Ignorance

The reality was too cruel.

I looked around for Mother, she was surrounded by her family, but the blackness that was slowly eating away at her heart was so obvious that I couldn't help but run and throw myself into her arms.

Fiona untied me from her, whispering to me to let her take care of the guests, and then she took me out of the house. To clear my mind, I looked around, contemplating again the fresh and pure landscape of this part of the country.

I wondered how long it had been since I had been in this region. This was my countryside, the places of my ancestors. This natural and wild beauty yearned for freedom. The soft and capricious wind soothed the heart. Everything was alive and authentic, even the spirit of the people. They were all peasants, farmers, or craftsmen. They lived on the little they had and were happy with it. Joy was always pure, like the cloudless sky that the divines offered us on this day of burial.

It was the same as the countryside of my childhood, where every day my mother took me. But in those days, I already saw myself as different. If I could really ask something to be eternal, then I would have demanded that it be my childhood.

But the years passed quickly, and in the end, we stopped coming here. It wasn't the distance that was the problem. Those thirty-two kilometers of road were not the problem, nothing had changed, nothing but me. I lost my innocence. I shook it off, and smiled at the daylight I blinded myself to. I could see nothing. And then what was the point? Seeing would bring nothing back.

I waited wisely for everything to be over before the last goodbye.

My last image was mother's kiss on the wooden coffin.

A gesture that will remain in my memory through time, a gesture that will be accomplished only once. But in that moment I was too drained to reach its beauty, and I had no awareness of it, awareness that would be required of me years later.

One last time, I had turned around to see this cavern filled with sadness, robbing us of the remains of our loved ones.

I have been too cowardly until now, all those days, during which we kept this cold body near us, not once I assumed my responsibility as a parent, I only took the excuse of being a child, a child who was already aware of the deep unhappiness that could be the existence, and being me.

So I wished myself more than anything else, to believe that there was a fantastic being who could free me.

The days passed, the weeks. I saw the leaves washed away, all special, all a life gone, and the seasons, beautiful and so moving, but still meant a sonnet showing the passing of time. People are born and die ... a monotony that the difference of soul distinguished one from another.

Each thing we lived, changed us. Since this misfortune, my heart has lost its serenity, and I have never been able to recover it. The only thing that mattered now was to enjoy life as much as I was allowed to. For a long time, too long for my taste, until today our world has revolved around our family.

These were what I thought were the happiest times of my life, and now Fiona has decided to be with a man she described as wonderful. Her heart has swung between her present life and her future life, but would it not have been a greater cowardice to refuse this great happiness. In any case, misfortune will never spare anyone, even if you were careful, so to forbid yourself love would be, without a doubt, to give up living.

How I understood Fiona's scruples to take this step, although it was still only flirtations and not the love of a life. I myself refused all the opportunities to discover love, both physical and emotional, simply because I felt nothing. I lived in a brothel. This universe of my house was enough for me. It was what I forced myself to live in, to be...until this day.