The Love Potion

Here’s my contribution to this week’s Picture it & Write:

 

“Drink it and you will find love.” The old woman with the crooked nose grinned at me. Her rotten teeth showed off. “The One will come to you and your wish will finally come true.”

The witch was repulsive, yet I came closer to her. I held out my hand. The kaleidoscopic room made me dizzy, but my fingers perfectly cupped the glass of water that she was handing over to me.

A love potion.

My brothers and sisters warned me about the dangers of gulping such a substance. But I would not listen. How could it be dangerous? It was very rare, made of the union of two locks of hair of two True Lovers. And I’ve always been taught that true love was pure and only good.

How could it be bad for me?

They were simply all jealous. Jealous of me, the Angel of Love, holding the Powers of Love in my hands and arrows. I was most commonly known as Cupid, but my real name was Amy. I was the Chosen one even before I was born: my mission was to spread love everywhere, yet I was fated to endure a loveless existence. I could not love. I have never felt love.

People have been infatuated with me, other angels, but they were as hopeless as I was, since I could not love them back and they knew it.

“Is it safe?” I asked.

The woman giggled. Her body was shaking in a weird distorted manner. Disgusting. “Of course, my darling. I am the Daughter of the Great Witch after all. My powers have no limits. Nothing can come in my way.”

Indeed, she was right. I had seen her perform only once, from a distance, and since then I knew that I should never become her enemy.

Nevertheless, great powers had their price. She was forced to retire from the human world, to live between chaos and light, and she was born deformed. She was much respected though, mostly feared.

I tightened my grip around the cup, but I did not drink the water. Not yet. I looked around. I was in a room of no particular geometry, and mixed with all the colours of the world. That was the product of chaos and light, death and life… Colours. Illimitations. Infinite power.

I avoided the witch’s insisting stare. No one knew that I had made my way in this kind of semi-world. No one but the dealers that I had to go through, that I had to pay…

Was I making the right decision?

“And if…”

My voice trailed off as the witch’s sternly echoed through space. “You cannot turn back, Amy. The very moment you thought of disobeying to your elders, you made your choice. It is too late. Your siblings will know about this soon, if not already. And I know how the wrath of angels can be painful…”

They would never forgive me.

Well, on a second thought, they did not give me a choice when I was born the Angel of Love. Now was the time to make my own choices.

I closed my eyes. I placed the cold glass on my thin lips. I tilted the cup. The water entered my mouth and went through my throat like fire.

In a moment, I was burning.

Literally.

What have you done?? You liar!

But I could not speak. I was choking. I fell on my knees as the witch came closer to me. I stared back at her with what remained of my face…

“What have you done, my darling,” she said. “And I did not lie to you… Oh! Did no one tell you? The Angel of Love has only one true love and that is her own death. You were sick of your life, so you came to me. You wanted a change, but let me tell you that angels cannot change their way of living, except if they died or cut their wings. You did not think of the latter, did you? As least then, you would have become human…”

I could not cry or shout in regret and agony; I could not see; I was falling to ashes; but I could still faintly here her words, the last voice I would ever hear…

“It’s a shame no one told you anything… but well, now I can finally have unlimited love potions with your remains. I will finally get out of this prison!”

Prison…

…prison…

The perfect word to define my life as well.

And now, my death.

 

An Evil Nymph.