Alcesti’s wedding trousseau

This room has always been talked about in my town. And because of those games destiny plays, that bring you to find certain things, I stumbled upon it today while I was walking.

Maybe now it has come out of its shell, because I don’t feel shivers or cold or fear, but a bitter sweet rush that makes me bring my hands to my chest.

I push the door open and, while still on the threshold, I scan it with my eyes. It’s not very wide but deep and tall enough to contain a mezzanine in the back, in which I can glimpse an unmade bed.

The white walls make a painting on the left stand out. The painting rests on the floor and doesn’t have any recognizable shapes in it. Shapes that recall the origin, a black lump that protrudes and a pink shape. The womb, God’s factory on earth, I think, or maybe I hear it like a light whisper in my ear.

Is this where you came from, Alcesti?
There are those that have gone to the other side while looking at a painting. There are some that aged in the attic. And maybe you came back on this path. Did you come back through this door?

From the painting, along with her, the old trunk that kept her wedding trousseau came out.
Now it’s clothes inhabit the room.
Lace and tar. The signs left by water, bites and fire.

I look at them one by one. It looks like an antique wedding trousseau that stands on its own. As if the clothes were still inhabited by the body for which they were measured in detail, sown and embroidered.

I move closer to the white lace corset and a dreamy scene opens up.
Under the fabric appears the faint vision of a body, that I can make out but I can’t see beyond the lace.

A body whose hand was promised to a husband who will drink from the life she will offer him. Who sat on her bed will chose to offer him in order to save him. Because nobody can save himself alone.

Alcesti’s heart stabbed by her decision bleeds through the corset.

I die for love, says Alcesti as she dies.
She sinks and gets lost.
She rises back up after 3 days.

She is reborn without memory and quiet, but her clothes here, again and still standing, narrate her story.

Mercedes Viola