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1.
Who is that man who watches me so intently? The incendiary beauty of his eyes stalks my every move, each change of clothing draws his accusing stare, every speech earns a smirk even as the crowd shouts my praise. They are my bath, he the stopper. One false move will jerk him from the drain and the water will disappear, leaving me shivering and exposed. His beauty penetrates my lavish curtains, both adoring and adamant.
You will keep your promises, his eyes say with their silent smolder.
I can but answer: Yes. Somehow it seems I have always known him....
***
2.
She lies on display like a wedding cake, a beautiful ruin of what she was, her adoring subjects waiting patiently to be served. A red-hot wire constricts my heart. When the whip of disease lashed her relentlessly, did she think of us then? Like a mother wondering what her children will do without her? Or did she plead only for the balm of death?
I see him standing on the verge, as he catches my eye. Who are you? his eyes seem to say.
Her lover, I reply as I bend to kiss her coffin. Yet she never knew me....
***
3.
He knows me. Perhaps he is the only one who truly knows me. Why was he always watching her? If they had been lovers, I would surely have caught them. Still, she betrayed me with him. What she did was for him and not for me. Silent words arch over her casket.
You left her alone when she lay dying, he says.
You were watching her always, I say. He does not deny.
So I shall leave her as she is. I give her back to her public. No one will abandon her now.
But I will deal with him....
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We are one spirit, he said when first he stole me. Now it is so. His touch has opened me, freed my veins, kindled a fire in my aching center. The wind belongs to us as we fly, horse and rider, through the chilly haze that parts to let us through, lifts us beyond the grey rainbows of the morning. When he shouts with delight as we clear a high fence, it is with my own voice. When I whinny in pain as I take a fall, it is his clamor also. Even our mothers could scarcely tell us apart!
***
I miss my brother, Sir.... I can see him, not as a criminal, but as a youth proudly bearing the silver medallion you gave him. I watch him touch it from time to time, as though to assure himself he would amount to something, perhaps be another Zorro. Why did he choose the easier path, which would only betray him? Now his weight has been infused into this silver disk. I must take on the Mask in his place, expiate our shame, and prove that one can rise from the dust, no matter what demons may try and strike him down....
***
He stands exposed. Who is this man I thought to be my father? Can he really be such an evil monster as to kill my mother and imprison my true father, calling me his daughter? Where do I go from here? I think of a dress he bought for me, soft and white, trimmed with lace like a shower of blossoms. The pride glowed from him like a sunset as I twirled before him in it, until it fairly took on a pink-gold glow from the love he emanated. How was I to know it was actually a false dawn?
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A symphony of beauty envelops him. That small dark girl is like a violin, gliding sweetly and wishing to be heard above all. The tall golden-haired one is like a harp, her laughter skittering above his head and falling like honeyed rain on his shoulders. The one with the wild auburn curls and black leather pants is a clarinet, mocking and capricious, but with a note of complaining deep within. And the sad-faced older one, she is a cello, poignant and alone. How can he escape them? Their music is his prison and his cloud, he is so gloriously trapped.................
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She is the snake, he the bird. He must discern her true meaning, even if it means she will crush him inside of her. (You are mine, says the river, bad tall girl, naked and stained, a captive of wetness) She is in trouble because of him. (the diamonds, what diamonds? I don’t know the meaning of diamonds) But can he save her? Or can he give her only his body, and a dream of drowning? (no no, she awakes, her sins are being washed away) Yes, through him, she will know the true meaning of diamonds and be saved....
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Forgive me for what I am about to do....
I forgave you when you died. Because you asked for it.
Why am I in hell then?
Because My forgiveness is not enough. You must forgive them also.
Suppose I forgive him, then kill him?
Look at the chains on your wrists and ankles. Each link is a man you have killed. For each man you forgive, a link will fall off. You wished above all to be free?
All right then. I will forgive him after he is dead. How will that be?
It will have to do, I suppose........
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Answers:
1. Eva Peron (Evita)
2. Ché(Evita)
3. Juan Peron (Evita)
4. Tornado (Mask of Zorro)
5. Alejandro Murieta (Mask of Zorro)
6. Elena de la Vega (Mask of Zorro)
7. Guido Contini (NINE)
8. Nicolas (Femme Fatale)
9. El Mariachi (Once Upon a Time in Mexico)
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