One of my assignments for the unit I'm currently doing for my BA is to write a remediation of a text and post it online. So here is my remediation of the song The Scarecrow by Avantasia.
The man woke in the dust. A pale blue, hazy sky greeted his eyes. A burning sun just beyond his peripheral vision made his eyes water. Already he could feel the skin on the back of his neck burning. Hmm, skin. That is interesting, the man thought as he pulled himself to his feet. He looked at the desert surrounding him and his heart ached for the beauty that could have been. It could have been sprawling green fields, rivers and waterfalls, cattle could have grazed on the land and survived, fit and healthy. But it was nothing.
The man moved, his thin, skeletal legs barely supporting his
weight. A body, he thought, his mind
filling with ideas and thoughts as he examined his hands and arms. He could
feel the sun and the dirt beneath his feet. He was hot, his body burned, but it
was nothing compared to the burning as his body fell from heaven.
Slowly the man made his way from the desert and entered
marsh and swampland. His body struggled to push through tangled vines and peat
mud. The cacophonous sounds the jungle insects did nothing to dispel the voice
in his head demanding answers to questions he tried so hard to think about. He
tried not to think about her, but he
wanted to know what had happened to her. He wanted to know how he came to be
down on earth, but he tried not to think of the answer he knew awaited him. But
he knew there would come a time when he could run no more. There would always
be time.
The jungle vines parted before him and he stopped in shock
and fear. A bamboo chair took up space between two enormous trees and on it sat
a tall, imposing figure in black. The man stepped back in fear, finding himself
suddenly trapped as the trees and vines behind him moved to block his way.
‘Who are you?’ the man in the chair asked, straightening up
and peering at the lost man.
‘Scarecrow,’ the man replied.
‘Yes,’ replied the man in the chair. ‘And you are very lost.
Welcome to my domain, Scarecrow. I
wondered how long it would take for you to find your way to me.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Hah! You have fallen from the sky, just as I once fell from
the sky. You didn’t believe the rules applied to you, just as I don’t believe
they applied to me. Yet you ask me who I am?’ the man did not seem angry, more
amused than anything else and Scarecrow found himself trying to take another
step backwards. There was something mystifying about the man, the way his face
seemed to change from young to old without really changing, and the way his
eyes seemed to hold the whole future of the world in them. Scarecrow looked
deeply, and found he did not like what he saw.
‘I am, Mephistopheles,’ the man on the chair said at last,
rising and moving towards Scarecrow. ‘I am the one to push the pained, I am
here to take the fallen away and treat their fears by forcing them to confront
them. I am here to penetrate your soul and drag it through this unholy ground
until there is nothing left of you that was once holy.’
Scarecrow shivered, but he found himself immersed in what
the man had just told him. He felt as if he should be trying to run, but the
man’s voice was so sweet and peaceful that he did not know why he should be
trying to run.
‘I don’t want to be here,’ Scarecrow managed to say,
breaking from the trace the man’s voice had him under. His head left groggy,
but the questions still pounded. He remembered her.
Mephistopheles outreached hand snapped back from the inch it
had been from Scarecrows head. His face contorted in a glare and he snarled. ‘I
can see your thoughts, you think they are pure.’ He spat. ‘Wake up to this
world! If what you had was meant to be you would be with her now and not with
me!’
Scarecrow stared, his pulse racing as he stared at the
suddenly huge and menacing creature before him. It was huge, snarling and
vicious, black and winged.
‘No!’ he cried. ‘It was meant to be. There was a time!’ He
moved away from the beast, forcing his body through the vines and then his feet
were running and he was breaking free.
Trees blurred and swayed, vines swished and creaked around
him as he ran for his life. Behind him, he could feel the beat of the giant
wings as whatever the man was chased him from above. He broke free from the
trees and his bare feet burned as they touched the burning desert.
A dark shade covered and then Mephistopheles had landed
before him. The shade disappeared and Mephistopheles was a man again. He held
his hands up, non-threateningly, calmly wishing Scarecrow to stop and listen to
him.
‘I’m sorry, my friend, if I scared you,’ he purred. ‘It’s
obvious that you don’t want to believe she gave you up and made it seem like it
was somehow your fault. But your time has come. The winds have changed and
blown you here. You believe it’s divine, well push all your stakes in with me
and join me, together we will fly away and live peacefully.’
Scarecrow knew, somewhere deep inside, that the sweet words
were dangerous. It sounded like he had offered him help, comfort and pity. But
what he had heard wasn’t what the man had actually said. Scarecrow also knew
that he did not have a choice and that the man would always follow him until he
gave in. He knew this stranger was dangerous, but he also knew his time was
long since up. He nodded.
Mephistopheles grinned. It was a short flight to
hell, but, for Scarecrow, it would last eternity.
