Ark of the Lost Angels

Last moment of silence _{(Credit: MeeloIsTrying on DeviantArt)}

There would be no next competition for Yelena Markelova. She stood alone on center ice. A cold Russian stare at an audience unaware of the blood dripping from her heart. At her reticent paramour and great rival waiting in the wings for her own shot at the gold. At the architect of misery and insanity which tormented the skater for a year lurking in the shadows to cheer her on regardless of how much she wanted to slide her skate over his neck. The stale smell of an old arena and processed ice stung the nostrils of a woman to whom these rinks have been both sanctuary and stockade. The scratches of judges’ pens on their notepads were the loudest bombs bursting in her ears.

Her chosen accompaniment for her program, Bjork’s “Play Dead” bubbled up inside a chilled arena. As the synths rolled the song in, she leapt into the air on a triple axel, sticking the landing on the ice in perfect time with the entrance of the drums. Beginning her routine with one of the harder tricks in the book was the first of many small rebellions. As her skate gouged the ice when she landed, she only barely maintained a stoic expression, despite the seductive call of a self-satisfied smirk. The show had only just begun.

As she carved her path through centuries of Olympic history and burned a path straight to the center of the earth, the blue and gold sequins and gems sewn into a midnight blue costume flashed under the harsh lights of the arena. The savory answer she gave the press was that they represented the unfocused lights of the city the night she conceived of this program on a walk to settle an agitated mind. They were truly commissioned as one final fuck you to the nation she was leaving behind once the music stopped; a subtle sign of support to the neighbor they had been terrorizing.

She flowed across the ice and through her routine with grace which concealed fury. The anguished words of the song were a broken soul’s defiance manifest to an unknowing audience. The anger and force executing moves designed to be elegant and captivating belied a primal scream muffled by the weight of sins which would never come to light. The dark makeup around her eyes evoked the tears she was never allowed to let fall. A woman who had everything and nothing because she only had it so long as a gun was held to her head.

Even with the music booming courtesy of a sound technician bribed to crank it louder than regulation, Yelena could hear the scrapes of her skates as they cut into the ice. There was no thought to her actions, the program was muscle memory. Safety was of secondary concern, she had no need to hold back unless it threatened her performance. She could handle a long recovery time afterwards; this was the dramatic final act of a tragically underappreciated career. She wanted to leave her best material on the ice and then some, just so the whole world was forced to witness what it denied for so long.

Amidst the spins to close out her program, Yelena deftly pulled the silver hair sticks from her hair, letting it fall lose. A golden wave flowed out, the eviction of the Opheliac burden she had borne without breaking for so long. She stopped in perfect time to the end of the music facing the judges. The skater fixed them with the same cold expression which preceded the paramount program of her career. Her silent dare was an open rebellion against every competition expectation, every harsh rebuke from her coaches and trainers, and the torture of her life following the wills of everyone but herself.

In the eternity of the seconds after her grand finale, Yelena stood as a woman who weathered the worst of the storms and survived with fire still burning in her heart. The world witnessed the greatest performance of the year from someone who did not care what they thought of her. A final bow garnering a standing ovation from an arena who, save for a scant few, did not understand that she was telling them all to go to hell.

As she never had before, Yelena Markelova left the ice only too happy to turn her back to the adoring crowds.