Book of Martyrs Symbol Analysis

“Do you have this organ here?” Cyrus asked her, pointing at the base of his throat. “A doom organ that just pulses all the time? Pulses dread, every day, obstinately? Like it thinks there’s a panther behind the curtain ready to maul you, but there’s no panther and it turns out there’s no curtain either? That’s what I wanted to stop.”

Internationally renowned visual artist Orkideh presents her final installation, DEATH-SPEAK. Visitors will be invited to speak with the artist during the final weeks and days of her life, which she will spend onsite at the museum. No appointments necessary. Opening Jan 2nd.

“You’re talking about people who die for other people. Not dying for glory or an impressable God. Not the promise of a sunny afterlife for themselves. You’re talking about earth martyrs.”

“I had a friend too, a novelist,” she said. “And one time I asked her about whether she plots out her books in advance and just fills in the details, or if she moves through the story as she writes it. She looked at me and without skipping a second, she answered like an oracle: ‘Behind me is silence, and ahead of me is silence.’ And that was it. That was her whole answer. Isn’t that perfect?”

“Yeah, that’s beautiful,” said Cyrus, though it confused him.

“The story goes it was only ever taught orally, in the Vatican, only to be sung for popes on holy days. Total psycho Catholic bullshit. But then three hundred years ago, little fourteen-year-old Mozart comes in and gets to hear it, he’s the pope’s special guest. And then that little teenager goes home and transcribes it from memory. The whole composition, start to finish. There are five distinct choral parts, and Mozart transcribes the whole thing off that one listen. He goes back the next year to check his work and fine-tunes his transcription and then he took the song, this perfect protected angelic thing, and gave it to the people.”

The first time I died, I wasn’t even there. The whole payoff, the answer to the question of what happens afterward—I didn’t get any of that. Maybe Leila did. Maybe she got something like clarity, or peace, when that plane blew up. But I was left with all the loss, none of the reward.

Together, Cyrus and Zee stood up. The golden light cracking through the ground had gathered into a vast and deep pool, warm and gurgling absently like an unattended infant. Cyrus knelt over the swirl and gasped a little. He was, somewhere in the back of his mind, aware he was crying, that Zee was there kneeling beside him, wiping the tears from his cheeks, kissing them. It was almost unbearable, how good and warm it felt to be there—together—in the pond’s golden light. The feeling of prayer—not prayer itself, but the stillness it leaves—lifted from the earth, smelling of grass and woodsmoke. Cyrus reached his hand into the pool and closed his eyes. He felt another hand—was it his own, or Zee’s?—grab it.

Around them, birds and bright blossoms dropped like fists of snow from the sky.