoning the endeavor entirely, instead standing to join you.

"I'm not calling him that by the way, no matter how many dumb heroic stories you make up." you added as you slumped ungracefully down on the couch and grabbed the remote that was half buried underneath the mess he made from the table in front of you. "Well I'm not calling him Hemlock." he quipped back, stealing the remote out of your hand as he sat down next to you and turned on the tv. Immediately upon lighting up, the screen displayed a rather flamboyant looking, pink and black, humanoid robot in the middle of whatever campy straight to tv movie that was currently playing. You recognized the robotic monster immediately, flashy costume doing nothing to hide his unique appearance.

You groaned dramatically, looking from the scene to Vincent. “Really?” Vincent had overrun your TV’s DVR with Mettaton, which you couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than his previous anime obsession that ruined your Netflix queue. He innocently turned to give you an oblivious smile "What?" he asked. "He's pretty freaking awesome," he shrugged at your continued deadpan look of judgement. "Don't even act like you don’t binge watch his cooking show in secret like a really lame guilty pleasure." he added, ignoring your distaste to focus back on the screen.

"Well I can't watch it with you anymore.” You answered the accusation snidely. “What! Why?!” He gasped in indignation.

“The last time we did together, I came home the next day and it looked like a fucking glitter bomb detonated in our kitchen." you pointed out rolling your eyes thinking about how you still found stray sparkles in there sometimes. "THAT WAS LIKE ONE TIME!" he protested loudly, startling Hemlock who had nearly fallen asleep in front of the tv. You chuckled quietly to yourself at his sudden defensive tone and hummed noncommittally.

“Well now you get no coffee.” He huffed, getting off the couch wandering off to the kitchen. You could still see him because of the open layout of your shared apartment.

“Nooooo, you monster!” You called sarcastically after him flinging yourself dramatically across the couch with a hand across your forehead in a mock Victorian fainting spell.

Vincent couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of him. “Do you want some coffee?” He asked standing at the machine. “Na, I really don’t need to be up too late I got work in the morning.” You answered getting back up into a sitting position. “Well, that’s exactly why I need it.” He answered, easily working the machine. Vincent worked mostly online, but also took frequent trips out of town. He tried to explain it to you, but whenever somebody asked you what he did you gave the vague answer of ‘He works with computers or code or something.’ Soon enough, he was in his work position, laptop on his lap and coffee nearby, face buried in the screen while still listening to the tv. You and Vincent stayed up for a while after that, flipping through tv channels and talking about random things that crossed your minds. This went on until it was past the point that you should have gone to bed especially since you had work so early in the morning. You grunted a good night to your friend who by now was bleary eyed and surrounded by a couple of mugs that had held an unhealthy amount of coffee. He didn't even look up from his laptop as he gave you a weak wave that ended up looking more like he was shooing you from the room. You turned the tv volume down to a whisper and lazily rolled off the sofa shuffling off to your room with Hemlock yawning and following at your heels.

As soon as you crossed the threshold you shed your jacket off and switched out your jeans for a pair of soft pajama bottoms. You collapsed on your bed before leaning over the edge to lift Hemlock up as well since he was still too small to make the jump by himself. You rolled over and found yourself falling effortlessly into a dreamless sleep for the first time in days.

[planet-inanity-blog]

Skeleton #9: THE PIANO

We lived in the basement apartment of an old hotel for a few months when I was 26 and she was 28. Or maybe she was 27 then -- I can't remember if it was before or after her birthday, but it was definitely June when we moved in. The stickiest June I could remember, and I had grown up in southern Florida, so that was saying something. Anyway, this was a temporary housing situation necessitated by the end of our old lease and the inopportune timing of renovations at the place we were going to be moving into. Apparently, one of her friends had a cousin who worked at this hotel and occasionally, while the owner was on holiday, rented out some of the more spacious hotel rooms (such as the basement suite) for half of the normal price, keeping all of the proceeds for himself. Evidently the bookkeeping wasn't very tight around here. It was peak tourist season in June, and the hotel was filled with rotund Midwesterners and the ever-present aroma of Banana Boat sunblock. Mostly, due to our semi-shady existence in the basement suite, we tried to stay out of the way of the other guests, blasting the free AC and binging on HBO shows, which were some of the only perks of living in a hotel. The only time we ventured beyond the ground floor was early in the morning to visit the continental breakfast on the fourth floor, which overlooked the green-tinged chlorinated water of the pool in the middle of the atrium. At the time of day we went, there were typically only a few older folks eating their yogurt and reading James Patterson novels, and they really didn't pay us much attention. Though it was not the most ideal living situation, we sunk into our daily routines and functioned reasonably well -- for a while at least. Then, we got bored. Bored of our premium cable access and bored of the things that you talk about when you have no (literal) windows to the outside world. We started to wander around late at night when the hallway lights were dimmed and often sat by the pool drinking makeshift cocktails from mason jars while we disrupted the moonlight that glinted off the surface of the water with the absent-minded paddling of our feet. One night, a Thursday, close to 3AM, she was explaining to me the time that George H.W. Bush vomited into the lap of the Japanese prime minister (which she had just learned about from a coworker), and I was trying very hard to contain myself and refrain from spitting bourbon and coke into the pool, when we heard the faint tinkling sounds of a piano being played from somewhere above us. With furrowed brows, we quieted down and looked at each other, quite perplexed, for as far as we knew, there were no pianos in the hotel, and not even a speaker system to play piano music over. Without a word, we got up and silently padded out of the pool area and ascended the central staircase, making sure that the concierge in the lobby was fast asleep at his desk as usual before proceeding. When we got to the top floor and were standing amidst the overturned chairs that would soon be occupied by granola-eating octogenarians, we paused once more and tried to ascertain where exactly this somber music was coming from. The song, perhaps Ravel or Debussy, was still very faint, but it was almost certainly coming from the direction of the bar. At first, we thought that the bartender might have stashed a radio behind the bar and had simply forgotten to turn it off when he left for the night, but after a careful search of the premises, we found nothing of the sort. And yet, it was clear that the sounds were emanating from some undisclosed source in our vicinity. Then, just as the song reached its melancholic climax, the piano music ceased, and there came the sound of something heavy slamming shut. The sound was singular and had an air of finality, and sure enough, after that the only noise that could be heard in the whole hotel was the gurgling from the cherubic fountain in the lobby. Perplexed but lulled into a sort of trance by the soft piano music and its abrupt finale, we left the breakfast area without a word between us and retreated to our basement dwelling to sleep. The next night, curious as to whether the haunting music would return, we repeated our late night ritual and again sat by the pool together, this time our conversation finding more empty space as we focused our attention on listening for any change in the sonic textures swirling around the atrium. Sure enough,  the music came back, but about an hour later than it had the night before when we were just about to give up and head to bed. This time the song was a slow jazz ballad, a piano arrangement of a Coltrane interpretation of an old jazz standard that I couldn't quite place.  Again, we climbed the central stairs to the fourth floor dining area, and again, we were dumbfounded as to where the music was coming from. When the song again stopped with a loud thud, we returned to our apartment and made a pact with each other to discover the source of the mysterious piano sounds by the time we moved on to our new apartment. From then on, though the piano did not sound every night (as far as we could tell -- we had to sleep too!), it came with enough consistency that we were certain we would be able to solve the mystery before we left our windowless hovel, but as the last month of our stay at the hotel came to a close, we still had garnered no more information that we had that first night. On the very last night of our stay, we decided in our obsession to go all in and stay up all night listening for the piano. Around 4:15 AM, she had fallen asleep in a lounge chair by the poolside, and I, having had too much espresso after dinner, decided to pace around the hotel for a bit to pass the time. Inevitably, after circling around the atrium on the second and third floors, I ended up on the fourth near the breakfast area. From the railing, I could see her still sleeping peacefully four floors below, and decided that instead of hanging around waiting for something that might or might not ever happen again to occur, I would like to curl up next to her for the last few hours of the night on the adjacent lounge chair. Just as I was headed back down the central staircase, I stole a glance at the bar and noticed a strong vertical shadow to one side of the liquor shelf that I had never seen before. Something about that shadow called to me in the dimness of the early morning and pulled me closer to it, and as I got within a few yards of it, I saw that the shadow did not exist on its own volition, but rather was caused by a panel behind the bar being slightly ajar. My curiosity got the best of me and I pushed on the panel in the direction it opened. Without so much as a creak, the panel yielded and gave way to an elegant staircase large enough for four or five people to walk up side by side. It was marble, or at least had a convincing marble veneer finish, and had elaborate golden banisters on either side and up the middle. The stateliness and cleanliness of this hidden area was so incongruous with the shabby nature of the rest of the hotel that as I ventured forward, I felt as if I had been instantaneously transported into another era in the hotel's timeline. I reached the top of the staircase and stepped out onto the floor of a small but decadent ballroom with the same marble and gold finish, dimly lit by a low-hanging glass chandelier. And directly under that chandelier, well, there it was, the phantom piano, a beautiful black grand with intricate floral engravings covering every square inch of the surface. My heart was racing and I could hardly contain my excitement -- I had to go wake her up and share my discovery! I spun around on my feet and started to bound giddily down the staircase two stairs at a time but... when I reached the threshold of the hidden doorway behind the bar, I had an overwhelming desire to play the piano first before alerting anyone else to its presence. Rationally, I thought as I shut the doorway and moved ponderously back up the steps, this didn't make much sense, for I had never played anything more complex than "Chopsticks" on a piano before, and I wasn't even sure I remembered how to play that. I knew that listening to play one of the jazz numbers she knew by heart would bring me much greater enjoyment, but still... I just had to play a few notes without anyone else around. Secret, precious, private notes, just for me. I sat down on the hard piano bench and timidly pecked at a high "A" with an index finger, and... there was no sound at all that accompanied the action, not even muted twang to indicate a broken string -- nothing! When I let go of the depressed key, it rose slowly back to meet the rest of keys, and as it did I suddenly had a mental image of all of the silent keys of the piano overlayed on the keyboard in front of my like the hazy spots you get from rubbing your eyes too long. Blinking, I tried to clear theses visages from my sight while my fingers, on their own volition, found their way to the working keys and curled into a preparatory position. It was as if I was watching this all go down through a pinhole camera, and that camera's pinhole happened to be my entire head, like a massive hole had been bored from the back to the spot between my eyes. My fingers, on a limited set of keys, started to play a sedate tune that I had never heard before, moving like drunken spiders in their sidesteps from one key to the next. Somewhere inside of me, a pea-sized disturbance was trying desperately to make me cease these automatic movements and call for her at the top of my lungs, but its pleas were silenced by the sheer density of the rest of my body, and I felt something in the thick, slippery, suddenly foreign skin surrounding me directing me to play the song to completion. But this desire was shortsighted, for as the song swelled to its mournful summit, the granule of resistance inside of me screamed and sputtered as the ebbing darkness started to press in around the edges of my pinhole view.  Then, as my fingers struck the chord marking the exact center of the song, the darkness was suddenly all-encompassing, and the thud that we had heard at the end of every piano session sounded and obliterated any protective layers that had surrounded my panicked core and it burst open easily, spilling the precious fluid of my being into the darkness with a final shriek at maximum volume. And then... though exhausted, I was finally able to force myself off that piano bench... or... at least that's what I intended my body to do. As the lid of the piano creaked back to its open position and my sight was restored, I found myself frozen in place, looking up at the ceiling of the ballroom from... inside the lid of the piano. As I looked about from side to side, I grasped simultaneously the reality and the impossibility of the space I now inhabited. Next to me, each packed neatly under their own piano string, I saw the saddened but knowing faces of a few people that I recognized as former guests of the hotel. I tried to speak to them, reach out to them with my body and voice, but no matter how hard I tried, my efforts folded back on my two dimensional prison like they never exited at all, and it was in this moment that I knew I would not be able to warn her even if I was only a few centimeters away from the first notes of her song.

[benjaminabelmeirhaeghe]

Originally born in Eine, the now Brussels-based Benjamin Abel Meirhaeghe graduated in Performance Arts at Maastricht’s Theatre Academy. Besides working as a theatre maker, performer and director, Meirhaeghe avidly responds to nicknames such as self-proclaimed narcissist, wannabe countertenor and (medieval) fool. He relativizes and banalizes the socials groups and world he abides in on a very adolescent and self-conscious level, while ironically praising what is not to be praised. As he looks his own devils and those of others straight in the eyes, he channels critique on the thin line between witty humour and seriousness, masterly wielding his enchanting voice as his powerful weapon.

His musical performances are in collaboration with musician/producer Alien Observer. Meirhaeghe is fond of tackling themes such as indifferent free speech and virtual worlds, which divulge his keen sometimes mischievous reflections on deep-rooted concepts. Having previously searched for naturally yet uncomfortably intimate atmospheres in My Inner Songs (2016), he has gone all out in Mea Big Culpa (2017) by centralizing and omni-presenting his persona in music, image and language. With the exalting My Protest (2018) he deliberately causes us to reflect on contemporary tensions and orchestrates an awakening which unleashes a less rose-coloured reality, ultimately freeing us from the bittersweet, transcendent dreamy atmosphere. The precarious tension field between entertaining and criticizing becomes almost tangible in each performance. As he remains an enfant terrible, he mercilessly charms, alleviates and bombards us. The fool becomes king.

Furthermore, he often supports projects and ideas of other performers, positioning him as a metteur en scène. The pieces consistently project a certain, fleeting moment – a lingering echo from his photographic past. Operatesque elements are never hard to find, and explicitly harmonise in his own shows as well. The Dying (Het Sterven) (2017), a collaboration between Kim Karssen and Meirhaeghe, mirrors the process of someone dying in a one-hour long death scene, an outlined drama reciting the foundations of a pathetic theatre. With a nod towards Friedrich Nietzsche’s eponymous, philosophical novel, Also Sprach Zarathustra (2017) gladly flirts with philosophical issues regarding technology and depression instead of honouring the philosophical core of the book. In a prophetic and existential story, Anna Luka Da Silva and Meirhaeghe introduce a robot and human being on stage. The former as an übermensch, equilibrist and semi-fool, the latter as the narrator of Nietzsche’s novel with the infiltrating intention of “We didn’t even read the whole book”. Le Carnaval de Venise (2018), though stripped from its original score, rejuvenates the 17th century libretto by French composer André Campra in a contemporary setting. Using gongs and other atypical sounds, the play develops a special rhythm with references and an accompanying visual language, all conveyed by a five-headed corps de ballet. Every moment alludes to something else. Yet it’s a static physical work, a commedia dell’arte meets the Japanese noh. And despite the stringent score with defined queues, the play embraces avant-gardist and Dadaist influences.

Meirhaeghe allocates himself on the dramatic crossroads between old and contemporary mechanisms of opera. Both are subject to an almost sophisticated decomposition, arranged by yours truly. Shows such as The War (2016), Black Pole (2018) and, as his graduation project, The Ballet (2018) revolt against the classical, archaic opera systems and experiment with diverse forms of artistic autopsy of that conservative world. Meirhaeghe unravels different mechanisms indebted to opera and ballet, and unfolds them, exposing them one by one before creating a new, composed narrative. Movements in the machinery reveal themselves, the suggestive connotation dissolves. The theatrical rigging system is played as if it were a marionet, our range of vision becomes manipulated. The structures, entangled in a hierarchy, answer to his direction. Intense emotions overwhelm us. Oh, the pain, the tragedy, the laughter! His shows bathe in bipolarity, and all the while the fool looks over everyone. He rises on stage and in our souls. Moreover, he sacks the idea of a constant, almost competitive need to prove oneself worthy of something – and with it, stardom and artistic prodigies are suddenly plunged in an ice-cold bath.

The War, a joint effort by Marieke De Zwaan and Daan Couzijn, presents a still image, an extended snapshot of a wounded person who receives first aid by a relief worker. There’s a complete absence of context and background information of the characters. The structure of Le Carnaval de Venise is applied here as well: a stationary, visual language with innuendoes which attentively mirror fixed queues and seek out repetitions in image, sound and wordplay. Armed with extensive timbres and medicinal mantras for the soul, Meirhaeghe elevates the war’s intrinsic ferocity and its aesthetics. Each attempt to revive the heartbeat of the wounded, only ends in the rhythm of the play – whether the heart rate is restored, remains unanswered. A tragedy in a constant, rhythmic spiral.

Another show, again with De Zwaan, thrives on an alternative impetus. Unlike The War, where drama is key, Black Pole utters a non-mesmerising, rather rebellious meta-narrative about tourism. Twenty volunteers, who honestly don’t fake being bored, are followed during their dull flight. When they finally arrive at their destination, multicultural entertainment awaits them and the public. Chinese lions! Indian dance rituals! Turkish music! As fast it came, the excitement disappears, and everyone is back in the same monotonous situation, now homeward bound. Both the audience and the actors endure similar emotions: from disappointment to thrilling ecstasy to severe disappointment. The revolutionary, revolting characteristics of Meirhaeghe’s personality are not only ever-present in his artistic practice, in this play specifically they crave an unusual, alienating experience.

Crowning his four-year study is The Ballet, a humble yet laudable, real feat. Aligned with Kunstencentrum Vooruit’s iconic theatre hall, the play is a benchmark in his ambition of establishing a new artistic discourse. Besides appropriating the structure from an opera-ballet, The Ballet includes operatesque stage props, a historical interior, the sky-high tailored stage curtains, live piano by Maya Dhondt and captivating movements by Emiel Vanderberghe, a professional ballet dancer. The tragedy, soaked in all that splendour, is now and then comically illumed – thus unmasking Meirhaeghe’s bipolarity – and parallels present-day suffering with 18th century, romantic and heart-rending love stories. The Ballet has intensely impersonated emotions in abundance, and as it shifts between melancholy and deep nostalgic desires, the peculiar romance results in an almost adolescent waterloo. While both men eagerly showcase their virtuosity and self-discipline, the play sooths the audience with moving tales and grandeur. Meirhaeghe cunningly addresses two pressing issues: refreshing archaic stories and repertoires in a modern life setting and, as a young artist, taking over a rather rigid institute.

The need to reread, reinterpret and restructure the opera circuit is germinated while studying performance arts. The course encourages experiment and focuses on interdisciplinary approaches, and ultimately helps Meirhaeghe’s evolution from being an autodidact countertenor and solo performer to a director and creator. His then microscopic eye, primarily focused on activating a space, gets a macroscopic upgrade. Or as Peter Missotten describes it: “If you have a problem, make it worse.” On his terms, Meirhaeghe orchestrates a marriage between the traditional opera-ballet genre, experimental and contemporary theatre. The twofold relationship between intense emotions, abstraction, musicality and virtuosity is not to be sacrificed but to be preserved and maintained. And with this calculated disruption of hard-boiled structures, he invites the fool back on stage as the ultimate metaphor.

Also, Vanderberghe’s appearance in The Ballet is not a coincidence. A lot of his works, if not all, are influenced by male muses, Meirhaeghe’s photographic background and the maturing process of his self-conscious, rebellious persona. As a young boy he often captured drama in static snapshots of sudden moments and preferred that momentary feeling as his subject. He evoked his own absent beauty through literally imagining the present, young male nudity, and gradually created several muses, making him experiment with his models. The disentanglement of that emerging balance of power made him appropriate the beauty of others, nearly embodying their charm. Vanderberghe can be perceived as the glorification and idolization of that process: he’s ubiquitous in every work, except The War, and becomes almost a worshipped and praised figure. As a huge influence on Meirhaeghe’s practice, Vanderberghe plays a pivotal and clearly crucial role in his life. The dichotomy becomes once again apparent due to the echoing struggle between uncertainty and self-confidence – a dilemma which also forges a path to focus more on his own shows. And in the wake of previous, great artists and stars that created everlasting masterpieces before him, he immortalizes that nowadays recurring need to prove oneself with the nickname self-proclaimed narcissist. A hyper-personal work with the fool as the catalyst of his art practice and as the personification of that ceaseless ambiguity.

However, in his future repertoire the muses cut back their decisive cameo. The emphasis shifts to a more cross-disciplinary, collaborative and open approach bundled in a more receptive discourse regarding opera and ballet. Considering the involvement of a supportive, engaged group of people as essential, he transcends opera-ballet through an interdependence with contemporary visual art and design without disrespectfully treating the theatrical canon and old repertoire. Think of it as an opera in transition, transformation and (r)evolution. In addition, he concentrates on boundless engagement, exceeding love, in a search for the world’s manifestation and its salvation. For example, Meirhaeghe revamps Ballet de la Nuit, an originally 13-hours long spectacle in which the notorious French king Louis XIV makes his debut as Apollo, and reduces it to an epitome of one hour. He bridges the gap between the French baroque and the now, between classical opera-ballet and 21st century pop. At the same time, he questions the magnificence of that medium because of its immense production without a lot of resources. Other pieces he plans on updating, are Erwartung (1909) by Arnold Schönberg, the proto-opera L’Europe galante (1697) by André Campra, the revolutionizing La muette de Portici (1828) by Daniel Auber and Combattimenti di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) by Claudio Monteverdi. Every show values the powerful, reciting potential of opera. Whether it is a tableau vivant rendering songs of love and war or stimulates an independence war or drawing a heart-breaking metaphor of Europe: Meirhaeghe calls for change.

Theatre as a time machine with the fool as our guide.

(c) E. Pot