080. Rose new world, 1

(Rose)

I went to look for a book in a distant city.

That's how it all began.

I was catching a train to be on my way back home that day. It wasn't raining yet when it left the station.

I could get home late if something unexpected were to happen along my journey.

Unlike her, waiting for my return home, I feel comfortable inside a train.

It's usually hard to get lost when travelling in trains.

~

As I was at my seat, thinking about it then and thinking about it now some years later, it still makes me smile.

How wrong one can be, even with the simplest of beliefs.

Maybe I could be a few hours late. Maybe arrive the next day if something bizarre were to happen.

Something odd enough to inspire a story.

My father was a champion at that. Imagining in the spur of the moment, with the slightest hint of inspiration, a story that would captivate his children like a spell.

He also used to tell me there are two keys for any good tale. A good beginning and a good ending. Unfortunately I never inherited that talent of his. I sadly grew as the complete opposite. I have no imagination, to a point it can even hurt me trying to think of something.

I've always known since I was a very young child that I wasn't smart. And so that I had to do extra efforts to think and act. It doesn't always work, but I try to fit in the best I can.

My fierce sister once told me there were two keys to success in life. First to start things. Then to finish them. It's harder for me to judge if I was better at this. I'm still not sure.

Future is always unknown, I can't picture the end of things I do and their long-term consequences. Until and beyond my unavoidable death, I'm generally unable to fathom what the future holds.

I tried to write tales like my father. I was very unsuccessful. I can't figure a catchy beginning. I couldn't imagine interesting events in the story.

And I was even more at a loss trying to bring a satisfying end to it.

As you learn to know me if you wish so, you will understand how lost I feel when facing the end of a story.

Between foggy memories of the past and unknown future, what is left is the present I'm offering you.

These little pearls patiently assembled one by one, attached one after the other as I found them on my journey.

As these beads align over the thread of my fate, perhaps something interesting will arise from it.

Until death brings an end to this work, and brings us apart.

~

I wasn't young anymore when this journey began.

My past was already buried, literally, at home. Roses have been growing over since.

The book I bring home is for my last relative alive, and the dearest one to me. To help her find a cure to...

Let's say a curse for now.

For the background of who I am, I've omitted a lot willingly.

Because where I was about to set foot, everything else was meaningless.

Where I came from. Her name. My age, and even my own name. Along with the value of the book I carried, none of it would matter at all in the first days.

In sudden shifts like that, the past was temporarily meaningless, until the time of crisis would eventually settle.

I would never have been able to say how one could travel to another world. Not even after it happened. I can now, because I've had a lot more time to learn and understand.

At the time the event occurred, I was only lost and clueless.

My past was to fade that night. And soon I would be lost, in every imaginable way.

The only thing that would remain to define me during these first nights was my will to return home.

I just wanted to return home.

How long could it take?

In this world or any other?

~

Being lost while travelling is one thing. Being lost while homecoming is different.

I was about to experience it.

I would learn with time, but the beginning sure would hurt.

But over time...

I would grow, and evolve. Endlessly. Or, well, until I meet my fate.

Until then...

As an unexpected friend would tell me, many years later:

There is chaos in life,

And we both like it.

So began my journey into an unexpected new world.

~