Paul Sandmann - Narcissus

Tristan turned up the volume for Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries . Almost immediately his whole body began to tremble. It was as if he was encountering a kindred spirit. Never before had he felt anything like this, but at this instant the feeling was very real. It ran through him like the eerie sensation of a long-awaited release, enveloped him and nearly caused him to stumble. He closed his eyes and smiled. A thousand violins burst into life, their strings screeching in wild career, yet forming only the vanguard of a fearsome chariot harnessed to snorting and frenzied steeds, whose every breath was like a thousand trumpets. Tristan lost himself in the growing turbulence of the moment, as the sound of the music swept him up to dizzy heights, untrammelled by the laws of gravity.

Then, when he thought himself at the zenith of his ride to the sun, and was about to turn towards it, all the other stars around him faded, and he saw only the deep blue of the cosmos spread out around him and his sun. It was at this moment of supreme ecstasy, when it seemed that the whole world was burdensome and mediocre and that nothing existed but himself and this moment of fraternal unity, that he opened his eyes. The trumpets and trombones blared and fell into dust about him, the drums made the air vibrate, and he was again struck with awe as his eyelids slowly lifted, revealing his dilated pupils. In that instant he was overcome by the most profound and terrible disappointment that could befall a man like him, who had no equal on earth. For amidst all this stirring music he saw only himself. Naked and beautiful he stood on the cold marble floor of his room, with nothing but the mirror image of his own body in front of him. He felt that he had been struck by the force of the dying sounds, which had smashed the wings that had just borne him aloft to meet his likeness and which now brought him to earth, angry and despairing, back to unutterable mediocrity. Back to the grasping tentacles of hideous creatures on the ground, lying deep in the morass of their own inadequacy and trying to drag him down. The music died away – and the stillness that filled the empty room was more than he could bear.

Tristan shivered. He stretched out his arm and supported himself against his own image, the face starting to blur from the sweat of his hands. The piece had finished and Tristan was gasping for air. Shaking his head, he looked down at himself and gained new confidence. Slowly, with each inch of perfect beauty that he beheld, it returned. The hideous creatures around him dissolved, and the charnel ground that he had sensed around him just before vanished into the void. He alone stood there, and what a picture he was: With every breath he drew himself up a little taller, until he stood facing himself, upright, thrusting out his chest. His dark hair hung in ringlets around his features. His lips were fuller than ever. Beneath them, his cleft chin cast a haughty shadow. Lost in thought, he knelt down once more to change the music, then went into the shower and finally began to enjoy the feel of water on his skin.

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