Gravity and Wings

Piotr was still waiting for him - a beacon of calm and patience in his leather jacket so not priestly like.

"What are you, out of a job?" Adam asked walking up. He appreciated his cousin's company, but didn't want him to neglect his parish duties because of it.

"I'm on special leave. In addition to my regular duties as a priest, I'm even exempt from the May evening service."

"Vacation, good. Don't people talk about you hanging out outside the hotel?"

"More like I'm sitting inside. But what exactly am I supposed to be afraid of? Slander? False accusations? Big deal. I have a lawyer in the family."

Adam didn't take the joke.

"What if I threw it all away?"

"Well, we're finally talking."

"Do you want me to quit?" He asked surprised. He expected Piotr to start convincing him to stay in his job.

"I want you to think carefully. About everything. I don't think I'm wrong if I say that you've reached a turning point. Now you have to choose which way you're going to go, because if you don't, life will decide for you on its own. And do you know what the strongest of all natural forces is? Gravity. It's what causes the weights on our shoulders to pull us down."

"Thank you for the sermon."

"It's not mine. Don't you remember that summer when I decided to enter the seminary? If I remember correctly, a some kid told me to think hard about choosing a life path. There was something about wings, about meeting your parents' expectations, and about gravity..."

"You still remember that nonsense?"

"Nonsense? Maybe. But I made a decision that I don't regret."

***

Piotr's words made more of an impression on Adam than he might have thought. In fact, years ago he had used similar ones himself.

When Piotr announced to him that he was deciding to enter the seminary, Adam asked him to think carefully about whether this was the path chosen by him or his parents? He didn't want the desires of others to define his heartfelt friend's life. While Adam himself was not opposed to Piotr becoming a priest, he wanted his cousin to make a truly informed decision.

Adam was seventeen years old at the time, attending high school and still had no idea what to do with his life himself, but he dreamed that it would be something he would choose for his own happiness.

This dream was dictated in large part by his relationship with his parents. They weren't the worst, but his parents, religious and hard working, dreamed of their son finding a good, stable job and starting a family as early as possible. They even found him a girl, the daughter of the mayor and his friend from primary school, and they did not care at all that the kids were not getting along.

So Adam's life path was planned and he was sure that future grandparents had already chosen names for their future grandchildren. Adam understood his parents' dreams and desires and felt remorse for not sharing them.

Among other reasons, that's why he was unable to fight them. He did not want to disappoint those who had given him life and raised him for so many years. He didn't object, even though everything in him screamed that he didn't want the kind of life they had planned for him. So when Piotr told him of his decision, which was in line with his parents' desires, Adam had to make sure it wasn't made for them. That's when he burned him with his first ever speech about making choices, about gravity pulling down and wings that let you soar high.

Adam didn't know what wings could give him, at least not until he met his first love. Unfortunately it was a boy, a guitarist in a young rock band. They bonded, became friends, and eventually a more intimate, even erotic bond developed between them. They were each seventeen years old and Adam felt for the first time that he had really begun to live. He was happy.

The happiness lasted a while. After he told his parents that he was not going to follow the path they had chosen, they made a terrible row with him. His father hit him for the first time in his life. His mother called him a heretic.

As befitted an always polite and obedient son, Adam could not fight for himself or leave home. He was already of age, but totally dominated by his parents. Before Piotr entered the seminary, younger cousin used to run to him in such situations, but now Piotr was not there, and the situation also surpassed everything that had happened to him so far. He had allowed himself to be completely smothered. He never again met his lover, who by the way left with the band and did not care much about Adam's fate.

So he was alone, abandoned and crushed. His dreams were trampled on, his love taken away and all resistance broken. His parents kept him short and said that if he wasn't interested in girls, he should choose lifelong celibacy and become a priest, or at least join a religious order so he wouldn't bring shame on his family.

Shame and disappointment were the words he heard most often then. One day he was no longer able to hear them. They were a burden that his young shoulders could not bear. Gravity pulled him toward the ground, and as he stood over the cliff, it pulled him even further down.

He woke up in the hospital, hooked up to an IV. No one was with him, even though the sun stood high. He lay and waited. No one came. It wasn't until the nursing rounds that one of them noticed he was conscious. She was very kind, but to his silent question she could only mutter that his mother would be coming soon.

Mother showed up two hours later and the first thing he heard from her lips was the question, "How could you do this to us?"

At that moment he already knew that according to his parents he had no right to live for himself. He was their property. They didn't care that he couldn't handle the burden of reproach they placed on him every day. They didn't feel guilty for not noticing his pain. He was the one to blame for the further shame brought upon the family - suicidal son. He closed his eyes and spoke to no one.

Then Piotr showed up. He was in his second year of seminary and, having asked for a pass, arrived on the first train. He took him by the hand and stroked his hair. Adam knew that this was the only person in all of God's world who loved him. Adam told him everything crying almost the whole time.

Piotr listened without letting go of his hand. When he heard about his cousin's unhappy love he commented passionately that he shouldn't hang around with musicians, but with someone more responsible. He did not talk about sin and hell, he did not moralize, he was not talking shit, he comforted his cousin with a broken heart.

When Adam announced that he would not be coming home, Piotr did not try to convince him to change his mind, but instead promised to try to arrange something to help him set up on his own. He asked only one thing - that whenever Adam felt unwell or in need, he would contact him immediately. Piotr would always be at his beck and call.

More than ten years have passed since those events. In all that time, Adam had not once seen his parents. Not once did he hear their voice. He never asked how they were doing or sent a card for Christmas. He had cut himself off from them completely. It wasn't that he hated them or wished them ill. He wished them the best, but away from him. He felt that if he came into contact with them again, he would fall apart again.

Not that they would strenuously seek contact with him. They knew, after all, that he had the best possible relationship with Piotr. And they probably knew from him what was going on in Adam's life - either from him or through his parents.

"This is probably your favorite place in the neighborhood" Adam suddenly heard a voice behind his back. Just as he had suspected, it was Hubert.

"I think so" he admitted and looked at the surface of the lake again.

"Do you like water?" Hubert sat down next to him on the planks of the pier.

"I like open spaces."

"So why do you work in a big city?"

"It just so happened."

"Are you angry with me?"

"Not anymore" he admitted.

"Do you feel I had an advantage over you?"

"Not anymore. You didn't force me to do anything."

"Well, yes. You were captivated by my irresistible personal charm…"