2

01 – BEYOND THE STARS ........................................................... 4

02 – IT WILL RAIN FOR A THOUSAND YEARS ................................ 8

03 – THE SEASON OF DREAMS .................................................. 12

04 – LADY WINTER .................................................................. 17

05 – WINTER APOLOGUE .......................................................... 23

06 – MEETING EXPECTATIONS .................................................. 28

07 – THE SHORTEST PATH TO FREEDOM .................................... 33

08 – A LITTLE BIT OF YOU AND ME ............................................ 38

09 – ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER ENDING .................................... 43

10 – THE FULFILLMENT OF THE EMPTY-MINDED .......................... 50

11 – WORTH LIVING ................................................................ 53

12 – EXPANDING BOUNDARIES ................................................. 58

13 – SHALLOW INTERLUDE ...................................................... 63

14 – THE NIGHT OF DEMISE ..................................................... 68

15 – ALWAYS WILL BE ............................................................. 76

16 – I DON’T CARE ABOUT SQUARES ......................................... 83

17 – NIGHT KNIGHT ................................................................ 87

18 – HONEST HOPE OF RENEWAL .............................................. 97

19 – PISCES OF TRUTH .......................................................... 103

20 – ESCAPING THE FATE ...................................................... 108

21 – WALKING ON THE EDGE OF INSANITY .............................. 116

22 – THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GENERATIONS .............................. 125

23 – THE LULLABY TO ETERNAL SLEEP ..................................... 134

24 – IN A TIMELESS WORLD, NOBODY IS LATE ......................... 142

25 – THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH ....................................... 150

26 – CHRONICLES OF A DISTANT PROXIMITY ........................... 158

27 – HEARTBLOOD SYMPHONY ............................................... 166

28 – THREE OF A KIND .......................................................... 174

29 – DIVIDED ROADS ............................................................ 182

30 – THE COLOR OF MY SOUL ................................................. 190

31 – THE ROAD THAT ALWAYS TAKES YOU BACK ...................... 197

32 – A SUCCESSION OF TALES ............................................... 204

EPILOGUE – THE DAY THE WORLD REVIVED ............................. 211

3

4

01 – Beyond the Stars

It was one of those nights where I was lying in

the grass at her side. The ground itself was still a

bit wet from the afternoon's rain so we brought one blanket each keep moist away as we stared

into the dimly lit sky.

Those nights were usually pretty quiet at the start

since we believed it was a bit disrespectful for the

stars to begin talking about life and philosophy

while they were still asleep. Under those

circumstances I would occasionally take the time

to think about useless things and make peace with my mind. As the first stars began to shine in

the darkness she spoke.

"I wonder how far they are", she said with a

melancholic tone.

I wasn't certain of what she was talking about but

I still asked in a semi-certain voice "The stars?"

She didn't reply yet, but I still got a confirmation when she raised her hand to the sky, trying to

grab something.

"When I was younger", she said, "my parents would call me their 'little star', but as far as I

know stars are probably a few more times larger

than the planet we live on!".

5

I was a bit surprised at this statement for a topic

starter tonight, we usually had easier

conversations to warm up our brains, but she seemed pretty confident and serious about this so

I decided to let her continue, giving an

approving silence.

"I learnt today that stars are the biggest things in

the whole universe! How awesome is this? One

amazing thing is that they somehow all fit in our

sky. Another amazing but sad thing is that not

much people care about stars these days. This is

what I don't get."

I was still confused about where she was leading this monologue but I still kept quiet, I wouldn't

really know what to say anyway and she looked

like she had a pretty good starting idea, well

maybe it was only an illusion but I felt she had

some strong feelings about this.

She still paused, as if she waited for me to say

something to give her a chance to sort her

thoughts but when I finally decided to open my mouth to talk she proceeded her one-sided

conversation.

"Everyone tells me that the big things are the most important in my life, that I should be

thinking forward to them, like getting married,

having children, school, work."

6

"I get it that those are big chunks of my life but if

the big things are the most important, why are we

ignoring the stars? What's the impact of a town girl not getting married early versus two stars

colliding with each other, creating some kind of

new world and maybe even life?"

This felt hard for me as I was taking my time to

choose every word before saying it, not to get

misunderstood and derail the conversation

somewhere we both didn't want to go. Still gazing

at the constellations, I answered her on a (I

think) convincing voice.

"Even if everyone wants to focus on the big things, we all tend to care more about the little

things. It's like trying to find a little bit of

happiness in everything so in the end you're

happy whatsoever the result you get, right? If you

work twenty years without ever smiling once,

there isn't any end to this that will justify the sadness you would have been through, do you

understand?"

I asked her a question, but I kind of already knew

the answer so I kept on talking before she could

even try to say something.

"Big things like stars are too far from us, too

gigantic to grasp like it's nothing. Sure they look

really tiny from here, this hill that has been host

of many discussions about life in the past and

probably for the future too, but even if you try and reach out your hand to them, you won't catch

7

them like that, it's not the way it works, you don't

have to stretch your arm every night in hope that

someday your arm will be long enough. I believe it's how life works and people who care too much

for things they can't even get a glance of yet are

fools who cannot appreciate enough the present

time and are eager to be something they aren't."

"That's how I see the whole thing; I prefer getting

every feeling and memory from the present and

enjoy it than wait for later, like those nights spent

with you under the stars, talking about useless

stuff. That's how life should be."

I finally turned my head at her to see her reaction. I was expecting either a confused face

or a boggled mind. At the opposite, she rolled

herself in her blanket up her nose and was looking

directly into my eyes with hers being wide

opened. I felt a bit uneasy and shy about this turn

of events. I wasn't the only one.

"W-why are you blushing?"

8

02 – It Will Rain for a Thousand Years

Tonight when I arrived at the top of the hill, I

found myself being alone sitting on the grass. I

arrived a bit early I must admit, there were still faint orange rays of light piercing through the

treetops from the last bits of a sunset already

forgotten. The wind was gently blowing in my

hair, bringing up the sweet scent of autumn to my

nostrils. I took a big breath in but it ended up

being a sigh when it came out.

"Why are you sighing? Did you miss me that

much?" a familiar voice said behind me, followed by a cute giggle. I turned around and saw her in a

seasonal red coat and a fitting scarf that covered

her mouth in a lazy but delicate way. I didn't

answer her question with words, simply sending

back a smile.

"Are you afraid of getting cold?" I asked jokingly.

She didn't seem quite irritated but she looked

away for a moment.

She was looking at the sky as her hair received

the same treatment as mine from the wind. I thought it was more graceful and spectacular

when blown into long and silky hair though.

"Aren't you going to sit?" I asked her since

nothing was happening.

9

Not because I disliked silence or the smooth

sound of rattling leaves in the trees but because I

was afraid she would begin a conversation while standing and I, comfortably sitting in the grass,

would feel awkwardness towards this situation.

"No", she replied, "It's going to rain, I saw it". If she saw it, that was no mistake. I looked up to

the sky to find clouds, to no avail. People

considered her a prophet, in my opinion she could

just have some good intuition or ridiculous

amounts of luck but since I'm a human, I tend to

believe what I'm being told, even the inexplicable.

This "myth" started a few years ago, we were still young and clueless. We're still clueless but that's

not what I'm trying to say. My father is a

fisherman, he leaves the shore every week or so

for a few days and then comes back with food for

a handful of people living near us. He never asked

anything in return and would refuse any kind of payment. One night, there was a thunderstorm

raging outside and the wind was blowing so hard

that walls were shaking.

Obviously, she was afraid of thunder so she didn't

sleep at all during this night. In the morning, she

woke up my father early and she told him not to

go on the sea today. He told her that the storm

was over and it was safe but she insisted that another one was coming and he had to stay

home, he didn't want to be mean to her but he

kind of had to go.

10

As he wasn't replying, she started to cry,

repeating the same words over and over again. In

the end he decided to stay home but his fishing pals went anyways. This very night, all of sky's

contents fell down on earth.

Two weeks later, they were still missing from the coast and it's only one month after that somebody

found the floating body of one of those men

ashore.

Since then, she has been able to predict major

events that were taking place around us, not only

related to weather but I think she saved a few

lives with this "power" of hers. That's not something I can boast about, the only life I saved

is some mouse that was going to get eaten by a

snake, I just scared the snake away and the

mouse fled too.

I wonder what kind of feeling you get when you

actually save someone's life. I guess you're happy

for the person to be still alive and able to see the

life's wonders. I guess it's also heart-warming to get thanked honestly, it doesn't happen anymore

recently with all this selfishness around the

corner, at least there are still a few heroes in this

world.

"What are you doing?" she asked me while being

surprised by a stealthy drop of water on her nose.

"It already started raining, stop spacing out!"

11

I jumped on my feet and followed her as she

turned around and leaped down the hill like a little

rabbit. I guess our discussions can wait for later, we still have a long way to go, what if we ever run

out of topics? It probably won't happen but if it

ever does, we'll have one more night alone with

the stars, talking about everything that would

come to mind.

And as I was going down the hill I turned my

head around to see big rain clouds, I'm not sure

why I didn't notice them at first but they were

aggressively coming at us.

I wanted to at least give her a hug before going part ways, but when my head went back to its

original position, she was already gone.

12

03 – The Season of Dreams

She was eating an apple when I set foot on the

top of the hill that night. It was getting colder

every day and I even had to bring something to keep myself warm. An old leather jacket was lying

around in my house, untouched for years, with

the smell of wood fire smoke impregnated in its

layers of fabric.

It was obviously the time of the year to collect the

most delicious and tasty apples from the trees of

our region that were growing them. I kept my

jacket under my arm as I sat next to her. I didn't want to disturb her feast so I waited until she was

done to start off the night.

"Today felt like it would never end", she looked at

me mysteriously as I kept on talking. "I have

been chopping wood all day in preparation for the

upcoming winter!" She didn't seem impressed and

her gaze went back to the apple core she left in

the grass. I wondered if she got saddened by something today since she was pretty silent, she

usually was the one talking and initiating

conversations.

"Have you ever wanted to climb a mountain?" she

asked me out of the blue. I wasn't prepared for

such a question and I believe I've let my face

translate my feelings of confusion for a moment

since she almost instantly resumed her speech.

13

"Oh, it can be something else than a mountain, I

meant to ask if you ever dreamt of doing

something really great and rewarding?"

Honestly, I didn't have any idea of what I should

answer to this question. Did I ever set a goal for

myself in my life or had any idea of grandeur like the one of climbing a mountain? Such an

achievement was far different from climbing this

grassy hill when the night falls and when the

cicadas go to sleep. It almost became a habit;

something my body would do on its own without

needing me to think about it.

I don't really hate it, it means fewer efforts for me and I must say that those nights were kind of

enjoyable. Taking the time to stop running and

actually speak and think about life was somewhat

refreshing for me, escaping the redundant life I

had. We could speak for hours, always switching

topics but always having something to say about

it.

While I was pondering about her question, she started to stare deeply at me. I could easily feel

her gaze pierce right through my soul like a sharp

but not painful arrow. I kind of had the feeling she

was trying to read my mind to try and guess the

answer before I would even dare to open my

mouth. I kept the suspense for a few more seconds before finally answering with the most

boring answer I ever said.

14

"I don't know, not really, a mountain's pretty high

isn't it? I think I would get scared by heights." As

I was speaking I wondered for a moment if I was really suffering of acrophobia or if I was afraid of

something even bigger than a mountain. I'm

lucky that I wasn't going to add anything else

after this because she decided to talk anyway.

"I think it's another reason to add in favour of

doing it. Don't you want to challenge yourself,

overcome something bigger than what you can

leap? I think it's exciting just to think about it, going beyond the limit of what you can imagine

yourself being capable of, you can come back

from this pilgrimage stronger and more confident

about yourself than before, right?"

I listened to her in awe; I was a bit surprised by

her again, for the second time tonight, that she

would say something like this.

I started to believe she had some kind of crazy

idea floating around in her head and she probably

already knows I would follow her anywhere. Fearing the worst, I tried to poke at it with the

care of a tailor.

"It's great for you to have such aspirations, but it's a bit silly to only dream of it and never be able

to gather the courage of actually doing it. I must

agree though that such a rewarding event would

be pretty groundbreaking for something as

monotone as my daily life."

15

"I understand it's a bit hard to start since you

could easily get depressed if you failed at what

you were aiming for. Some people would probably just abandon before even trying because they're

afraid to fail." I said all of that on a serious tone

like I spoke with years of experience, I barely

knew anything about life yet, still experimenting

things and here I was, giving advice to the young.

"What if you fail? Does it mean you're incapable

of doing it? What exactly is this obsession of

succeeding everything at the first attempt? I think life is a game of trial and error, where you learn

from your mistakes and succeed from experience.

People who don't even want to try and that would

rather stick to things they have for granted make

me sad. What is going on with everybody wanting to get everything the easy way? It's like people

don't like challenge anymore, isn't that

mundane?" she said on the verge of tears, with a

bit of pity for the rest of the humanity.

I guess she realized something really important

tonight, I don't know if it would actually change

her life, we're only discussing, not taking life

decisions on this hill. The stars would sometimes guide us through difficulties and maybe I once

believed I could tell the wrong from the right, at

least for myself that is.

"I think there's more than truth in what you said"

I replied to her, without giving further explanation

or context, I think she understood on which

ground I stood and she was happy with it.

16

We spent the rest of the night staring at our

reflections in the cloudless night sky, our heads

full of ideas and thoughts we didn't bother sharing

now.

The cold wind began to slightly bite my skin but it

was more pleasant than annoying, I could however notice that she was shivering a bit. I

placed my leather jacket on her shoulders without

asking permission.

"Thank you..." she said, with the quietest voice in

the world.

17

04 – Lady Winter

My arms were still hurting from today's labour

and I was already headed for the top of the hill,

unable to wait anymore for tonight's event. There wasn't anything particular going on today but this

was now part of my routine and I was always

looking forward to it. I started to ponder what I

would do if she decided not to come. Would I still

watch the starry sky alone?

I didn't think about it for too long since I saw her

from a distance, already lost in her thoughts,

leaning back on her arms. I climbed the hill and silently took place next to her, assuming a similar

position as her. We waited quietly until the

nightfall, I was sometimes rubbing my arms to

ease the pain and before the sunset, I could

barely feel it anymore, Just as the first star lit the cloudless sky, she slowly opened her eyes and

spoke.

"The winter is coming faster this year isn't it?" she asked. I couldn't agree more, we barely dived into

autumn and we already had signs of an upcoming

new season. My father and I have been working

all week to make sure that everything would be

ready to welcome the winter. "We'll definitively have an early winter, it's too bad... I kind of like

the color scheme that autumn has. It feels warm

even if it's a bit cold sometimes, the way I like it!"

She giggled to herself as she was completing that

complicated description of the season we were in.

18

"Yes, it is for sure coming faster than expected

but I think we'll still be well-prepared for it. Do

you think we'll be getting any snow this year?" I asked, hoping for some spoiler that she could

manage to predict. We weren't really lucky with

that, we had freezing winters but uncommon were

the years we could even see an ounce of snow so

we had a saying that told that if it would snow during the winter, the earth would be happy and

grow larger crops when spring came. The

immaculate flakes would then rejoice more than

one when they fell. It was also some light of hope

for those who relied on the earth to feed their

families, helping them through this hard and demanding work. Even if it wasn't true, they

believed it so they would feel like they're were

working together with the ground to make things

grow. She laughed a bit at my question before

replying on a frivolous tone.

"Not if we kill Palsye!" she thought she was funny

but she took a semi-serious face when she saw

that I didn't understand or knew what she was referring to. She proceeded to try and explain to

me.

"There's a legend that was quite popular when I

was young in my hometown. It was the one of a

young girl named Palsye that supposedly lived a

few leagues from the place I grew years ago. She

had skin white as snow, short pale blue hair and blue eyes. From the outside, she almost looked

like a little angel but she wouldn't talk quite often,

she always seemed depressed and sad."

19

"The story also says that she would be staying in

her room during the day and sometimes wanders

around in the town during the night, her parents shut her in because everyone felt uneasy in her

presence."

"If you stood in the same room as her, you would feel a deep chill run down your spine and even

tough blacksmiths would be shivering. Needless to

say that she was lonely in this world where most

of the people prefer when it's warm so it was

probably the reason why she was so depressed."

"As the years passed, people of the village would

start to hate her, they blamed the rudeness of the winter on her and said she was a witch or a

demon that brings bad luck. To add to her

behaviour, people who met her during the night

said that they were scared to death when they got

stared at by Palsye, receiving a glance from her

as cold as the cruellest winter. Her parents loved her but didn't really know what to do with her,

she wouldn't probably ever get married or have

children and she might not even want to

anyways."

She took a pause, giving me a rest, some time to

assimilate what she said and even ask a question

if I ever had to.

Since I'm a good listener I made her a sign to

keep on.

20

"One year", she resumed, "the winter was really

strong and harsh, it came so early that people

from the village didn't have time to collect food and wood before it began. Everyone was having

their own difficulties and they all felt the need to

blame someone else for their laziness. They

blamed Palsye for the early and violent winter, for

the snow drowning their vegetables and the ice

covering the lake where the fish was caught."

"Her parents tried to defend their daughter, telling

everyone that she was only a little girl, she couldn't do such things but the people of the

village wouldn't want to hear anything. They

really had a strong hatred towards her and they

wanted to let her know. When some of the

townsfolk barged in her room, they started yelling at her, they plaid they would all die because of

her. Not once the little girl looked at them, not

once her mouth opened. Her parents were also

being targeted and made accomplices of the

town's foreseen demise so they kept quiet, while

being killed deep inside." She took another pause to breath and immediately started storytelling

again.

"I'll skip the details but the townsfolk decided to

kill Palsye in order to save the village. They

thought that the winter would stop, that their

misery would end by killing this girl. Weeks after,

the winter was still raging and many villagers died from famine or cold, it was a terrible year for this

little town. It was also the last year this town ever

saw snow falling down the sky; the winter would

still be cold, as it is here, but many people

thought that Palsye's death was the reason why

21

they wouldn't get snow anymore. She had many

different names through the years, I think the

most popular one is Lady Winter, it's a pretty poetic name and many writers wrote tales of her,

being all alone in her kingdom of silence, where

no one wanted to live." As she finished her story

she rested a bit in the tall grass as if she was

extenuated from talking. I think she was happy to

have been able to tell me this story.

"Well that was a pretty interesting story, a sad

one for sure, I wonder if it's also the reason why we rarely get snow too." I started to think about

Palsye, how would have she been if she actually

spoke to people and what would have happened if

they accepted her even if she was different. I also

thought that the cruel winter that fell on them was probably a punishment for them being selfish

and blaming someone else for their mistakes,

that's somewhat pathetic.

Do people really hate cold that much? I

understand from a biological point of view that

humans tend to stay at the same body

temperature so they can function normally but I

think that cold is also part of the nature and of

the seasons.

Why not try to live with it; I can only see good

things happening. She has remained pretty silent so I decided to end it so we could be thinking by

ourselves without having the awkward feeling to

have to say something.

22

"I wonder how it would have been if I lived in the

same town as her. I would probably try to be

friends with her, I kind of like cold and mysterious girls, they're my type." on those clever words, we

stared at the stars for a good moment without

saying a word and then I decided to head back by

myself.

As I was stepping down the hill I looked behind

me to look at her, I think she was looking back at

me but I kept on walking down the hill.

23

05 – Winter Apologue

It was really the winter now. Autumn flew like a

swift and splendid bird across the trees and shook

their leaves to the ground. They were curled on themselves as if they wanted to shelter from the

violent cold. I had a pretty basic and plain coat to

keep me warm, I wasn't really fond of fancy stuff

but I think I could have used another layer of

protection tonight since the sun wouldn't be there in a few minutes. The sky was slowly turning

black and I was still alone on the frosted hill.

It was a peaceful night, I couldn't hear anything but the current in the river at the bottom of the

hill and wind going through the naked branches of

the few trees surrounding me. I was a bit

surprised at first that the lake wasn't frozen yet

but the currents were stronger than most of common rivers. It is told that it was once empty

but after an earthquake hit the mountain far to

the west, I think it was actually a dormant

volcano, some rock moved and water that was

stuck in the mountain's valley poured down the

land, forging the ground into a river.

I started to think back at what I was asked before

about climbing a mountain; there was actually that one tall mountain that gave birth to the river.

I could barely imagine how much time it would

take to reach the top; it would most likely take

more than a few hours, maybe even days! I'm not

certain if I would like to do this alone, I would

24

need a partner and that partner would probably

be the person who would drag me there.

The peaceful melody of the water got broken by

some sneeze echoing from afar, it was an high-

pitched one so I could easily imagine that it was coming from my not-so-cold-resistant friend. I

raised up my head a bit to see a little girl coming

up the hill, she wrapped her arms around her frail

young body to keep her warmth. When she saw

that I noticed her, she waved at me with and honest smile, I think I received a bit of her well-

kept warmth since she wouldn't greet me like this

normally. As she arrived at the top and sat next

to me, I could notice a faint red taint on her upper

cheeks, she sneezed again and then spoke.

"I think I caught a cold, I stepped in a water

puddle this morning and by the time I could dry

my feet, they were already frozen!" she giggled like it was nothing and laughed it off. I

appreciated the fact that she came to talk with

me tonight even if she was sick but I was also

afraid that she would push her little body a bit too

far, it was really cold outside after all! A cold wasn't something that would kill but if you

wouldn't get some rest it could hit really hard on

someone, shackling you down to your bed for

days.

"Shouldn't you get some rest?" I asked, worried.

"I think you should be in bed right now, not in the

coldest spot you could find in the region." I hoped

I didn't overdo it since I guessed she wouldn't want to feel pampered or being told what to do. I

25

found out that my expectations weren't only

illusions when she pouted back a bit at me.

Once again I didn't feel like she was angry, I don't

think she ever was anyway, but it wasn't probably

what she wanted me to say.

"I know... but I still wanted to come and talk a bit

with you." she explained. I felt relieved I must say since I can't picture myself talking alone with

the stars. Well I wouldn't probably be speaking

but loneliness is a terrible disease, sometimes

really hard to cure, so I had difficulties hiding the

satisfaction I had when she said this. I'm not sure

why I wanted to hide it though, it's probably what

she wanted by coming all the way to me.

She wanted to make me happy and the only reward I could give back to her is to show my

satisfaction, at the very least. I think it was in my

nature to hide my feelings, most of the time it

would only fire back at me if I let myself loose so

it's probably some kind of innate reflex I had. I

think I should reconsider and be a bit more

expressive when it's worth it.

"I appreciate the thought, really, I just don't want you to get worse." I chose my words carefully not

to put too much emphasis on how I felt about it

but more to thank her. "Did you have something

special you wanted to talk about then?" I asked,

hoping she had an interesting topic she thought about. She lied down in the chilled grass and

stared at the stars for a moment that felt longer

than it actually was, I decided to lie down too.

26

"Oh not particularly", she said in a joyful tone. "I

just had to talk to another human today, I've

been in my bed all day! The more I think about it,

the more I feel that it is a human need to talk with someone else. I'm not certain that someone

would survive alone on a deserted island even if

he had enough food and water to survive for

years. I'm pretty sure that boredom can kill

people, it might be the reason why people want to get married, they want to make sure they'll

always have someone to talk to. Even if it's not an

interesting topic, even if you always have

opposite opinions, being able to talk to other

people on a regular basis is a little blessing that shouldn't be taken lightly." she said without a

doubt, like if she had a revelation. Like always, I

had to add up something after her monologue,

she was waiting for it as she was staring at the

night sky.

"You're totally right, that's the reason why you

want friends too. You can have fun with them but

you can also talk with them and listen to what they have to say. Sharing life experiences,

making jokes or talking about the weather are

actually things that keep you alive and make you

feel less like a side character to the story of other

people's life. Eventually you'll make memories

with those friends and when you reminisce those years after, you will realize how much your

friends helped you through your life without doing

much more than just talking. Speech is a strong

thing we have and it can do much more than just

convoy information, you only have to know how

27

to use it." I said, with a bit less insurance than

her and a sloppy explanation.

I spoke highly but I had trouble to put into words

what I was really thinking. I still think that she

understood and liked what she heard since I could see half a smile on her face. She got up on her

feet and faced me.

"Thank you for your insight! I think I will do as

you said and get some rest now though, it's

getting really cold." she said as her words took a

foggy shape when they left her mouth. "I'm going

to head back now, good night!" She started to go

down the hill and I was wondering if I should at

least escort her to her house.

It also grazed my mind that she might have wanted me to go at her house to keep her

company, it seemed like she felt lonely in her

house.

I got back to a sitting position and looked at her

go down the hill, I'm still unsure if it was because

of my bashfulness or my laziness that I didn't go

with her.

28

06 – Meeting Expectations

The sky became dark so early today it was almost

scary. The sun could hide behind big clouds while

they were crossing the sky and once they were gone, it was already time for him to wave

goodbye to this side of the planet. The stars didn't

showed themselves yet though; we still had to

wait patiently for them to come. It wasn't a really

painful wait, it was certainly relaxing and I took the opportunity to close my burning eyes that

have been smoked all day long. It was still deadly

cold outside but since we were dressed enough

we had a stronger cold resistance than usual so it

wasn't too bad.

I closed my hand in the grass and the frosty weed

crumbled under the weak pressure I applied to it.

I thought it was kind of sad that most of the beautiful vegetation didn't have any defence

against cold and would survive through the

extreme conditions of the winter. It would be a

less depressing season if there were colourful

flowers and blooming trees all around, but there's only frozen and dead stuff everywhere. Since my

eyes were closed, I couldn't tell if the stars woke

up yet or if they haven't, she did that job for me.

"I... I saw something today." she said, unsure if

she was using the right words. I was expecting

the worse, not very often were the times when

she told me about what she saw during the day.

It was either some prophecy that she saw or

something worth telling, like a black rabbit.

29

For some unknown reason I wished for the rabbit,

after all, knowing the future would probably not

be really exciting, since the main excitement of life is to discover what tomorrow holds for you,

without you knowing it. Sometimes there are

good surprises and other times it's an unwanted

one, it's part of the game. What if you knew every

bad thing that would happen to you in your life? Would you try to escape your fate? Would you

refuse dating someone because you know that he

would cheat on you in ten years? Would you kill

yourself now because the way you die is too

horrible? I prefer let the life go without expecting

too much of it, life isn't always reliable.

"What did you see, a rabbit?" I said jokingly, but

still with an edge of hope that she would say yes. I laughed to myself as I made this statement, I

couldn't possibly wish for someone to say

something in particular, might as well speak to

myself every day and having the perfect

conversations.

"A rabbit? No, I foresaw something. We are going

to climb a mountain, you and me!" She took a

pause as I looked at her, flabbergasted. "And it's going to be... this one!" she was pointing at the

mountain that held the river's water years ago. I

started to think if she wasn't reading my mind

instead of reading the future, that would be more

plausible but still improbable. It might as well be some kind of sixth sense girls have, I haven't met

a lot of girls in my life so I couldn't really tell but

that was definitely mysterious. She resumed her

augury. "We'll be departing in a week from right

now, make sure to get ready".

30

At this moment of the night, I had a thousand

questions to ask her, but I started by the biggest

one, I wanted to let her take responsibility but I

played the game along.

"And why would we do that, did you also see the

reason behind it. I'm mostly curious about the reason why I accepted" I asked to see if she

wasn't making this up. She frowned a bit at me, I

got surprised by her reaction, sometimes I can't

really tell what she wants me to say, but I always

end up giving the 'wrong answer'. That's how it

should work I guess.

"Did you forget already?" she asked me in a semi-aggressive manner. "We talked about dreams and

doing big things not too long ago. You seemed all

worked up back then to climb a mountain so you

shouldn't be saying no now" she said with a bit of

excitement for herself. It was clear for me now

that she didn't foresee this and she only wanted someone to accompany her on this long path, I'm

not sure I was fit for this but since I didn't forget

about it and was thinking about it the other day,

it would be hypocrisy to myself to say that I didn't

want to go. Still, I didn't know if I was ready to

leave in one week.

"Are you sure? It's really cold now here, going up

in altitude will only make the temperature drop more, it's risky! And do you know how much time

it will take us to climb this mountain? It will

probably be more than a day and I'm not even

talking about going back down.

31

Do you think we're prepared for this? Isn't it too

hasty?" I said, with a bit of hesitation. I don't

know if I was merely trying to push back the day when we would do it or convincing her to just

abandon the thought.

"What are you talking about ‘risky’? Where's the gain if there isn't any risks to take? I think you're

contradicting yourself, you were the one saying

that we had to seize the day and enjoy life to its

fullest, waiting to do something we could achieve

now is just being lazy or coward. You shouldn't be afraid of the big things, they aren't scary at all. I

think you could learn more than how to step on a

big rock by climbing this mountain, it's not

something you can afford to miss!" she said with

all the devotion and conviction she had.

I must say that her words had a big impact on

me. It's true that I believed all of this, but faced

to reality, I was stepping back... hesitating. I said a lot of meaningless words up to now that seemed

to make sense to people. It made sense for them

because they believed I actually thought it was

my way of living but those words were only

thoughts of a delusional world that my

imagination hosts.

I thought I knew everything, or at least I looked

like it but in the end I knew nothing, I felt like a total stranger, a newcomer in this world. She

easily caught my anxiety and her face changed

quickly, once again, I thought she could read right

through me, like an open book.

32

"Someone told me once 'You don't even know

enough to realize how little you know'. Back then,

I didn't understand what those words meant but I thought they sounded great so I kept on

remembering them. Just now I think I found the

exact definition of this quote and I also believe

everyone has his own definition that fits with his

life." I stopped talking and I stared at the moon.

I noticed that I never really looked at the moon,

my attention was always on the stars, how could I

miss the moon, it was bigger in the sky and it was mainly the source of lighting in the night. I

somehow felt bad for her and kept on watching

her cross slowly the moonlit sky. I wondered for a

moment if the moon had a different look when

observed from the top of a mountain. I kept my eyes at the sky but I opened my mouth to speak

again. A little cloud of vapour came out of my

mouth as I started my first word.

"In one week, right? You can count on my

presence." I said, I didn't watch her reaction but

I'm pretty sure that she was happy with it, I

smiled mechanically and told myself that I either

did a good choice, or the worst mistake of my life.

It's a good thing she didn't tell me the outcome of

our pilgrimage yet.

33

07 – The Shortest Path to Freedom

We decided to meet at the top of the hill, that

sure was original but at least we couldn't have

issues finding the meeting spot. It was still early in the morning and I could barely hear the song of

a courageous distant bird. We wanted to be able

to get the most climbing time we could get from

the day since the night's temperature would

probably be unbearable at high altitude. I wasn't sure if I brought everything we needed in my

backpack, I mostly packed it with food and water

because if there's something we don't want to run

out of, it is certainly that.

I brought some dried mutton flanks and bread, I

even took the care of wrapping the bottled water

in some blanket to prevent it from freezing. I saw

her coming up the hill so I went to meet her halfway. From a first glance, she didn't look like

she took a lot with her, at least she thought to

bring some kind of tent to protect ourselves from

the cruel wind. I offered to carry it and she gave

it to me.

"You sure didn't bring much with you, will you be

alright?" I asked, a bit surprised. It wasn't

uncommon to see a girl bringing a lot of useless stuff when going on a journey, it wasn't probably

her style though and I always felt that she was

someone who liked to keep things simple. It was

definitely not a bad behaviour but I was afraid

that she would have forgotten mandatory items.

34

"I only want to climb a mountain, not move my

whole room at its summit!" she said with an

amused expression. I think I once again underestimated her, she sure is a master in the

art of looking good when being careless. On those

meaningless words we started to walk in direction

of the mountain at a steady pace. We didn't talk

much on our way there, I bet she had, like me, her head full of thoughts and worries about what

we're going to attempt or she might only have

been tired, it was still early after all, and almost

unforgivable to be thinking at a time like this.

After a few hours, we finally arrived at the very

foot of the tall mound and I must say that I was

impressed. The mountain was really bigger than

what I thought, I always observed it from far away so I couldn't really tell but now that I'm

standing next to it, I almost feel insignificant, how

in the world could that so much earth would

agglomerate in such a place, this went so high in

the sky that it probably touched the clouds. She

was looking at me, a bit amused by my

amazement.

I don't know how my face looked but it was probably worth the show. My mind suddenly felt

the need to imagine myself being really high in

the sky on a tiny path, I had an unpleasant

feeling in my abdomen and I felt like losing

balance, even if I was on solid ground. She put her hand gently on my shoulder to make me wake

up from my delusion.

35

"Hey, stop daydreaming, we have a mountain to

climb, are you ready?" she asked. Without waiting

for my answer, she started to walk on a man-made path into the mountain, I followed her. "I've

been here before", she continued, "I used to come

here sometimes but I never have been really far,

there are some roads at the bottom of the

mountain since it's not too steep but not much

more."

It seems like she was more prepared than what

she looked like but since I just learnt that I couldn't really rely on this feeling to actually know

what she was up to, I tried to not feel

overconfident about it. We kept on walking but as

she said, at some point there weren't any more

roads to guide us, we had to make our own path, I thought it was a metaphor on life, when you're

young, you always have people to guide you

through life and helping you making decisions,

but as you grow up, you're more and more on

your own, you can't be depending on other people

too much, and that's how it should be. Would we really be climbing that mountain if there was a

road carved by others that led to the top, it would

ruin the concept just a little bit, just enough to

not be doing it.

We will get to the top by ourselves, using

everything we've learnt so far, without anyone

telling us what to do or what not to do, it's what some people would call freedom. It's pretty

common to hear that real freedom doesn't exist

anymore, no matter how free we feel, that it's a

fake freedom and we're still being restricted to

follow the cast of modern society.

36

I think that's not really true, maybe it's only

because people want more when they get more

but I think the freedom I have is more than enough. There are some rules to follow to make

sure the world keeps turning, it's like if we wanted

to fly to the top of the mountain instead of

climbing it, should we stay reasonable for once

and think about those who really have limited freedom, those who can't even set foot on the

mountain, because they don't have feet, those

who don't have the right to dream, those who are

restricted by their own stubborn minds. Once

again, everything is relative to something else,

but everyone knows that so I don't really have to

mention it now, it's just a reminder.

As we kept climbing up, it became harder and harder to keep a good pace, we would take

breaks sometimes and talk about useless things,

as always. The sun went down early too since it

was the season of short evenings so we decided

to stop climbing when it was completely dark

since we would probably just get lost. We set up the tent with the last ray of light coming from the

moon before she got overwhelmed by dark

clouds. We ate a bit before going to bed, I think I

made a good choice with the mutton since she

devoured it, that made me feel somewhat good I

must admit.

I had trouble falling asleep, it was so cold even if I had a thick blanket and the tent was blocking

the freezing wind. I tried to think about tomorrow

to forget about the cold, we could probably reach

the top before the nightfall if we woke up early

and kept a good climbing speed.

37

As I was estimating time, I felt a little and

delicate hand grabbing my arm. Her hand was

really cold and I felt the urge to take it and give it

some warmth, but I didn't.

She dragged herself up to me and rested her

head against my arm, she looked so peaceful that I decided to pretend I was already asleep and

subtly looked at her.

Body warmth was great after all.

38

08 – A Little Bit of You and Me

I woke up as the sun pierced through the thin but

resistant membrane that protected us for the

night. I decided to venture outside alone for a bit since she was still sound asleep, I wasn't planning

on let her sleep all day but I would probably have

been punished by the gods for interrupting her

slumber. There wasn't a big area to explore, we

found some flat ground to set up the tent for the night but everything else was a steep mountain,

going all the way up to the sky.

I went to the edge of the platform I was standing on and stared at the skyline and realized that I

had a clearer view of the sun than when I was on

ground level, I guess it was because there were

less obstacles that were blocking the sunlight and

therefore it was plausible that really high mountaintops would get morning light while the

land would still be dark. It would really be

amazing to see only the apex shining in the

darkness, like a lighthouse. I couldn't stand

anymore on the edge so I took a few careful steps back and turned around. I could clearly see that

the little one in the tent was rummaging in

something since where was a lot of movement in

there, I dared not to enter and I waited for her to

get out on her own.

"Good morning" I said as soon as she poked her

head out. "Are you ready to climb a lot today? We

still have a good distance to climb before we

reach the top!" I hurried her to get ready.

39

I made a few calculations and we should be at the

top of the mountain by the end of the day if

everything went well, but what could wrong anyways? We couldn't really get lost, it's a

mountain, there is a way up and a way down and

since it's not nearly flat we could easily find our

way. What if somebody fell or was injured? That

would slow us down but first of all I wouldn't want something like this to happen. I started to be

afraid that something bad would occur today, I

had a strange feeling but I thought I could

probably count on the fact that she would be able

to foresee it before it happened.

What am I talking about? I didn't even believe she

had such powers in the first place and knowing

her, she probably won't tell me as long as it doesn't kill us both, so we can fail and learn from

our mistakes, but would have she seen this even

before inviting me to climb this mountain with

her? Was it planned that somebody would get

hurt, was it planned to fall at least once to get

back up on feet? Was it... fate? As I was imagining things that didn't make sense, she

spoke to me with a half-asleep voice.

"I'm happy to see you're hyped for this, let's get

moving now before it's too late." she said while

starting to pack our things in our bags, drinking a

bit of water to get rid of the morning breath and

yet here I was, paranoid about the 'before it's too late' at the end of her sentence, she really had

planned something and it could happen at any

moment. I think the heights are doing bad things

to my brain, I'm acting weird and I lost reason.

40

Even if I told myself that I was stupid to doubt

her, I still had my senses at full capacity while she

looked pretty relaxed for someone who was climbing a mountain. We went up for hours and I

didn't have the feeling we were actually getting

higher, it was like the mountain was an endless

staircase that you would escalate forever. I

suggested that we should accelerate a bit and we did so, but we became tired more often and had

to take more breaks so it wasn't really helpful. We

stopped again to drink a bit of water before

continuing and I noticed that her forehead was all

sweaty while mine wasn't, I guess it was a bit

harder for her to do this.

I had a physical job so I was used to physically

challenge myself, I didn't know what she was doing when she wasn't with me, on the top of the

hill, I never really asked and I'm fine with it. I

didn't need to know those kinds of things from her

to discuss as we always did. We resumed our

work towards the top and for once I felt that we

were really progressing, we were almost there. A bit before the sun disappeared behind the far

away trees, we were finally standing at the stop

of the mountain, on a little plateau that had

enough room for us to actually stay for the night.

It was necessary since going down would also take a lot of time and we couldn't do it during the

night. Setting up the tent was a bit more

challenging than before since the wind was so

strong at the top, but we ended up victorious in

this fight. Once we were done, the sun went down and some stars appeared in the sky, we looked at

each other and without saying a word we agreed.

41

We lied down at the top of the mountain, staring

at the night sky and it felt like there was an

handful more stars than usual. I thought it was a bit crazy to see the moon from a different angle,

to be honest she looked the same as before, was

that normal? I believed that one of her faces

would hide something shinier than the sun, I just

had to find it. Now that we succeeded to get to the top, I felt that I was a fool to think we

wouldn't be able to, how could I even think of

something like that, I don't know why I was that

afraid. I decided to speak first.

"You were right, this experience sure was

rewarding to me, I finally feel like I did something

big and now that I know that I can do it, I will

probably be wishing to do more impressive achievements to challenge myself, it's really great

when you succeed at something hard!" I said with

the excitement of a child, she looked amused.

"I think I could die here..." she said with a sigh of

relief.

We took a bit of our time to get this magnificent

view burned in our minds and took a new load of

fresh air in our lungs. The air was freezing but it

still felt good, it was almost like if they were

getting cleaned. I closed my eyes for a bit, I was

a bit sleepy but I wanted to stay awake a little more, the temperature fell down again and I

turned to her to see what she was up to. She had

her eyes closed too but I think she fell asleep, I

couldn't blame her, we had a tough day and I was

myself quite tired.

42

For a moment I wondered how she could fall

asleep in those conditions but her long and

beautiful red hair looked like it was ablaze, giving her the warmth she needed to get a good night of

sleep.

For some reason I really wanted to touch this hair to see if it was actually warm, so I carried her to

the tent so she could at least sleep under her

blanket.

As I turned around to shut the tent, I witnessed

something wonderful, a miracle.

It started to snow.

43

09 – Another Year, Another Ending

The night was short and soon enough, we were

back on our feet ready to go all the way down

what took two days to climb. We planned to do it in only one day, it seemed possible to me and it

would be a perfect challenge to complete our

achievement. It was still hard to have a good

walking speed at first because it was so steep we

had to be careful and since it snowed the day

before, the ground was slippery.

I wonder if it only snowed on the top of the

mountain, it was plausible that snow would only fall and stay at high altitude and thawing on its

way down to the land, even if it was very cold. A

fancy thought crossed my mind; the snow could

have been a sort of reward for the brave souls

that would challenge their bodies and minds to climb the mountain so they would finally see

snow.

I think it's far more than what it looks like, there is some hidden meaning behind it and I guess

everyone has his own reward upon completion of

a hard task.

I don't know why mine was snow, I never really

wanted to see snow, though I must say it is

beautiful. A pure white powder descending from

where I watch every night in search of answers,

could it be interpreted as some kind of answer?

44

She looked more amused than me to see this

snow and she would take a devilish pleasure to

throw amorphous balls that would scatter before even reaching me. It was funny at the very least

because I can't say that going down a mountain is

as fun as climbing it, we weren't even discovering

new places or things since we took the exact

same path to go down, we both felt uneasy about

our directional senses so we went the safe way.

"Don't you think it's funny that it snowed for the

first time in years on the day we decided to climb that mountain? It must be a sign of the gods!"

she said with enthusiasm. I began to think she

had something to do with this chain of events, I

decided not to think of it too much. "It might be

the beginning of something we're not even aware of, wouldn't be amazing?" she continued, lost in

the euphoria of the natural wonders.

I have to admit that I was also impressed by the weather but I didn't take it as a blessing of the

gods so I just kept on smiling back and nodding

at her rhetorical questions. I felt that the

temperature was a bit higher than the day before,

I guessed that snow made that change so we could go down the mountain without freezing to

death so I ended up being grateful anyway.

It's all about being in a cycle, reaching the extremes and then getting some respite when

everything normalize itself, it somehow always

happened to me like this.

45

"What do you want to do once we're back on solid

ground?" I asked out of nowhere, I think I only

wanted to fuel a discussion that was led nowhere, we couldn't do much more than talking anyway,

aside of throwing snowballs with the rare snow

that was still left at this altitude. My guess was

right, only the top of the hill would get covered in

snow, and it wasn't probably as rare as on the

land.

I thought it was one of those little wonders that

you might miss if you don't look at the right moment, life is supposedly filled with them but I

think I have gotten blind of near-sighted since I

would miss most of them. I guess luck isn't on my

side for this.

"I want to go watch the stars at the top of the

hill!" she said with a joyful voice. That wasn't

exactly the answer I was looking for; I meant it a

more general way, like what she wanted to do next as a challenge for her life or something,

anything would have satisfied me, except what

she wanted to do tonight.

I can't say that I hate spending some time with

her, she was good company but I had to go home

soon, I was away for a few days now and I had

responsibilities to take care of, oh what a busy

man I am! But since I knew I wouldn't probably be able to see her again in a few days, I decided

to accept her offer, even if she didn't really say

that she wanted me to come, I implied it.

46

"Alright then, the top of the hill to conclude this

journey, I think it's a good choice you made here,

it is a clever way to tell the stars we're not forgetting about them even further away from

them." I said, a bit like a poet. I wasn't really

serious in the way I said it but as I think about it,

there's a hidden meaning behind those words that

would be worth looking for. We finally came out of the mountain safely and with a sigh of relief, we

walked in direction of the hill as the night fell

slowly above our heads. The cold wind was

whispering a melody of emptiness but my heart

was filled with warmth and pride, the harmony

was beautiful.

Once we reached the top of the hill we

mechanically took position and stared at the dark sky, the stars were already out so we didn't have

to wait to speak our minds. But neither of us

spoke. Were we listening to the soft song our ears

were exposed to, were we waiting for snow to fall

once again? I'm not certain. After a while, she

finally broke the pact of silence and spoke with an

ambivalent tone.

"I'm glad that we made it this far together" she said while delicately laughing. "I feel like I can

open myself a bit more to you now, are you

willing to hear my laments?" she asked me, I

could feel the pain and pressure she had in her

voice, she was holding something inside she just couldn't tell everybody about it and the burden

was too heavy for her alone to bear.

47

I couldn't deny such an honest demand, so with a

polite nod I accepted her to tell me what she had

to say, I wasn't here to ignore her anyways but we didn't have the habit of speaking about

ourselves too much.

My heart was beating a little faster than usual and I felt a warm wave go through my body, was that

how it felt to be worth someone's trust? I

remained silent and let her speak.

"I have a strange disease, well I'm not sure if it's

a disease anymore or a curse." she said with a lot

of emotion in her voice, it seemed difficult to say

it, as if it was bigger than what her mouth could handle, she took her time. "I'm not sure if anyone

has ever had this kind of illness and I don't think

it's curable. My heart stopped growing along with

my body when I was young..." I could see from

the corner of my eyes that her hands were

trembling, reaching for her chest.

"Right now, my heart is the size of what it was

ten years ago so it cannot do the tasks my body asks for." she tried to explain it in a way that I

would understand.

This was indeed a terrible illness, what was the cause of this? I had so many questions bursting in

my head right now that I was urging to ask her

but out of respect I remained silent, once again.

48

"I'm beginning to have difficulties doing hard

physical tasks, climbing that mountain is probably

the last big thing I will ever be able to do, but I still want to do more! Unfortunately, if I keep up

like this, my heart won't be able to follow." she

said, on the verge of tears.

When she said that I remembered when we were

lying at the top of the mountain, watching at the

stars as we are right now, I could hear her words

echoing in my head over and over again 'I could

die here...' and I somehow felt really bad for not knowing that first, I thought she said this because

she was amazed by the scenery, I didn't think she

was serious. I tried to open my mouth to talk but

she kept on talking.

"I really have no idea how to cure this, aside of

getting a new heart, but that's just impossible and

it wouldn't probably work, I'm so sorry for telling

you this but I felt the need to share it with you, please don't worry too much about me, I'm fine

right now" she was wiping her eyes with the tip of

her sleeve.

I didn't know what to say, to think that my

precious friend was struck with some terrible

disease was just too much for me, I wasn't able to

face reality. She stood up.

"I'll head back myself now, I'm sorry if I troubled

you..." she turned around and started going down

the hill. I was still shocked by what she told me.

49

I thought to myself that from this day on,

everything would be different between us, our

conversations wouldn't have the same neutral feeling and could we still laugh about life when we

are faced to death? I was certain that it would be

different, but did it have to be in a bad way? I

jumped on my feet and ran down the hill to catch

her.

When I got close to her she turned around and I

could clearly see on her face that she was holding

her tears when she told me about it. I took her in my arms, closed my eyes and embraced so hard

that I had to stop because I was afraid I would

break her, she stuck her head on my chest and

cried warm tears.

"I don't want you to die, nobody is going to be

willing to listen to my crazy stories, you're not

going to die aren't you?" I whispered with all the

care in the world. I already knew that she would die, so would I eventually, but faced to something

not far as the stars was really scary and I could

feel that she was more scared than me, judging

by her shaking.

She gathered all the courage and strength she

could gather from what she had left, but she still

couldn't look at me in the eyes, she left my arms

and took a step back. As she opened her mouth, I felt that the earth was crumbling under my feet,

everything fell apart.

"I have one year left to live."

50

10 – The Fulfillment of the Empty-Minded

Tonight I felt like I was fading away, even the

piercing cold could not reach my inner existence.

I was standing on the top of the hill, I didn't ever

bother to sit down but I was still looking up at the

fluffy darkened clouds, I'm pretty sure they weren't really that dark, but light refused to tell

me truth for now.

I think I stood there alone for hours, she wasn't going to come tonight, I already knew that, I

wasn't probably waiting for her then. Why am I

here? I just realized for the first time of my life

that I don't have anything to talk about with

myself, it might be because I'm not usually the one who engages conversations or maybe

because I can't think of something that would

interest me that I'm not already thinking about.

I felt that this was a bit too much complicated but

in relief I thought that it was probably the only

way I could talk to myself, trying to explain things

to myself that I didn't understand, it sounds

strange but if I could put it in other words, it's a bit like being cloned and then trying to speak with

him. What would you talk about? It's the exact

same person as you, has the same memories,

feelings and knowledge as you, don't go thinking

that you can use what you know to keep a decent conversation with your clone; you will have to

make an effort and go further.

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I wonder if that would have worked with my

clone, probably not, he would have thought the

same thing. I pulled my hair a little bit as I was

trying to figure things that didn't really made sense. Why wasn't she coming tonight, and why

did I just say I knew it? She was probably feeling

awkward, she's probably afraid of what I'm

thinking about it, I don't know how I should react

to it, should I even choose a reaction?

If I look too much concerned she will feel bad

about telling me but if I never bring it back again

she might think I don't even care. I finally decided to sit down to calm down a bit, I was trying to

guess how she would want me to react, that was

a bit weird and I'm certain that she would want

me to react as I would normally react, but I never

reacted to something like this so I can only be

confused about it.

And yet, that's exactly how I was reacting to it. I

was confused and lost. But I didn't have any reason to do so, I think it's the lack of having a

reason that led me to this state. Alone in this sea

of stars, I felt like driftwood, I fell from my tree,

from my protection but still I thinking on how to

protect others, was it altruism or foolishness?

I jumped on my feet and started to go down the

hill, the sound of the wind was boring and the black clouds covered the most part of the sky. I

wanted to go visit her at her home but I didn't

even know where she lived.

52

I only wanted to tell her that I understood her

problems but as ironic as it can sound, it shouldn't

be a stick in her wheels, she should forget her illness and enjoy life to its fullest, even if at least

one of them is impossible.

I know that I'm not the one targeted by this, but I find it strange that people start to really want to

enjoy life once they realize they're going to die

soon. Is life more enjoyable when it's being taken

away? I know for a fact that you realize how

much you miss the things you lose only after they're lost, like someone you know or some item

that you use, it can even be snow! I'm not sure if

it works in this scenario since people who are

going to die didn't get their life taken away yet

but they might be missing their freedom of life, after all when you know you'll die soon, you're

restricted on what you're doing. The freedom of

life, taken away by death, that would make an

horrible novel name, I hope I never become a

writer, I don't think I would ever be able to put

my thoughts to words and even if I could, nobody would want to read them since I would write as if

I was talking to my clone, trying to explain things

I didn't understand, that would be a pointless

book.

As I went down the hill, I wondered if it was

possible to find answers yourself to questions that

you don't understand, I guess it's not impossible but finding those answers sure a great fulfillment

of oneself. Climbing a mountain was child play

compared to this.

53

11 – Worth Living

It's only by the end of the winter that we met

again. The sun finally woke up from his long

hibernation and proceeded to make my heart thaw by sending her to the top of the hill. I came

a few times on my own during her absence but

every time she wouldn't be there.

I was pretty busy myself so I had to skip a few

nights too. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts

as she was blankly staring at the skyline, I went

up to her and started to talk so I wouldn't scare

her too much.

"Hey" I said with a peaceful neutral voice. I

wanted to finish my sentence with a punch line such as 'do you come here often' but I resigned to

do so. I couldn't find anything smart to say so I

talked about the weather, how lame. "It's getting

hotter now, well... less cold ha-ha, don't you think

it's nice?"

For a moment I was afraid that she was mad at

me since she just ignored what I said and kept

staring at the sky, But why would she be? I couldn't think of any good reason but I shouldn't

rely on this fact since I never really found any

good reason to be mad at someone. I wanted to

ask how she was feeling but I ended up poking

her shoulder. She jumped in surprise, her face

instantly turned to red.

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"Oh sorry, I didn't see you there, I'm such a

lunatic when thinking too much... sorry!" she

said, joining both her hands together as she came back to her senses. This was probably the most

awkward moment I've had for a long time. The

wind blew a warm melody, it was still a bit cold

but it felt good nonetheless. We stared at each

other for a long time, I didn't check how long exactly it was but it felt like about two or three

weeks. This unbearable wait had to end and I

think she didn't feel able to do it herself, in a few

simple words I spoke.

"I'm glad you came back." Was that not enough?

I just spoke my feelings for once and it looked like

she was quite happy about it, I guess that will do

for now.

I felt relieved, everything went better than

expected, I thought for a long time of what I

would actually talk about when I would meet her again, I had many scenarios planned to meet

every situation but I ended up not saying

anything else. I didn't care if all my plans went to

waste, I was happy that she was there with me

and she looked happy too, it's good enough for

me.

I was still curious about what she did during those

days of absence, did she go do another challenge on her own? If so, why didn't she ask me if I

wanted to go too? I couldn't do anything else but

think that she did something crazy but I didn't

want to ask her, there was probably a good

reason why she didn't tell me beforehand.

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I might be wrong, why am I so curious anyways?

Why do humans have that desire to know

everything about others, even if it's not pertinent information, everyone wants to know, that's a bit

embarrassing...

Her smile was radiant, I felt for a moment that I could work a lifetime worth just to be able to see

this smile again. The girl I saw the other night

was being taken away by the grim reaper, her

body's spiritual contents were spilling everywhere

but the girl who was standing in front of me now was reborn from her ashes like a splendid

phoenix. Somehow, her bright red hair was only

adding to the situation.

I officially have a lot of admiration for this person

who can still produce such an honest smile during

the darkest year of her life, it made me realize

that life was worth living. I took a seat next to

her.

"The sky felt larger when you weren't around. I

went to explore uncharted lands but I quickly got lost..." I said, trying to open a conversation with a

thoughtful sentence. I was referring to the nights

I came and without talking to someone else, I

could only think too hard and lose my mind, it

ended up being a painful but interesting

experience and I learned a lot from it. I didn't want to talk too much about her absence so I

waited until she finally replied.

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"I know exactly what you mean; sometimes you

need a light to guide you in what you think. Your

thoughts aren't tangible so sometimes it is hard to get a grasp of them if you go too deeply in them.

That person can help by offering its opinion on

another side that you wouldn't think by yourself

so you can have a broad view of the subject,

instead of your narrow thoughts." she said.

That made a lot of sense to me, at first I thought

I was getting lost because she wasn't there, it

wasn't a false assumption but it wasn't exactly the

reason why.

Now that I think back about it, she was that person who would listen to my ramblings and

then add her word to the point.

I think I did the same too when she was speaking, of course that was called having a conversation

but I think her point on the particular case was

really interesting since I experienced the alone-

thinking program and it was really confusing.

I'm glad I have someone like this, I guess it's not

everyone who does. They probably abandoned the

idea of thinking on their own and just accepted

the popular beliefs without asking too many

questions.

I know that some people don't even have the time to stop and think and I personally think that it's a

shame.

57

It's the best way to learn about ourselves and

become a better person or at least become closer

to what we want to be, not what we should be.

On my part, it gives me a chance to remember

that I am alive and it gives me a reason to keep

doing the things I do.

58

12 – Expanding Boundaries

Today I woke up past noon; I had a hard time to

find sleep. It was one of those nights you start

thinking about something and then you can't get it out of your head and then when you try to think

about something else, it always comes back to

what you were thinking first, it's an endless cycle.

I guess I ended up falling asleep since I woke up

really late but it's kind of strange how hard it is to

not think of anything.

Even if you try hard to clear your mind, you'll

keep thinking about at least one thing, even if it's to not think about anything. It's not supposed to

be so hard to fall asleep; I do it every day without

much effort, why did I have so much difficulty last

night? Why was it so difficult to get rid of all those

thoughts filling my mind? I like to sleep but I feel a bit sad when the daytime is cut in half because I

slept through, let's hope it doesn't happen again

soon.

I started to walk in direction of the hill, it was a

bit far from my house so I left soon since the sun

still goes down early. I' m usually busy watching

the beautiful colors around me while walking,

even in winter the grey patterns appeal to me and I'm always able to find some analogy to express

the complexity of Mother Nature. But not today,

once again I was deeply lost in my thoughts, I

could easily understand how she didn't notice me

the other day if she was in the same situation as I

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am, I wouldn't have noticed someone until I

would collide with it.

Thinking was something hard to do, I should wait

until I sit down to do so, I will burn my brain

before even saying anything tonight, that mustn't

happen.

When I reached the hill, I had a little sigh of relief when I saw that she was already there, sitting

down on the now soft grass. The temperature has

become hotter those last days so everything that

wasn't frozen to the core has pretty much thawed

by now so it was more comfortable to sit directly

on the ground.

I greeted her on arrival and sat next to her, I also

noticed that wind was singing a different song today, I'm not certain if it's the direction that has

changed but the sound of it was pretty nice, I

liked it. It seemed like she also noticed that it was

warmer since she decided to cover herself with

less layers of clothes than usual. As I sat down,

she smiled at me and it made me feel a bit

warmer, I decided to talk first.

"I will stay a bit later tonight, I woke up really late since I didn't find sleep as easily as usual and I

wouldn't know what to do alone at home during

the night aside of rolling in my bed." She looked

at me with a curious look on her face and she

laughed a bit, I tried to decipher her reaction but I'm not really good at those games so I tried to

act like I didn't see anything but she looked kind

of amused by what I said and now I was getting

60

really curious. "What's so funny about it, I don't

get it?" I said out of concern.

I wasn't irritated but I don't think I said

something funny but on the other side, did I really

want to know?

"Oh nothing worth mentioning, but since I hate

when people answer 'oh nothing' to my questions, I would say that this kind of scenario is pretty

common to me, I don't sleep that much during

the night anyways" she said with a melancholic

tone at the end of her sentence. I wondered if

that meant anything.

I'm starting to be really annoyed with myself,

always trying to find hidden message in what

people say to guess what they're thinking, why am I doing this? It's not useful; if they want to tell

me something they won't try to say it in clouded

words won't they? And if they did, why am I the

one supposed to do the effort of trying to

understand what they say? I'm not certain of the

point of hiding such things, is it like me when I'm trying to hide my feelings in my reactions? I'm

not doing it in hope that they'll find out on

themselves though, it's the opposite.

At the very least, if I don't want to say something

because I'm too shy or something, I won't talk

about it, I'm not going to do a bad attempt of

blurring my thoughts, I'm getting lost again in what I'm thinking... I should ask her for help, I

might get out of the fog. I tried to condense

everything in one sentence.

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"Yeah, I thought about stuff that I want or don't

know how to say, should that be normal?" As

expected, that question just came out like what I was I was bashing on a few thoughts ago. I

should be nicknamed the walking contradiction or

something, it's borderline involuntary hypocrisy.

For some reason, I started to reassure myself by

thinking that I said that to test her, to see what

she was thinking about this mist of speech.

She didn't look too much bothered by it since she

smiled back and came a bit closer while crossing

her arms.

"Well I can't really tell what's normal or not and I don't know who can, but if you think you're crazy

I might as well be interned, sometimes you don't

really have to speak to let people know how you

feel." she said. I didn't really get the answer I

wanted but I must say that I didn't really say the

question I wanted to know about too so I guess

it's my fault.

She took me by surprise when she decided to rest her head against my shoulder, her head was

surprisingly light, even with all the amount of

information she stored in it.

"If you'll excuse me, I feel a bit sleepy now, I

didn't sleep until noon!" she said, closing her

eyes.

62

I did not really mind being some kind of pillow, it

felt kind of great I must say, but somehow it

wasn't only surprising, I felt I was getting closer to her, I hope she didn't misunderstood that

question, that's the main reason why talking

indirectly is not good, both people can get the

wrong idea.

One thing's for sure, I wasn't caught in an

unpleasant situation and I’ve put my arm around

her shoulder to make sure she would fall behind if

she fell asleep.

As I could have expected, she didn't fall asleep

just yet, we spoke all night long, but we didn't say

anything worth mentioning.

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13 – Shallow Interlude

The subsequent nights that we would spend

together would come more often and we stayed

up late, sometimes until the sun barely woke up when we didn't have any obligations on the next

day. I was amazed by how we could speak during

hours and always have new topics or things to

talk about, I could never get bored since our

conversations were always pretty interesting from

my point of view.

We got really into it, so much that I forgot

completely about her health problems and I kind of hoped she did too, at least for a short period of

time. I wondered if we could ever run out of

things to say, is it possible to have talked about...

everything?

Probably not, and even if it was, it was

unthinkable to do such in a couple of months or

years, it would take a lifetime. I think I might be

interested in trying to do something like this, I want to tell the young when I'll be old that at one

point in my life, I have talked about everything. It

will always be a lie or a deformed truth because

we're only talking about topics that we have a

certain interest into, we don't only talk because we have to and we actually enjoy it. I guess I

could rename that achievement a thousand

different names and it will always be meaningless,

it's not really a feat you can boast on but for me it

has a special meaning.

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My mother asked me today if I was in love, I

didn't really know what to answer since I never

experienced such things in the past so I only asked "How do I know?" and I shall say that at

least, it made her laugh. Was I too old already to

not know something like this?

I started to ponder at the meaning of love, I knew

what it was for sure, I love my parents for

example but it was different to "be in love". From

what I heard and saw, being in love means having

some sort of physical or mental addiction to

another person, would that be unhealthy?

I know for a fact that without moderation, any good thing could turn to bad and that is just

normal I guess, you need some balance in your

life to live well. I remembered when I thought

about reaching the extremes and then going back

into a quieter period, that's pretty much what I'm

thinking about love. Is love ephemeral? I can't be sure of anything right now since my life has

limited knowledge but I would say that I see a lot

of couples sticking together for years!

Unless I'm mistaken in my calculations, they

either stop being in love with each other after

some time but still stay together for many good

reasons that I could think of, but probably not

love or if they're still in love with each other, they probably sacrifice themselves by staying together

because it's hard on the body and mind to be in

love with someone. Again, my statements might

be wrong but if I'm right isn't love some kind of

drug?

65

Sometimes you just can't get enough and

sometimes you just want to stop and don’t hear

about it anymore. I heard it many times... 'Love is

dangerous!' why do people bother going for it?

I guess sometimes you just can't help it, and like

a lot of other things, it can also follow the rule of 'you'll like it once you taste it' but it's all about

the amount of time it can stay in your mouth

before going stale.

Love is complicated thing and I barely delved into

it, I'm not certain if I want to throw my life into

this pool of complications and hardships, I mean,

I'm not sure if I'm ready for it. I remember that in her laughter, my mother told me that I would

know when I would be in love.

I think I can easily guess why she asked me that question, I spend a lot of time with a girl, I come

back late at home and I can't sleep until the

morning, there is clearly something suspicious

with me. Although when I think back about it, I

still don't know how I feel about her, I always thought it was a friendship that was tying us up

but now I'm starting to doubt my own feelings.

For a long time I believed that I would probably end up loving anyone that would love me, I don't

think I'm someone who wants attention but I'm

pretty sure that anyone would end up liking

someone who would do nice things to you, unless

you like unpleasant people.

66

I would even go as far as saying that when you

decide either you'll be doing something nice or

bad to someone, one of the biggest factor playing on what your final decision will be is how you

would like the person to take it. I'm saying that

you don't do mean things to people because you

hate them, you do mean things to them because

you want them to hate you. It's the same thing the other way, on a neutral standpoint, you don't

get anything yourself for doing something nice or

mean to someone, there isn't such things as

karma or whatsoever, you don't get 'points'.

It is true that some actions can give you things

while being mean for someone, like getting

money out of them, but that's not what I'm

talking about. For example, you have the choice to greet someone you know on the street or

ignore him, pretending you didn't see him. In this

case, the choice you will make would be directly

in relation with what you want the person to think

of you. If you wave at him and he looks at you

but doesn't wave back and ignores you, you'll probably dislike him, and that is probably what he

wants by not waving back.

To think I realized all of this just now, my logic

must be flawed though, why haven't I ever heard

of this before? I guess it's the kind of topic people

don’t talk too much about, it feels a bit selfish

when I think back about it but even if we try to convince ourselves and the others that we aren't

selfish individuals, we still are even if we don't

want to, it's written in the very core of the human

soul.

67

We live as a society but how good's a support that

cannot support itself? I believe it falls over and

unbalances everything it was supporting with it,

so acting for you isn't a bad thing at all.

If I look back at the past months, I have always

been doing nice things for her, I think. Does that mean I want her to like me, that could be right

according to what I believe but the real question

here is what kind of appreciation I am looking for

on her part, I guess I still have some time to

decide.

Let me close this on a clever quote.

"Everybody wants happiness, and nobody wants

pain, but you can't have a rainbow, without a little

rain."

-Zion Lee

68

14 – The Night of Demise

I couldn't have expected something like this. Well,

I wasn't that surprised but I was still kind of

shocked by what I witnessed during my escalation of the hill. According to my usually accurate

calculations, she wasn't supposed to be there

tonight. It was really on purpose that I came on

the nights she wasn't there, I did not want to

dodge her and I was merely trying to prove

something worthless to myself.

Not only she was already there but she seemed to

be in pain, or sad at the very least. I'm not really good at comforting others and what to do in those

circumstances. I guess I could make her laugh;

make her forget about her problems for a

moment, that's what a friend would do.

The difference between a friend and a good friend

is that the second one would give all its will to

find a solution, helping her fixing the problem. I

think that tonight I wanted to be that kind of person, stepping over all my previous failures as a

problem solver, I finally entered her area of

awareness. When she noticed my presence, her

surprise was far greater than mine but I wouldn't

say her reaction was of the same nature.

It's at this exact moment that I started to wonder

if I made the right decision to not run away, it

was too late now anyways.

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She switched her crying to a weak sobbing as I

was coming closer, she tried to look at me but the

shame soaked her eyes in a river of delicate tears so she couldn't, she stared blankly at the ground

like if she was asking for redemption. I wasn't

really sure what to say, I actually had absolutely

no idea, I felt that if the events would come too

fast, I couldn't probably keep up and I would end up not thinking before talking and this was a

crucial part of my safety.

If I just spoke lightly, I would probably say stupid stuff and it would be worse than just not saying

anything, as a note to myself I thought that this

might also be the case normally, when I think

before talking. Unfortunately, my plan got

instantly countered as she spoke to me in a

trembling and distorted voice.

"What are you doing here?" she said, throwing me

out of the boat while I was still asleep. How can I possibly explain to her that I was planning to

come here without her just to be able to say that

'I come here on my own too, it's not just because

of her'? The level of lameness was too high, I had

either to choose between lying to her or dodging the question by asking another one. I did not

really like to lie to other people even if I

somewhat had some talents in it, sometimes it's

just too easy to lie to somebody and if you act

properly, the person will probably never know. Since I had some questions for her myself, I tried

this alternative instead.

70

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked, immediately

followed by another question to keep a good pace

"You don't look so good, what's going on". I was actually really concerned about her, the only time

I saw her cry was when she told me she had a

terrible disease, what could it be now?

I actually didn't hope it was something different, I

don’t wish for other's misfortune and it's a bit less

troublesome for me I must say, well don't get me

wrong, I'm happy that she shares things like that

with me but less problems for her means her happiness and happiness is less troublesome than

sadness right?

As I was fighting with myself in a righteous war,

she let her drop her head in her hands and said

something I could barely hear, I felt a bit bad to

ask her to repeat herself but I did it anyways, I

was quickly losing my ability to stay passive when

seeing her like that, it was really shocking, she was always smiling and laughing at everything, I

was even impressed by how she could still be

lively despise the pressure on her soul, I'm not

sure if the pain was shared, but I felt something

not really pleasant.

"N-no..." she said a bit louder so I could hear her

words, "a year's too long". Obviously I instantly

knew what she was talking about when she talked about a year but i feared the worst. "I want to die

now" she said with the last bits of control she had

over her body, she started to cry again and I

stood there, paralyzed.

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Her words got mixed with a lot of thoughts in my

head, they all started to spin really fast and I lost

the ounce of control I had too, I came to a quick conclusion: she wanted to commit suicide. Any

way you look at it, that was exactly what she

said, more or less. Where did those crazy

thoughts come from? She caught me defenceless;

I didn't have time to think I had to reply now. I kind of feel I'm taking this as a game, this is

becoming serious now...

"Wait what are you talking about? Why would you want to die now, that's absurd, it doesn't make

any sense!" I said, hoping that she would change

her mind with just me saying 'no you shouldn't do

that', of course I wouldn't be able to convince her

without good arguments and those weren't

arguments at all.

I couldn't think of a better thing to say and to do

so I waited to see what she would answer, but she didn't say anything, she kept on sobbing on a

rhythmic tone but it was a painful melody of

sorrow.

"I knew you wouldn't understand, there's no way

you could..." she said, those words hit me really

hard, she was right that I didn't understand why

she wanted to die now but I couldn't find a decent

reason. I think it's the first time I did not understand her, I urged her to explain herself

then.

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"I feel that everything is pointless, what if you

knew you would die in less than a year, you can't

even start something without the fear of not being able to finish it and it's not out of motivation, it's

because your life ends!" she said, taking a pause

right after to take a breath in. "When you know in

advance that you won't have enough time for

what you're going to do, you come to the conclusion that it's not even worth beginning. I

don't want to live one full year with ideas I can't

realize, ending up doing nothing but waiting for

my death, I'd rather die now."

Her monologue was strong and I kind of felt now

what she was feeling, I think I understood exactly

what she meant, I'm not sure if I wasn't supposed

to since she said I would be able to, I might just

have misunderstood everything.

Still I didn't think that dying now was the best

solution to her problems and I guess it was my job to suggest something else. I knew that if I

didn't come up with something quickly she would

think that she had a good idea or something, I

had to prevent that.

Unfortunately the only thing I could think of right

now was to say the same stuff I said earlier and

that wasn't helpful at all. My greatest fear became

true, I decided to improvise my speech, every word would be thought on the spot right after I

said the last one. That was really dangerous but I

couldn't be that careful anymore.

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"I understand what you're saying but it doesn't

make sense to me. As you're saying, a year can

be pretty long, especially if you're not doing anything" I said, I felt like I was running in

circles, I had to cut the chase. "Listen, you can

start everything you want without caring about a

time limit, I know for a fact that even death won't

stop you from achieving things, your existence won't end with your death. Hang on to your life

while you still can and don't ever think about

when you won't be able to act by yourself

anymore." I said that with a lot of assurance and

it made sense to me, but I felt like she was still a

bit confused about what I said. I noticed that she stopped crying while I was talking and now she

stood up in front of me.

"What do you mean... exactly?" she asked with a

bit of hope piercing through her sorrow veil.

I looked away for a moment but then I looked directly at her, she raised her eyes at me, her

head still hanging painfully down. Her eyes were

noticeably filled with uncontrollable tears of

sadness.

I said something that might or might not change

the rest of my life, starting now. "I promise to

take over anything that you would start,

anything." I felt she got surprised by that statement, I decided to take her hands to give her

a trustworthy feeling.

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"Even if you leave your body, I will be the one

carrying your strong soul and your devotion, I will

not let you down even if life does but please I want you to live as long as you can!" I thought for

a moment that I would be the one crying but I

think I forgot how with the years.

She raised he her at me and smiled, I wondered if

she thought that was I said was lame, or simply

said to make her laugh, failure was imminent, but

then she removed her hands from mine.

She took a few steps towards me and hugged me

weakly, I guess she had little strength remaining

in her body, she rested her head against my chest. "I hope you're really serious, I really want

to believe you..." she whispered.

I could start to feel her tears going through my shirt, they were cold and I could feel her pain

through those tears. I think my feelings became

clearer now but even then they were still far in

the fog, I tried to shoot in the dark. "I would do

anything for you, now please, live" I said, embracing her myself, I think that's what I had to

do.

I was once again surprised by the frailness of her body; it was probably what made her survive this

long with her heart still the size of a child's. She

took a step back and looked at me, full of hope.

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"Actually, there is something I really want..." she

started to say, I thought quickly that there was

only one possible answer to this and since I came this far I wouldn't accept to let her ask me before

I actually did something, that would make me feel

like I did it just because she asked me.

I took her by the shoulders, dragged her to me

and kissed her with all my might, doing the

greatest gamble of my life with everything to win

and everything to lose.

To my greater appreciation, she shook a bit and

took me in her arms again.

We stood there under the moonlight for a long

time this night, I hope this year never ends.

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15 – Always Will Be

This morning was different than the other. I woke

up with a sense of completion and success, I

guess it was easy to see how happy I was judging by the wide smile my mother had at the second

she saw me. I did something big yesterday that

took every bit of courage I could get, I wasn't

planning to end in this position and I think that if

it would have been a few weeks early, I probably wouldn't even want to be there but now I think I

was more comfortable with it. She might have

thought about that so she waited until I was

ready, but was it what she really wanted?

Of course it didn't seem like she was against it but

she might have expected something different

from me. Planning actions to be able to predict

the other person's reactions and moves was a really harsh job and wasn't always efficient or

worth the trouble but I guess she didn't have that

problem. It became more complicated since I

couldn't tell what she could or could not foresee...

wait, I'm not even supposed to believe such

things, I'm losing it.

According to my calculations, we were supposed

to meet on the hill tonight. Those calculations were kind of shady and not really precise but we

always ended up meeting every time we came, it

was about the phases of the moon and it's

reflection on the water, at least it's how I knew it

and I don't think I have ever been mistaken but I

didn't know what would happen tonight.

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Did something change actually? I wasn't exactly

sure what this meant to her but I decided to not

think about it too much as I would probably have my answer soon enough so I did not have to

bother with it, right?

I made my way to the meeting point as usual as the day ended and hoped it wouldn't rain this

time. As usual, I could see from a distance that

she was already there, her head being half hidden

behind her folded legs, for a moment I hoped that

she wasn't crying again but I could see that smile on her face when she saw me, and instantly hid

more of her face.

"Hello there" I said, trying to say it in the most

normal voice possible, "How are you?" She did not

reply, actually she didn't move a bit. The pale red

tint on her cheeks betrayed her silence, she was

being really shy right now and I could perfectly

understand that since I was acting exactly the same right now. I would even go as far as

avoiding eye-contact with her, I really wanted see

these chestnut eyes of hers but it was a bit

embarrassing.

She finally said something quietly that sounded

like "I'm fine thanks." and that was enough for

me, forget about the most awkward situation I

had a while ago, this wasn't only embarrassing and uncomfortable but it was also pathetic. Did

that kiss meant we were lovers now?

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Did that mean we had to... do lovers stuff, like

holding hands and whatsoever, I didn't really

know and it seemed like she didn't know either, we talked about a lot of things on this hill without

any reserve before and we were good with it but

now we could barely speak to each other because

our mouths made contact, was that the pact of

silence I heard of so many times before? Was I supposed to get closer to her now, the distance

between our bodies was quite reasonable right

now. While I had a hard time deciding on my fate,

she decided to talk again.

"I wanted to say thanks" she said with the same

quiet voice as before but she looked like she had

difficulties saying it, like if something was trying

really hard to stop her from saying it. Someone once told me that the three hardest things to say

to someone were 'Thank you', 'I'm sorry' and 'I

love you'.

At this time I didn't really realize the weight of

this fact and I told to myself that he was pretty

damn good since he just said the three things in

the same sentence, but now I think I know why

they are hard to say and in which context, I made it my goal for tonight to try to fit in those

sentences. "I didn't know you cared that much

about me and what I wanted to do, not that I

doubted you or anything but I always thought I

was only a talking-friend for you. Thank you." she said in a more confidant tone. I was waiting for

such a confession, I felt like we could converse

somewhat normally now so I went ahead and

accepted my own challenge.

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"I should be the one thanking you, you made me

realize a lot of things about my own life and how I

should live it, I can only be eternally grateful to you since you achieved to change my life with

only words, that's not to be taken lightly. Thank

you!" I said. She looked a bit surprised now, I

guess she didn't expect me to thank her, at first

she looked curious but now she was happy, it was

a great feeling.

Actually, I felt more happy by making her feel

happy than everything else, I wondered if it was the same for her, it would then explain why she

looked more happy when I thanked her. That

made sense.

"Do you believe in reincarnation?" she asked me,

out of nowhere. This question was pretty hard and

I believe we could have spent years talking about

this very question without reaching a conclusion.

There wasn't any real clear answer anyways, the

main idea of reincarnation suggested that you

wouldn't conserve the most part of your memory to another life so nobody could really say without

a doubt that they have been reincarnated.

I went with an easy answer that could save us some time but I still had to explain my position

because I felt she only wanted to start a

discussion to be able to talk about something and

a single-word answer wouldn't bring us anywhere.

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"Yes, I think it's a plausible theory. I usually go by

logic in the cases of inexplicable mysteries; I can

hardly imagine how it is after death, if what we call our 'soul' dies with our body. I'm not capable

of imagining it so explaining it will be harder but if

you lose your conscience, your existence is erased

forever, it's not like you're asleep, you don't even

dream, there isn't anything. Actually you won't even know that there isn't anything because

everything is over. When I try to imagine it, my

brain freezes, like if I was trying to divide by zero

or something, when I try to go too far I feel like

I'm going out of my body for a moment, it's not

something my mind can create." I said.

"Reincarnation on the other hand is something I

can imagine, our souls would be in suspension in the world, waiting for a new life form to be born.

We can wait for an eternity since time doesn't

really exist in a non-physical world, I guess it

would also be possible to watch over other

humans. Well for this to happen you actually have

to believe that there is something spiritual living into your body and that this spiritual being is not

directly attached to your body. That could be the

reason why you can still experience things while

your body is asleep, you know, dreams. I know

that all of this is hard to believe and most people won’t find a reason to, but I think it's far more

imaginable than the end of everything." I stopped

here as I thought I pretty much made my point

by now and I didn't want to enter too much in it.

She looked pretty impressed by what I answered, on a second thought she might just expect that I

answered by yes or no.

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"That's a really interesting and deep point" she

said, "I also believe in reincarnation but because I

think it's a beautiful way to see death, if not the only positive way. That's why people shouldn't cry

that much when someone dies, their soul is going

somewhere else where it's needed, it's part of our

job to keep the world turning, right?." she said, as

if she was begging me to tell her she was right.

I didn't have anything against this statement but I

had something to fulfill.

"I'm sorry but it's not as beautiful as you think,

there are some feelings that cannot be replaced

by thinking they're going somewhere else. What if you lost someone you loved, can you still give

that love to that person?"

"Can you still appreciate the thing you appreciated from that person, I know that you can

tell yourself that ' he's not really dead, he's just

changing bodies ' but it will actually affect you

deeply, death is sad and ugly, no matter how you

look at it, no matter what there is after" I said, hoping not to scare her too much but I had to say

it.

"Thank you for being honest with me." she said with a bit of melancholy in her voice. "But what

about the people that love me right now? I don't

want to make anybody sad but there isn't much I

can do right?"

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"I should tell everyone to stop loving me so then

nobody would be hurt when I die, wouldn't that

be too simple?" she asked a bunch of stupid questions but I didn't bother to answer genuinely

to them right now, she would soon answer them

herself.

I took a big breath in, as if there was some

courage in the air. "I love you, and I always will

be" I told her, preparing myself for any reaction

she could have.

"I'm sorry for the trouble I'm going to cause to

you but, I love you too..." she said.

I could quickly see a tear in the corner of her eyes

before she jumped on me to hug me tight.

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16 – I don’t care about squares

Sometimes, I wonder why people try so hard to

care for everyone or at least make look like they

do. It's bad fortune to ask someone 'How are you?' when you don't really care about the

answer, at least that's what I believe. It happened

to me a few times now that I would meet

someone that I know on the street, I would greet

him and while greeting back he would ask me how

I am.

It is obvious that he's not planning to stop and

start talking with me, why would he start asking questions to me; I won't ask him what he did

yesterday night if we just happen to cross each

other in the streets. I always reply 'yes' no matter

what but I think I'm going to try to answer 'no'

one day to see what he does. It can only be funny or sad because he probably expects me to answer

'yes', that makes it even more useless.

I think that it's better to have a narrow but close circle or friends than being widely popular but not

being able to care and spend time with everyone.

I know for a fact that in some occasions in your

life you can get to be in contact with the same

large amount of people every day and eventually you might be able to make a lot of friends but

once you leave that extreme, your life comes back

to normal and you can't just keep up with

everyone.

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It's not a bad thing to let a few friends down, the

ones that really care about you will stick around

for years and that's how selective you can be about that narrow circle. Anyway, the friends that

you will start to forget can come back any time in

your life, meeting them at the store for an

example, you haven't seen each other for years

and then you meet again, you see how much he or she has changed over the years and reminisce

about the past times. You might just be then

bidding farewell and keep on living your life or

that friend might as well come back in your circle

for some time but some friends are just meant to

stay no matter what.

I think that in my case, my circle of friends is

closed enough to be able to spend a lot of time with everyone. Actually would that be strange if I

considered myself as my own friend? I mean I

happen to be doing a lot of thinking, it's a bit like

talking with myself, I don't really open my mouth

to speak but since I'm the only who can hear my

thoughts that would work.

I also appreciate myself, I mean, I don't hate

myself or anything and I actually spend a lot of time with myself so it would be strange if I didn't

consider myself as a friend after all. Nobody ever

specified that a friend had to be someone else

than you, nobody ever set specific rules to who

you could consider or not as a friend, I think everyone has its own criteria. I think everyone

should try to spend a bit more time with itself, try

to reach inner peace and before trying to

understand others, it would be a good thing to be

able to understand yourself.

85

Oh and what am I even talking about right now? I

love myself and I understand myself, I'm not so

sure about that. As weird as it can be, if there is only one person in the world I don't understand at

all is myself.

How could that be possible? I don't know but if I did I would most likely understand myself a bit

more. I'm trying to find the meaning of life but

when I do, I stop living, that sounds a bit

pointless but in fact it is.

Life isn't something that has a meaning, you can

only learn to live with everything it has to offer

but one of the advantages of rummaging deeper in the layers of life is that you might find some

tools that help you learn basic things such as

relationships between individuals, it's a really

complicated thing to learn without someone to

teach you but sometimes, the best teacher is

yourself, learning from what you see and what

you think.

Try to start being attentive about how people react to your actions, you will start to see a

pattern and if you are smart enough you can also

start to predict what people will do, it's impressive

how the human mind can adapt to somebody

else's condition to be proactive.

Unfortunately there are some people you just

can't tell what they're thinking and that's pretty

much why I'm doing all these ramblings.

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Actually I don't have a reason at all, I'm trying to

find a reason to have a reason, it makes a lot of

sense to me and I'm not hoping that it makes any to anybody else, that's why I can keep such a

close relationship with myself as a friend,

understanding me more that myself can.

All the symptoms for a personality disorder have

been met and I can blame nobody else than

myself for this, but I'm still not sure which one

I'm referring to right now.

87

17 – Night Knight

The night started slowly as the stars seemed to

quietly drift in the purple sky. The magnificent

roof was clearly trying to hypnotize me, to drag me into his powerful torrent of ideas and infinite

possibilities; I had to find a way to get out of this

distraction. She started to speak to me as to wake

me up from my blissful dreams.

"There is a story I would like to tell you, care to

listen to it?" she asked. Honestly, aside the fact

that it was the perfect moment, I could barely

refuse an honest demand just like that, I was sitting here for a reason but in the end I never

really had one. I stared in her eyes, they were

scintillating in excitation and I could start to see a

part of the tale she was about to tell me in her

eyes, as if she was playing it to herself one last

time as a rehearsal.

With a smile I nodded to her and took a "I'm now

listening to your story' position. I had no idea what kind of story she wanted to tell me but her

tales were usually pretty interesting and deep so I

was already looking forward to it.

"I don't know when it exactly happened but it was

long ago." she started. "There was a girl who lived

in a town headed and governed by the Church,

she had been an orphan since her young age and having nowhere to live, the Church took her and

fed her."

88

"Unfortunately she didn't get all of this for free;

she had to work for the Church during the day.

She was a like a maid, washing the clothes, making the meals and all other kinds of chores for

the vicious priests and religious men. She was still

very young and under-aged for this kind of

physical work but she couldn't really complain

since it was her only hope to not live in the

streets."

"Every week, the townsfolk would reunite in the

small church of the town to pray to the Almighty, sermons would be made and her job was to

gather the offerings made to the god. It was

considered polite and kept you away from bad

luck when you gave some money when attending

the mess. Although she was a very honest girl, it would happen quite often that the head priest

would suspect her to steal from the offerings

money and would make her work harder,

sometimes very late during the night and too

early the morning."

"One day, she went to the store for an errand for

the church and she met a boy that she saw before

at the weekly preaching. She shyly waved at him as he smiled at her when she entered his shop, he

wasn't actually the owner of the store but was

working there as helper. That was the first friend

she ever made, when luck would have been on

their side, they would meet again, sharing a drink and talking about different things that everybody

was already talking about."

89

"It was really plain but it made her happy every

time. They weren't really talking about their own

lives but they each could understand that they both didn't like their lives and both wanted to do

something else or was at least aspiring to. It was

good time they spent together and the boy would

always chuckle at the girl's bashfulness, she

wasn't often allowed to go outside so she didn't know anything about the world or relationships

with other people."

"The boy, at her opposite, seemed to be pretty comfortable with this and sometimes went a bit

too far just to test her. At the end of the evening,

having drunk a bit, they started to be more

accustomed to the discussion and the boy asked

her if she ever wanted to leave the church and do

something else."

"She replied that she didn't really thought about it

but the church was a good employer and she didn't have a reason to leave it since she was

assured to be lodged and fed as long as she

worked there. "

"Of course she wasn't being honest but when the

boy told her that he wanted to be a knight in

armour on a horse, she laughed and opened her

heart. She told him that she always wanted to be

a writer, not someone who would transcribe the holy texts but an artist that could play with words

like a blacksmith bends iron."

90

"Her mind was flourishing with ideas on how she

could change people's life with her poetry, making

their imaginations take weird turns and go where they never went before. The boy was listening to

her and was really impressed about what she was

saying, those were only ideas but he was already

eager to read what she would write."

I was really in the story but I felt that she was

pretty emotional about this, she was putting a lot

of detail in it and she was making a lot of

gestures while story-telling. That might have been one of her hidden talents or I might just have

been happy to be putting my attention to

something else than the sky tonight. I told her to

continue. She did.

"They wouldn't meet for weeks after this but

when they finally met again, the boy in a hurry

asked her if she finally decided to start writing.

She told him that she didn't since the church was against it and doing anything that the church was

against would meet that she would have to stop

living there. She probably would have if she could

live from it but writing wasn't really a profession

you could live from, unless you were really popular. The boy told her that there was an

underground writing competition in a

neighbouring town, the winner would win a

money prize and would probably become

somewhat famous. He was insisting that she should participate in this event to make her

dreams come true."

91

"She declined the offer at first since she wasn't

confident enough about her writing to be going

into a competition and if she would be caught,

there was no going back in this town."

"She didn't particularly like this town but she

needed someplace to go and if the Church decided to ban her from this town, she couldn't expect her

future to be better than in a brothel or some

shady place like that."

"The boy insisted again on how what she told him

earlier made him feel something he never felt

before and her imagination was out of bounds,

she could easily win this competition. Driven by his words, she believed him and accepted to go

there only if he would come with her."

"He accepted the deal and also told her that he had a friend who lived in this town so they could

probably live there during the competition. They

agreed to meet up during the night so they could

escape the town together and make it to the

other town somewhere during the day after."

"The night of the escape, she almost felt like they

were suspecting her that she would try to run

away during the night. She had to jump down the window to avoid being spotted, she ran to the

meeting point and to her relief, the boy was

already there."

92

"She couldn't say she didn't trust her only friend

but she was still afraid of doing something wrong

because she couldn't turn back now, she already had her idea on what to write about and her ideas

were turning around in her head really fast, they

could probably burst out at any moment, she

started to feel a bit confident as they walked

together in direction of the other town."

"They would exchange some words but both of

them were really nervous about this, it could be

understood from the girl's point of view but the boy also had some consciences issues. If she were

to fail how would he take responsibility? He was

the one who dragged her into this and almost

forced her to participate. Of course he thought it

was for her good, he didn't want her to work all her life for the Church and probably wanted to do

everything he could to drag her out from this

'Holy Hell'."

"Once they reached to gates of the city, they

walked to the friend's house with effort, they

didn't take the time to rest during the night so

they were really tired. Presentations were hasty

and the friend showed her what would become her room for the next few days, it was a closet-

sized room with a small bed but it was heaven

compared to living in the church. She felt really

good about the turns of event and almost fell

asleep instantly. She woke up some hours after and heard the two boys talking to each other on a

low tone, almost whispering. She thought at first

that they didn't want to wake her up but as her

curiosity rose, she heard them talking about her

so she decided to eavesdrop on them."

93

"'So you want me to give you a portion of the

winning prize?' the friend asked, 'That's absurd!

Why would I?' The boy started to explain to his friend that the competition would have a greater

prize if there are more participants and he would

have more chances of winning if she entered the

competition since she never wrote anything in her

life, she will most likely fail. Those words hurt her pretty bad but she kept listening to them, her

hand on her mouth to avoid making sounds but

tears were rolling down on her cheeks, she have

been deceived and probably sold."

"His friend was clearly starting to know where he

was going to and started laughing, 'After all those

years, you're still the same! Alright, you can have

a part if I win, I guess it would be thanks to you.' his friend said, to her greater displeasure. She

always thought he was so kind and altruist but in

the end he was only a selfish manipulator. She

crawled back into her cold bed and silently cried

for being so stupid and used so easily. On the

next day when she woke up, she thought and re-thought it over the night and finally was

determined with it, she would attend the

competition no matter what."

"She was pretty silent during the morning but

when the boy finally talked to her about the

writing competition and wishing her the best of

luck, and that he really thought she would win, she almost exploded. She still told him that she

heard them yesterday and that she couldn't

believe that she sold her like this."

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"The boy looked destroyed; he never planned her

to find out and didn't know what to answer so he

just looked away. She furiously left the house and managed to find the location of the competition

by herself. The competition itself didn't seem

really hard, the only criteria was that it had to be

a love story."

"She didn't really feel like writing something about

love right now, probably something more

destructive and violent and of course she didn't

have any experience with love. She went ahead and whore her heart out, for once, her thoughts

wouldn't be limited by what the Church told her to

think, she had the freedom to write anything she

wanted to. Her great imagination and her

magnificent expression made her win the first prize, at everyone's surprise. It was unfathomable

that a random church-girl that nobody knew

would win in such an event where many known

writers were attending, her name quickly spread

on everyone lips and her first work became

popular fast enough."

"The story of this girl ends about one year later.

She haven't seen the boy that used to be her friend again until this very day, they met in the

street of the town she was now living in and she

smiled at him. He was very surprised but they

ended up talking together. The boy said he was

happy she didn't hold a grudge on him after what he did to her but he had no choice because the

shop where he worked was closing and he would

be left unemployed so he needed money to live.

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"The girl said that if the Church would have

taught her one good thing during her life it would

have been to be forgiving."

"Relieved, the boy asked her how she managed to

win the competition against all those professional

writers. She simply answered that she wrote a love story about the only thing that she could

think of and let her heart and imagination write

the rest for her, she didn't do much on her own

actually."

"Before leaving, she told him that the name of her

story was 'The boy who wanted to become a

knight'. She also thanked him for giving her a

chance to make her dreams come true."

"The boy stayed there for hours, he couldn't move

an inch and could hardly believe what he heard, they never met each other again but the boy tried

to enlist in the king's army of knights."

I was once again impressed by her talent of story-telling, I really got moved by this story of hers, I

wondered for a moment if she made that story up

or if she heard it before.

All the tales that she told me felt special, as if she

lived there with the characters, I thought for a

moment that it might be related to her prophet

powers, no never mind that's just silly.

96

"So what is the moral of this story? Don't believe

what guys tell you? Stay true to your dreams

whatever happens? Be forgiving?" I asked her, not really because I really wanted that there

would be a moral to her story but it would have

been lame if I just said 'thanks for the story' or

something.

"Oh, I don't know, you tell me!" she said while

smiling back at me.

It was one of those mischievous smiles that you

don't really know what's behind.

I decided to not answer to this trick question and

when she noticed that I was doing so she

chuckled and fell down in the grass, staring at the

sky like I was.

97

18 – Honest Hope of Renewal

Another month passed by too fast and suddenly

we were jumping with both feet joined in another

beautiful season, spring.

I like to think that this is season is the rebirth of

everything. Flowers that would stand winter's coldness were lively again, it was less surprising

to see animals running wild in the tall grass of the

fields. The vegetables and wheat were growing

again, there was nothing like the freshness of

spring after a long winter that made almost

everything look like going stale. At least I was lucky enough to be able to enjoy some snow

during the cold period, which was refreshing as

ironic as it can sound.

Some like to say that spring is the season of love

but I think it's only because people tend to

remember how depressed they were during winter

and now they want to start over with someone

else, I'm not certain that this is the best way to

apprehend this but... whatever floats your boat!

As I have been speaking about renewal and stuff, she had been staring blankly at the star-filled sky.

I didn't really mind if she ignored my lame

metaphors but I think that she was actually

listening to me and thinking deeply about

something somewhat related to it, she confirmed

my thoughts in a few words.

98

"I think I need renewal too" she said, to my rising

curiosity. I gave her an interrogative look and she

proceeded to explain a bit, actually it was really vague. "I want to be reborn like the flowers and

the wheat!" I was a bit afraid that she would bring

back the suicide and reincarnation topic we had a

while ago, I wasn't really on the mood to be

talking about this, I still asked her to explain

further.

"I can't really rebirth in a cycle like plants would

since I'm a human, things work differently for all the species I guess..." she said. I felt I was in a

kind of bizarre situation right now, she wasn't the

kind of person to make up hazy sentences like

that, she usually was more straight-forward so I

actually doubted myself for not understanding her

statements.

"Well of course, the flowers and plants for an

example will leave seeds in the ground before dying so when the winter ends, new life would be

able to sprout as spring begins. I'm pretty sure

that's how the cycle of nature works." I said on a

scientific tone, but when I looked back at her, she

avoided eye contact and she blushed deeply.

It seems like I was spot-on and when I started to

understand what she was trying to tell, I wished I

never made that kind of reference. I had to think a clever way to react to this, because it was

almost already too late since I got really surprised

by her reaction.

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I think that my best bet was to simply pretend I

was stupid and that I didn't understand anything,

that would leave me more time to think. Even if I said I was only pretending to be stupid, it was

actually a stupid decision so I didn't have to

pretend, but wouldn't that be smart?

"Hey, why are you so bashful now, is it the

reproduction method of the plants that is making

you feel uneasy?" I said with laughter, she

laughed too, quietly, almost like she felt she had

to.

"Well you know..." she said, of course I knew,

well I thought I did but anyways... "Do you remember when you said you would do anything

for me?" How could I just forget this honestly?

"Do you remember me saying that I actually

wanted something?"

That was actually unexpected, of course when she

said it I instantly remembered it but when she

said that a couple of moons ago, I just imposed

something on her and since she seemed happy with it I guessed that it was what she wanted. I

guess I acted like the father that lets his child go

alone with Santa Claus and then buys something

he think he would like for Christmas.

It's not impossible that his child will like the

present but that's probably not what he wanted,

there is still a desire to fulfill.

100

In a whim of determination I made her

understand that I remembered and I was waiting

for more. She hesitated a long time and when I thought she would abandon the idea of saying

anything else, she said took a few steps until she

was really close to me and she whispered

something in my ear without ever making eye-

contact.

"I want to give birth to a child, and I... I want you

to help me!" She covered her face with her hands

like if she was having the most shameful moment of her life and I was trying to convince myself that

'I so knew it from the beginning!', I didn't.

Basically she just asked me to have sex with her

but of course that wasn't the point at all, I was

trying to put all the pieces together so it would

make more sense to me. She said that she

wanted to be reborn, she needed a renewal but

she was sad since the cycle of humans was far

different from plants.

I considered the fact that she would most likely die soon and having a child was probably the best

way to make sure she would be in some way

reborn even if it's not the same body.

That was a bit complicated to understand but that

was my guess, she probably wanted to give the

life she couldn't achieve to someone else that

could make more use of it.

101

I looked at her as to confirm my thoughts,

expecting her to read my mind but she wouldn't

even look directly at me, she was being way too shy. On a few serious words, I answered the

question on her life without directly displaying my

position or opinion about it.

"I'm not going to go back on what I said now, that

would be lame don't you think?" she finally looked

at me and once again tears would fill her eyes.

Did she really think I wouldn't keep my word? I

mean, I know it's kind of a big deal, if she would have asked me to kill somebody for her I might of

have refused but this... was... wait. Did I just

willingly accept to have a child and to raise it in

the near future?

Was I ready for that? Well one thing's for sure I

couldn't have more time to be ready but was I

willing enough to have an offspring with her and

then be the child's only parent. I can't really remove from my head the thought that she would

probably leave us not much longer after giving

birth but at least I would have a little part of her

to take care of.

I think that was a good motivation and it was

probably an excuse to make sure I didn't regret

my hasty words. She looked really happy and she

wanted to hug me but it was a very weak hug, it seems like she loses all of her strength when

she's crying or smitten. I kept her warm inside

my arms for a moment.

102

"Thanks a lot, I swear to you that it will be the

best child ever!" she said, it made me laugh a bit

inside but I don't think she was kidding, she

wanted to give her best at it.

"Oh by the way..." she started to say, I could see

the beginning of a malicious grin on her face "It's

going to be a girl."

Damn those prophets, seriously!

103

19 – Pisces of Truth

Today I went by the river to see if the fish were

swimming. Obviously they were, I have a strange

taste for time consuming activities, not that watching fish was actually something everyone

could do all day and felt normal afterwards but it

sure gives you yet another chance to think about

something that isn't above you. I sat on a big

rock that was half on the grass and half in the water. At first, they wouldn't trust me and take

many detours to pass in front of me but as the

day went, they loosened a bit and they would

even approach my feet that were floating in the

water.

I found amusing and interesting how they lived in

such a different way from us, there sure was the

fact that they lived underwater and we couldn't. We need to breath air to live and our lungs would

be upset if water was mixed with it, it seemed

that fish didn't have that problem. I wondered

what they were thinking of us humans, I mean,

everyone at least wondered this once in their lives

but didn't really care in the end.

What are we to fishes? The first thought that I get

it that we use clever lures to catch them and eat them, we are approximately three hundred times

their size and we have arms and legs, isn't that

scary. It's like if a huge tentacle monster was

attacking a school and then suddenly... no

actually it's not really like that, where did I get

that idea from?

104

I wonder if there is racism within the fishes of the

river, I can hardly imagine seeing a trout looking

down upon a carp or something, that wouldn't make any sense. I guess they have some kind of

territorial sense but do they have a currency?

Does that mean they cannot live in society?

I looked up for a moment, enjoying the trust they

had in that giant fish-eating human, it was a

beautiful spring afternoon but I didn't have

anything to do, I looked over my shoulder and

noticed an empty top of the hill. I usually had a bad memory and it was striking again, I couldn't

even remember the first time he met her at this

place.

It was a long time ago but still I frowned upon

myself for forgetting something like this. I looked

back at the fish that was poking my foot with his

head and wondered if we could ever be friends,

probably not but I wished I could, he looked sympathetic and clever, he probably thought the

world as I did and we could have great

discussions over the years.

It was a bit sad that we had to part ways now but

I felt that the moments I spent with the fish were

precious. As I removed my feet from the river, he

looked at me with one eye and this was the

saddest fish I have ever seen. I bet that if he wasn't in the water I could have noticed a few

tears leaking from his vitreous symmetric eyes.

105

He turned around and walked away (not literally,

he doesn't have legs thus he can't walk) without

ever looking back at me, or maybe he did once, he angled his body a bit to look at me but when

he noticed I was still watching him go he just

moved faster along with the flow of the forgiving

water.

Would I be willing to be in the middle of the food

chain, even if I'm still getting eaten by the bigger

ones of my kind being a human... to be able to live underwater? Probably. I guess it wouldn't be

that bad and anyway I already have a bad

memory and there are most likely hills in that

river.

I could discover at last if the river's inhabitants

were taking the top of the water as we define the

sky. All those stories about people being sucked in

to the sky would then make some kind of sense; it's like catching some fish when going fishing!

The stars would probably be all blurry and not so

shining when watched from under the water but is

it possible that we had the same treatment when

watching the sky but without noticing it? I never saw the stars beyond the clouds and the sky,

could they be different?

I could only think to make a metaphor about the people who hastily judge people by their looks or

ethnicity, I guess that I understand their position

if they've always seen other people with their

eyes clouded but did that prevent them to look

beyond it?

106

I don't know for sure but I never tried looking

beyond the clouds to see if the stars were

different under their cover but I will most likely try now, I wouldn't want to miss the beautiful

traits of their true faces.

I pointlessly walked in the grass while thinking how the world would have changed if wolves had

invented weapons before us. Would they be

waging wars among themselves or against us? I

think humans and wolves are pretty much natural

antagonists by now, we took control of the sheep that would have probably disappeared by now if

we hadn't protected them, I mean... they don't

really have a way to defend themselves; they just

eat grass and run away when in danger.

Shepherds were the ones responsible for giving

wolves a hard time catching their prey but we had

our reasons too, we took their wool to make

clothes so we could survive winter. Well we also ate their meat too but at least we're making sure

they reproduce enough, could the wolves do a

better job than us protecting the sheep? I mean,

we're not really better than them, we both end up

eating the sheep and they might be wiser and find

a better way to manage this than us.

One thing's for sure is that wolves would most

likely take those weapons to start a war, I'm not sure yet what would be the reason but a war with

a good reason never happened yet in all history

so it would probably be something like opinions

on the breeding of the sheep.

107

I'm always saying that wars are stupid and

useless but yet I have started a war against

myself, an eternal fight in which I ironically cannot win. My whole life is an irony and yet I can

still stand on my two legs like nothing happened,

it that what we call a balance? Like trying to mix

water and oil, blood and sweat, love and hate, sky

and earth?

I'm not certain if I can consider irony as a

balance, even a paradox would make more sense

to my ears. I'm beginning to feel weak and dizzy and I start to lose balance, my foot slips over a

wet patch of grass and I fall down in the grass. It

felt comfortable so I stayed here until my

stomach remembered me that I had some

matters to attend to in this empty yet fulfilled

afternoon.

It sure was interesting to see how the animals

would interact with each other of their kind as if they were humans, even if that has zero chance

of happening it made me think back on what we

were actually doing, and I cannot say that we can

afford to look down upon them saying they're only

animals and that they don't own a reason. If reason was the culprit for how we are today, we

might as well live as the dogs of the living beings.

I went back to my house to discover that my mother has cooked some fish for the last meal of

the day, what a coincidence.

108

20 – Escaping the Fate

I think that with the time passing, we forgot that

calculation about how often we would meet up

and at what frequency, we would pretty much end up meeting at the top of the hill every night. The

days were stretching out every week and the time

of our reunion was always being pushed back.

Well we could meet earlier but we still wouldn't

talk until the stars have waked up, some things will never change even when the seasons flew

away so quickly.

I was pleased by the shrinking distance between us over time; it kept my heart warm from the cold

bad weather. She wouldn't shield me from the

chilling light rain but I still felt comfortable staying

outside without any fear of catching a cold. She

looked at me for a few seconds and then her gaze went up to the darkening sky, she started talking

on a hesitant tone.

"Do you like this place?" she asked, that was a strange question but it still left me hesitant. I did

not bother for a minute wondering what she

meant, I somehow knew exactly what she asked

me. Still I was left hesitant, I had lived here for all

my life and I had many memories with almost everything around here, the hill, the wheat fields,

the fishes and the nature. On the other side I

wasn't a big fan of cold weather and since we just

fought against winter, I was still holding a grudge

against it, that made of me a weak individual but

I'm not here to be strong aren’t I?

109

I answered to her in a hazy and cloudy sentence

about the region having its downsides but still

being great, she didn't look satisfied by this answer but I couldn't really add another word

without a risk of backfiring. She tilted her head

and asked something else instead.

"Did you ever want to go somewhere else then?" I

was kind of starting to see where she was going

to but I didn't answer yet, I pretend to think

about it and simply asked the same question to

her.

"What about you, don't you like this place? Do

you want to go somewhere else?" I asked, patting myself on the back for my clever move. She, on

the other side, didn't look that impressed though,

actually her expression didn't even change, I was

a bit disappointed. With a light smile, she

honestly answered.

"I really love this place, I could never forget about

it but I think I'm bound to go somewhere else at

some point in my life... I think that this time has

come now" she said.

Obviously she wanted to travel but did she

actually mean to go live in another town? What was the point of this? Meeting new people maybe,

but I bet she still doesn't know even half of the

people in our town. Was she trying to escape from

something or someone?

110

All those questions that I didn't really had the

courage to ask but at the same time I guess I

could have lived pretty well without knowing the real reason. She turned her head to face me, her

eyes were directly pointing at mine, I felt a bit

uneasy but she moved her head forward, closing

the gap between our foreheads.

I could hear her breath and see the tiny haze

coming from her nose her time she did.

"Supposing I would want to go live elsewhere,

would you come with me?" she asked. That was the question I feared, I don't really like to have to

take decisions and it's worse when I'm under

pressure.

Fortunately for me, well I thought it kind of was

fortunate, I did not really have a choice on this

matter. It wasn't really extortion but it still felt

that there was a 'good' and a 'bad' choice. The

unfortunate truth was that I was lazy and I didn't

plan on moving.

"I don't know, I'm not sure... Why would you want to leave this place even if you love it? Do

you think it would be better elsewhere? Where do

you want to go?" I responded. She looked

disappointed by that answer; I guessed that she

would have expected me to discern her motives

right now. Well I can't say that she already told me that it was the time for her to be somewhere

else but that didn't mean anything, it wasn't even

a reason for leaving.

111

Was she a ticking bomb that would explode if she

stayed in the same town for more than five years

or something? I was at loss and somehow wanted some good reasons even if that would mean

something big for me.

"You probably don't know how it is to be truly hated, how it feels when everyone tries to avoid

you, when you can't walk in the streets without

getting rocks being thrown at you." she said in a

sadness that reached new levels. I wasn't aware

that she had such a reputation with the townsfolk, I rarely went outside of the countryside where I

lived, sometimes visiting the town while running

errands but nothing else really, my connections

with other people was quite restraint.

I somehow felt bad for her and wondered why she

never left before, it was possible that her parents

were refusing that she left home before having

her own life, and that would explain why she took

a few steps ahead in our friendship.

"Oh, I um, I'm sorry about that I did not know such things, I guess that would be a good reason

for leaving but are your parents okay with that?" I

said, feeling a bit like an elder talking to a little

girl, I guess she was old enough to take such

decisions. In any cases, I was merely buying time

to think of a good answer because she probably wouldn't accept something like 'Give me some

time to think about it okay?' surprisingly, she felt

even sadder now and without even having the

courage to look at me she spoke while staring at

the grass.

112

"My parents have died a long time ago, this

reputation I have is some kind of legacy I

inherited from them..." she said on a melancholic tone. I'm not sure that I wanted to wander in this

kind of fields when I asked my question to buy

time but it was too late to go back now. "My

father was an alchemist and as you may know,

alchemists are renowned to be able to transmute things to gold. My father did something like that

and that's how we were given the right to live

here, he did those transmutations over a few

years but then people started to be very jealous

of him and suspicious too."

"For some reason, they inspected the gold he

made and found out that it was fake so they were

really angry at him, living off them and lying to them so they killed my father. Oh and they

burned my mother for witchcraft just before

killing him, right in front of our eyes. That was

terrible..." she said, wiping a tear off her eye.

I was proud of her that she was able to tell this

without crying, it wasn't probably the first time

she had to though.

"I haven't done anything to the people of this

town but still everyone hates me since they

cannot hate the dead, they have to hate

someone, oh and I guess I don't have to tell you how they reacted when they learned about my

prophet powers? Yeah... I'd rather live

elsewhere." she explained.

113

At this point I can say for sure that I exactly knew

why she wanted to leave and the reason was

pretty good. Still I had some questions unanswered, why have she stayed that long, was

there something that was stopping her from

leaving?

A thought crossed my mind and I really hoped

that I was wrong, if I was the reason why she

stayed all those years, living that misery every

day, I would feel really bad. I could ask

confirmation but somehow I didn't want to know,

I already knew what I had to do even if it hurts.

Sometimes in life you have to do concessions in order to protect what you love and cherish even if

it meant abandoning other things, or everything. I

couldn't hold her here anymore, she had to leave,

I knew that already but... I couldn't just... leave

this place before seeing my friendly fish again.

Of course by that I meant that I had a lot to

sacrifice if I wanted to go with her because I'm

not certain if she would leave without me, might

as well ask.

"I totally understand your point now and why you

want to go live elsewhere but would you go anyways even if I didn't come with you?" I asked.

She looked at me with vitreous eyes, almost

begging for me to say that I was kidding, I

wasn't.

114

"Well... I don't know..." she started, out of words.

"I thought you would want to come with me so I

didn't really pondered about if I wanted to leave even alone..." she stared again at me, as if

waiting for me to comfort her or to at least say

something about it.

I was still silent though.

She had a painful crooked smile on her face, she expected that much of me and yet I was waiting

to know if she was willing to go alone without me.

She opened her mouth to speak again but hesitated a few times before actually saying

something.

"Well I guess... You're the only reason why I'm

still here, if you don't want to leave then I guess

it would have been exactly how you said it,

leaving this place would have advantages but still

had consequences, not like I planned where I saw

advantages everywhere, I was a fool to hope for such an happy ending I guess..." she said,

managing to keep eye contact with me all along.

I think that it was exactly the answer I was

looking for.

"Well please then... take good care of me during our travels" I said, watching hope lighting up her

face quickly.

115

"I don't want you to run away from your past

though, it's a bit like your shadow, no matter

where you go it will still be next to you, I'd rather have you seeing it like a new beginning but never

forget about the memories you made here, even

if they are painful, they mean everything you are

right now, a strong willed girl." I said, closing the

discussion.

The look on her face changed a couple of times

when I was talking but I guessed that in the end,

she was pretty about it she came close to me and rested her head on my chest, her long hair stuck

to my semi-wet clothes and she wrapped her

arms around me.

I think I had to do like her and I would be walking

in her footsteps until the very end at this rate

anyways.

116

21 – Walking on the Edge of Insanity

We have been walking for several hours now and

I already felt that my life has changed to the point

where I couldn't come back anymore.

I thought clever the idea to tell my parents before

taking the long road, I thought they would be proud of me or at least be happy that I finally

found my way in life.

I found myself being surprised when noticing how displeased they were with my decision. I could

understand their point though, to be quoting my

father "It's fine to have a girl to hang around with

but you can't go abandoning everything for her

after so little time!"

I'm not going to reminisce the whole argument

but he was right, it was pretty reckless to leave

everything to follow her, unfortunately I couldn't just 'hang around' with her for a couple of months

and then send her off with an handful of

fireworks, in that case I would almost say that my

fate has been written by a graceful but cheesy

artist, I bear no grudge though.

Our discussion didn't end really well and I felt I

wouldn't be welcomed back with warm tears and

cheers if I decided to come back after a week or

two.

117

She wouldn't talk much during our travel, she was

hiding behind the thick oak door in front of my

house while I was defending her against my parents, I think she felt a lot of guilt towards it

and probably felt bad that I had to do big

sacrifices, which I haven't.

I guess only time would fix this, well it was

probably the best option. I wondered if she

foresaw this turn of events, don't ask me why but

I'm somehow starting to believe in her prophet

stuff. Even if it lacks logic it still makes sense and I like it this way. One reason why I was doubting

it at first was the frequency at which she used her

powers, I have witnessed it about three or four

times at most since I first met her, I think that a

real prophet would use it more often.

My theory was that she would be thinking the

same was as I did, thinking that knowing what

the future held was ruining the excitement of life. That could be a reason why she retained herself

from looking forward into tomorrow.

That alone wasn't enough to convince me, even

with good beliefs one would still fall to temptation

pretty quickly so I didn't think it was her reason.

When she told me the story about her parents

getting killed for sorcery or whatever invention

they wanted to blame them, I was shocked and didn't weight the situation and consequences it

had on her.

118

Obviously what leads me is when she said that

people already hated her because of her parents

and it became worse when they learned that she was a prophet, I could easily imagine her cursing

her own powers, refusing to use them. I'm pretty

sure it would bring back sad memories to her, she

can see into the future but is forced to peer back

at the past each time she does, even I could understand why she didn't want to do such

things.

I bet she didn't feel like being stoned to death or some other atrocity, that was a pretty strong

theory I thought but now the opposite situation

stands in front of me, why did she use her powers

a few times already? It would be fairly easy to see

why she did when lives had to be saved but what about that time when she said it was going to

rain? On the top of that she didn't even avoid the

rain since she came to tell me, we ended up being

caught by it. I was confused and my last chance

was to do something I don't always like to do

since it means I couldn't guess it myself. I had to

ask her.

"Hey um... About your powers..." I said, hesitantly since I didn't really know how to ask it

without breaking the thousand years treaty of

silence. "I cannot control it myself, I knew you'd

ask." she answered with a light smile, but soon

brought back her sad face, maybe at the thought of the curse she was born with. Why did I never

have this in consideration?

119

I always assumed she could control her powers at

will but obviously I wasn't even close, it might as

well have been premonitory dreams that she had but being terribly accurate. I wanted to comfort

her but once again I didn't know what to do or

say and I wasn't planning on asking her how to do

such a thing, it would be almost laughable.

"Why are you so down?" I asked, "Aren't you

excited about what we're going to live?" I wasn't

hoping anything from this but I couldn't bear the

weightiness of this silence. "Yes... No... I-It's nothing." she said, looking away. I wasn't

impressed by this fake attempt to avoid the

question, it felt exactly like she asked me 'oh

please ask me again why I'm so sad', that's pretty

much what I planned on doing anyways.

"I don't think we can keep up like this, you've

always been open to talk, what is of the matter

that you shy away?" I asked, in the most gentleman way my poor vocabulary allowed me

to.

She chuckled at my mediocrity and proceeded to

tell me stories about her being cursed for hurting

people, she said a lot of times that she was sorry,

she wouldn't stop. I tried to explain to her that it

wasn't hurting me at all and I made my own

choices so if I ever had regret, it would be my own fault, I'm not the kind of person to blame it

on the others.

120

She looked a bit relieved but it didn't seem like

I've hit the right chord just now. I didn't want to

think about it too much but it hit me, she knew she was going to die and she was giving more

reasons every day to be even more saddened

when she would leave this world.

If everything went as expected, she would also

give birth to our daughter, a girl that will never

have a mother, she knew that fact and yet she

insisted on having children and yet she was in a

pretty good place to know how it feels to have a

parent missing. Would I be able to make up for it?

bet she also felt bad for putting that extra weight on my shoulders but I think I can lift more than I

look like, in my head everything goes well, but my

mind is a twisted illogical mayhem how could I

even trust this? I looked at her and I noticed that

she was already looking at me, seeing that I

understood her problem. I wish I could have made a 'Do not worry, I got this' face but I lack to

ability to, I just pretended like she read my mind.

I did not know where we were going, I didn't ask.

I knew we were going to live somewhere else but

how did she choose our destination? Did she pick

the closest town? Did she choose little village

where everyone knows each other but still

newcomers are very well welcomed? Did she want a large town where we could lose our very

existences and presence in the growing crowd?

121

I don't know which one I would have picked

myself. I would probably have gone for a random

one, probably the closest one since I take lazy

decisions.

Now that I think of it, she never said that we were

moving to another town, she just wanted to go elsewhere, I doubt we would be living in a cave or

something but living on the countryside wasn't

something that I would dislike.

The tranquility of the mornings, the wind blowing

through the tall grass and the dragonflies flying

around in circles, bathing in the afternoon's

sunshine. Anyhow, I would take anything, I always preferred the people living there more

than the place itself and I find it pretty ironic that

I consider myself someone that likes people but I

rarely get to speak to them.

I prefer analyzing and observing, I'm not sure if

that makes me a stalker but I don't really care,

I'm not doing anything mean, I'm merely

gathering data for my own thoughts. I try to become a better person every day but I don't let

anybody enjoy that, I guess that could make me a

selfish person.

And so we walked on, for many hours again. I did

not bother to ask her where we were going since

it wasn't really important, it wouldn't make us

arrive faster and I wouldn't try to make her

change her mind about our destination.

122

I was curious of course but I guess that just

asking her wouldn't be better than just seeing the

future; I'd rather keep the surprise for now. She looked at me and with a smile she asked "What

will you do once we get there?"

I was a bit confused by that question, what did she meant? Did I have to do something in

particular or was she just trying to start a

conversation that was leading nowhere? In any

cases it was better than not talking at all, talking

was a great way to forget that we have been walking for hours. "What do you mean, what will I

do?" I asked, to be certain that I understood her

question.

She replied instantly with the same innocent smile

"Well aren't you going to find a home or a

shelter? The nights are still cold at this time of the

year!". I was a bit shocked that she didn't plan

such obvious things yet, what was she thinking?

And why was she talking like it was my sole

problem, weren't we supposed to live together or something? I tried the passive-aggressive stance

"Hey wait, why are you acting like I'm the only

one who needs a house, don't you need one too?"

I said calmly.

She giggled a bit at my ignorance and proceeded

to explain to me how much I knew little of her.

123

"Well to put it in a few words, the people of the

town burned my house shortly after my parents

have died. I have lived in an orphanage in my younger days but I couldn't stand being there so I

fled and never came back. I learned over the

years to live all by myself in the outside world, my

favourite spot has been the small but thick forest

just in front of the hill, I could easily see when you would come." she said with an almost playful

voice. I was terrified.

I was not scared because she was some kind of uncivilized animal-girl that could sprout ears and

a tail at any moment, I couldn't care less. But

why haven't I ever been able to notice such

things, why haven't I ever asked her where she

lived, how did she get those clothes?

She probably stole them from the town, that

would explain why everyone hates her, the family

curse wasn't really plausible but more importantly that would mean that after all those years, my so-

called calculations to know when to meet her at

the top of the hill were fake, she was there every

night, of course I would end up meeting her. I

feel ashamed now.

"Okay listen, I made up my mind" I said with the

utmost serious voice. "The first thing I am going

to do when we get there is not letting you sleep outside whatever your reasons might be, you'll be

safer in the same bed as me" I laughed to myself

at the last sentence I said, she didn't seem to

think it the same way as me though, that wasn't

really a problem for now.

124

She looked really happy by that, I guess she

didn't choose this lifestyle because she wanted it.

I felt like I was doing something good for once.

That was one of those moments you have to seal

with a great quote, sometimes I wished I was a

poet, I tried anyways.

"I guess it's my turn to watch over you during the

night" I said, and immediately felt guilty for making so many references that she wasn't able

to understand, but I guess that everyone does

that, it's the prime essence of living an healthy

life, or so I thought...

She might just be laughing at me right now.

125

22 – The House of Seven Generations

We somehow started something new.

With heaven's luck, we found an abandoned

house near the town we were headed to. At first it

was pretty creepy and unclean, it almost felt like

a ghost lived there or something, assuming that it wasn't the ghost of a maid or anything like it but

more like somebody lazy and not allergic to dust,

but once we tidied up the place, I guess we have

could have called it 'decent'. The house itself

wasn't very spacious; there was one single

bedroom with a simple bed and a stuck window, another room with a few empty bookshelves and

a simple desk.

The main room had a fireplace, which would

probably become handy someday, during the

harsh winters that this region is used to, the rest

was empty and it felt pretty obvious that we

weren't the first ones to use this place as a

refuge. I thought that it would be a good idea to use the little arm-knowledge I had to renovate

this house, the ceiling had many leaks and I found

it impressive that it held for so long, the house

seemed pretty old.

I also found a job as a woodworker at the town to

be able to afford food and other necessary stuff to

be able to live conveniently. I didn't expect to have to do that much so we could live on our own

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but I guess it's only because I didn't bother

thinking about it.

At first I believed firmly that I could probably do

all of this without a problem but when I got home

from a full day of work, I simply didn't have the motivation to do here the same thing I did all day

at work, I guess I'm the kind of person that

appreciates variety and doing the same thing over

and over bothers me a bit. Why am I even

complaining, it only has been a few weeks yet.

I found convenient that she stayed home while I

worked for many reasons, she said she would do

the cooking but she didn't know how to. I can't really blame her though; it's not something you

can easily learn when living in the forest, no...

seriously, where has she been? I offered the bit of

knowledge I had about food and cooking but

finally we ended up learning the basics together, I think she's more devoted to it that I am, I hope

she'll become a great cook!

For now I can rejoice myself to her delicious omelets and pretty much everything egg-based,

everything else had a really doubtful quality but I

can tell she really puts her heart at it.

Another reason is I noticed that her belly started

to grow recently, I'm not an expert but I think it

would be smart to not have her do physically

challenging activities right now, not to mention the condition of her heart. Sometimes I thought

of asking if she was doing any better but how

could she know, I bet there wasn't a doctor that

was visiting her in the forest.

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It kind of leads me to wonder how she knew that

she had that kind of disease, I wouldn't really

dare to ask her but still it was intriguing, she might have seen it with her foreseeing powers, I

don't know... something smelt fishy, it was

probably the trout we fished from the lake this

morning that she was cooking, her first attempt

with fish.

Everything seemed to go so fast, I didn't have

something like a transition to adapt to my new

lifestyle, it's not like I didn't like it, I can safely say that I'm pretty comfortable with it right now

but I don't know, it's like I've skipped a few years,

a few weeks ago I was still a kid and now I'm

living in my own house and have a job, I probably

wouldn't even believed myself if I was a prophet

too.

I turned around and noticed that she just closed

the door to come next to me, in the grass field behind our house. She looked a bit disappointed

as she came closer but tried to make up a smile

on arrival.

"Well, I'm done cooking the fish but it doesn't

look or smell as good as it is supposed to, we

might want to eat something else." she said, with

a bit of shame in her voice. I thought to myself

that mistakes were the best way to learn something so I guessed it was some kind of

investment, but for now we didn't have a meal.

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I offered her to go to town for tonight's meal, she

was a bit reluctant at first but for some reason

she changed her mind and seemed pretty happy with the idea of visiting that town, she has been

staying in this house since we arrived here so I

could understand her eagerness to see the

surroundings. It almost felt like she was now

proud of having burnt the fish.

The town wasn't that close to where we lived, we

actually had to walk about half an hour to get

there. It was almost summer now, the flowers bloomed in a gracious way, drawing colors on the

landscape like in some painter's work that I forgot

the name, he was great too. Her red hair was

perfectly reflecting the sunbeams directed at it,

creating a beautiful effect and making her look

like one of those girls from the nobility.

She wore a simple summer dress with flower

patterns printed on it, I guess that’s what one could call the elegance of simplicity, she looked

great, humming some joyful song as we were

walking. On top of that, she had one of those

smiles I'm living for drawn across her face, for a

short moment while we were talking about random stuff and walking towards the town, I

think I have experienced true happiness for once.

I think that's the kind of moment life is worth

living no matter what situation you're in. Out of

passion, I told her that I loved her and that she was really precious to me, she blushed deeply at

the randomness of this comment, but it wasn't

random at all, I didn't think a person could make

someone that happy just by being there.

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We entered the local inn that was also serving

food, I used to go there a few times with my co-

workers and the owner recognized me as soon as I entered, I was delighted. He assigned us an

isolated table since there seemed to be a big

party in the center of the inn, he looked at her

and asked me if she was the girl I was always

talking about.

Her face instantly turned to red; she was pretty

embarrassed that I spoke about her to other

people I guess, that was pretty cute of her. Unfortunately I didn't do such a thing, I might

have said something about her once but that was

it, the owner was only trying to soften the

atmosphere, I think she noticed that she was

pretty nervous when she entered the building, he

was a great talker.

I acknowledged his sayings and he laughed in a

deep and masculine manner, he hit me softly with her fist on my shoulder and then proceeded to say

something like "Well she's much cuter than how

you described her, lucky bastard!" and he went

back to his counter as I chuckled lightly at his way

of interacting with people, that was most amusing. She was still blushing and was hiding

her face behind her hands. She spoke without

directly looking at me.

"D-did you really talk that much about me?" she

asked. I don't like to lie but it would probably

have been boring if I just said that the owner

made up this story and that I didn't about her, so

I just kept the suspense.

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"I'm sorry, does it bother you? This big guy is

pretty much the talkative one so you know, he is

also the kind of person you want to talk to too." I said, obviously avoiding the question but even if

she remaining pretty bashful, she seemed quite

happy by what I told her.

"No, it doesn't bother me at all, actually it makes

me happy, I'm not used at being praised that's

all." she said. I could understand that, she lived a

long time alone so nobody knew her, the one

people who actually knew her was the ones who were despising her so they obviously wouldn't say

something nice about her.

I guess I went a bit too far to come back and tell

her that I didn't really spoke about her so I

decided to keep it a secret, I guess it could be

seen as a lie but I didn't bother about it.

The owner was actually a big guy, you knew as

soon as you met him that he knew what good

food was, he also had a big brown beard and it

looked really good on him. He told me once that he tried to make braids in his beard but his wife

got upset because he looked like a viking.

Like him, I didn't really understand the point of her wife but I came to the conclusion that she

was jealous because she didn't have a beard too

and having braids in her hair wasn't even half as

awesome as having braids in a beard.

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With our meal, the owner offered us some wine to

celebrate the first time that I brought my girl

along at his inn. I found that this was pretty laughable but yet she seemed awkwardly

embarrassed by this. She might be thinking that I

planned this all along with the innkeeper, I

decided this morning to go fishing because I knew

that she didn't know how to cook fish and that she would probably fail, that would lead us into a

corner and thus giving us no choice but to come

here to eat.

That would have been terrible play on my part but

I laughed at my plan thinking that it might have

worked. Anyways it wasn't like that at all, it's only

the owner that was a pretty sympathetic guy and

liked people that were coming to his inn. We had

a great time.

On our way back, I clearly noticed that she had a

weak resistance to alcohol, she wasn't exactly walking straight so I held her shoulder while

gently pressing her against me. She hung on my

shirt and chucked a bit. "What's funny now?" I

asked her, amused by her demeanour. "Tonight

was pretty fun, I'm glad to be able to speak with other people, I hope we'll go back often!" she

said. By the end of the evening, the owner asked

us if he could sit at our table, we accepted without

even hesitating and we had a nice chat with him.

I think he was trying to flirt with her I found it pretty amusing since I knew he wasn't really

serious but she was still embarrassed by it to was

barely too cute to bear.

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I was glad that she had a good time, I felt like we

made the right choice to move here, it seemed

like a really nice town to live. Night has fallen by the time we came back to our house, we spent a

bit of time outdoors to watch the stars.

"Did you know that every time a star dies another one is born from its death?" she asked me. I

didn't know such a thing and honestly, I wasn't

even aware that stars were dying at some point,

were they even living? I felt that this wasn't

exactly what I was thinking; some obscure metaphor was hidden behind it. "It's an old

folktale from the northern countries, mainly

meant to give a reason to people to accept death.

I think it has a pretty deep meaning; it's like

making a great sacrifice for a greater reward. The gift of life is something really special that

everyone gets but a select few know how to use

it." she explained.

At a first glance I thought that she knew that I

found myself starting over a new life and liking it.

The sacrifice was probably making part ways with

my old ways and having a fight with my parents

just before leaving, of course that were scars that would remain but as a star dies, another one is

born. And that was quite right; I guess we could

say I was reborn. Of course I could just have

been mistaken about the meaning of those words

but I made her know that I understood, she seemed happy and gave me a heart-warming

smile before going inside the house.

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I stayed outside for a while on my own, staring

blankly at the sky. Even if I tried to not think

about it and live the present moment to the fullest, I couldn't just forget that she would leave

my side by winter and I knew that this would be

this deepest scar of my soul, sacrifices for greater

good... why did that made less sense now?

Did it really worked when the sacrifice was after?

I was a fool to think it that way.

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23 – The Lullaby to Eternal Sleep

Today was a pretty monotone day; it rained all

afternoon outside so we would stay inside. It

wasn't my idea to avoid water, this is some kind of unwritten law that went down from generations

before us. It would be a perfect day to read or

something but my luck ran out when I

remembered that the bookshelves in the desk

room (that's how we called it) contained nothing but dust and I'm not able to read dust. I told her

my problem and she suggested that I write my

own book. This was the best and the worst idea

she ever had at the same time, I wouldn't have

the determination or motivation to write a whole book, I would probably write the first lines maybe

even a chapter but for the few times I tried, I told

myself that I was unable to write action.

I mean, I'm okay with describing the characters

and the environment but once I get to the core of

the story, when something actually happens, I do

not know what to write next and out of

imagination I stop. I guess I could write a book devoid of action but that would be pretty boring

right? A whopping two hundred pages of

descriptions and then the end that would be an

amazing story! It would probably be enough to

keep me busy for this afternoon though. Anyways

I was at a loss; I didn't have any paper to write on! I asked her why she didn’t write a book, she

definitely had a talent for story-telling, her stories

always felt so real even if they weren't coming

that close to reality.

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She said she preferred to just tell them, she

thought it was a better way to give all the feelings

and it's nicer to have the story told by someone instead of reading what the person has written, it

has more authenticity. We didn't speak for a few

seconds and then she brusquely turned around

and asked me if she ever told me the story of the

girl with no legs. I almost laughed but gathering all my seriousness I told her that she didn't,

almost begging her to tell me what this story was

about.

"A girl was living alone with her father on the

countryside. At a first glance it looks like a

peaceful life but it was way more peaceful than

you think. As I just said, the girl had no legs, we

she physically had legs but they were paralyzed so she couldn't use them. This malfunction came

from an accident that happened a few years

earlier, she got stomped by a raging horse and

she probably received a huge nervous shock, that

would be how she lost control of her legs. She

would spend every day in her bed, either reading or writing fantasy short-stories, she was always

unhappy of what she wrote so she didn't keep

many manuscripts that she made. She thought

that her stories were like dreams, too often she

would wake up before the end and realize it

wasn't real." she said.

"Hey, isn't that a bit depressing? Is it because it’s raining outdoors?" I replied with a bit of sarcasm

in my voice, she smiled and kept on telling me

her story.

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"Her father was really busy with his work but he

gave her all the time he had left, since she

couldn't move on her own, he would feed her and do other things that she couldn't do directly from

her bed every day. He was taking care of her but

he was also a bit empty-headed, he would

sometimes forget to come back home before night

so it happened often that she ate only one meal per day or none at all but she became

accustomed to the lifestyle. Since she couldn't do

any kind of physical activity, she grew weaker

every day, promising her to be bed-ridden for the

rest of her life. She was accepting that fate

though."

"One day, she started to write down the dreams

she made while she was sleeping, sometimes they were really great and sometimes very sad, and

she thought that she might be able to do a decent

story with those dreams. When she was younger,

she wouldn't even remember that she was

dreaming during the night but now that she wrote

what she remembered, she felt like her dreams were longer every night, like if her brain was

registering that she wanted to see those dreams

and that she enjoyed them. After some time, the

night was her favourite moment of the day and

she was eager to go to sleep so she could dream again. Dreams were really great, she could do

anything that she was forbid to in her life, she

had functional legs so she could run around

everywhere in the world. When she woke up, she

wrote everything she remembered." she said,

taking a short pause.

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I took the opportunity to tell her to wait a bit. I

went to the kitchen and made some Earl Grey for

both of us, after a few minutes I came back with

two cups of tea.

Sipping quietly her drink, she continued. "She

started a story with fragments of dreams she had, the story itself wasn't really interesting at first

since it was mostly her exploring things around

the world since she could move, and well she was

pretty much excited by this. The interesting part

is that at some point she becomes friend with a boy, she think that he is pretty handsome and

really kind so she like being with him. He brings

her to places he knows so she can visit more of

the region and they're having fun together." she

said.

I somehow started to fear that this was beginning

to be a teenager girl typical story but I still

listened to it, I couldn't really be disappointed

anyway.

"She wanted to tell her father about her story but he didn't seem to be really interested so she

would just be eager to go to sleep so she could

see the continuation of her story. She started to

sleep a lot more than she usually did, and much

more than what a normal human does. She could

somewhat order her brain to not wake up now so she could see more of the story. Of course she

still woke up every day so she could eat when her

father came back home but soon enough she

began to sleep more than the time that she was

awake."

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"We can't really blame her though, her paralyzed

legs wouldn't let her do a lot of things while she

was awake, she would rather live in her dreams, even if that world wasn't real, and she didn't

really care about it."

"In the dream, she received a letter from her friend, saying that he wanted to meet her at the

chapel this evening, she slept so long that even

time was consistent in this world, she was really

about that letter and she looked forward to meet

him the same day. She thought about it all day long, walking around in circles because she could,

thinking where he would bring her or what would

he show her, she went to the store to buy a new

dress. She chose a light blue one, perfect for

summer with a straw hat that she stuck on her head, she was smiling widely as she was walking

on the shore, bathing in the sunshine. That was

really a perfect world, she could almost choose

everything that would happen, she was the author

of her own story and the only limit was her

imagination."

"When the sun went down she headed for the

chapel to meet with his friend, they were getting along pretty well and she might have felt like

turning this to a romance story, it was her

favourite kind of book usually so she should try

herself. When she met her, she instantly knew

why he wanted to meet her tonight, he was already there, alone, but was already blushing at

himself and trying to recite some kind of speech.

She tried to not take him by surprise but she

failed, he turned around and seemed pretty

embarrassed."

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"She was pretty pleased by this and giggled a bit,

making him go even redder. She tried to calm him

down and he finally spoke, he told her that the moments he spent with her were the best

memories he made in his life and that he liked her

a lot. With a lot of hesitation he finally told her

that he loved her, the girl was really happy and

hugged the boy with all the strength her little

arms had."

"When she woke up on the next day, once again

she wrote everything down, with a large smile on her face, she somehow fell in love with a

character in her dreams, that was a bit strange

but she didn't mind at all, she was really happy

for once."

"A few weeks went by and her relationship with

the boy improved every night. That was really

great but she started to wonder if she could

always live in her dreams. Every time she woke up, she was welcomed by the coldness of reality

and just lived to be able to go to sleep again, that

was really depressing for her. She also felt bad for

her boyfriend, she knew that dreams were like

book or stories, it would soon come to an end and they wouldn't be able to hang with each other

anymore. She didn't want this to happen but she

thought that if at least she could finish her book,

their memories would be immortalized. On that

night in her dream, she was with her boyfriend again but something felt odd, he wasn't talking as

much as usual and when he did it felt like he

wasn't at ease at all."

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"She asked him a few times if something was

wrong be he declined every time, she still was

suspicious so she asked again, it was her dream after all, he would have to tell her even if he

doesn't want to. He told her that they couldn't go

like this anymore; he knew that her dream was

going to end soon and that they would painfully

go part ways. She wondered how he knew that he was the fruit of her imagination but she still said

that the dream wasn't over, she still had her story

to finish and she didn't want it to have a bad

ending. The boy replied that if they stayed

together it could only be a bad ending because

even if you don't want to, stories have a beginning and an ending, you just can't make

never-ending story and she couldn't just say

'They lived happily and had a lot of children etc.'

since she was writing what she dreamed about,

she would have to live her entire life in the dream

to do so."

"Almost crying she said that she was consent to

live only in the dream if that was necessary to stay with him, she would write everything down

once the dream is over. The boy was happy that

the girl was so attached to him but he still said

that she didn't understand his point: If she

decided to stay and the dream, the end of the dream would mean her death. Usually a dream

ends when your brain decides that it's time to

wake up but if she was able to control her brain

enough to not wake up, she would only be living

in the dream, so she would die at the end of her

dream."

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"No matter how he would put it, it was only a bad

ending, so she decided to act selfishly and took

the decision that made her the happiest. She decided on her own to never wake up again so

she could live with her boyfriend in her dream, for

the rest of her life. I bet they had a really good

life but as she never woke up, she died in her

sleep, probably starving to death or something, so she could never write that last chapter of the

story she begun."

I blinked many times to make sure that her story was done and then I spoke. "I'm still not certain if

this is the most heart-warming or the saddest

story in the world, but I sure got moved by this

one, good job, you have a great imagination!" I

said that as if she invented that story just now, I was pretty sure of this fact, well of course it

couldn't be a real story since it was impossible to

just tell your brain to not wake up but I guess

that in the context of this story, love was stronger

than her brain's will. She could have heard it from

someone else but I still gave her credit for the

great story-telling.

She looked at me in the eyes for a moment and tilted her head. She giggled a little and said

something like "Aha, I like that part of you!"

I wasn't certain if I should take this in a good or a bad way, but what part was she talking about

anyway?

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24 – In a Timeless World, Nobody Is Late

The breeze of summer made me felt like I was

literally skipping days, I think that was the

consequences of living a happy life, you wouldn't see the time pass under your eyes, even if time

was of utmost importance according to the

situation.

I wondered if the opposite was also true, I guess

that living a depressing life would only make your

days last longer, the minutes are becoming hours

and the seconds are years, it's a bit extreme and

like always it would best be to come back to a fair balance of felt time versus the actual time that

passes.

I mean, I don't think that anyone can be on par

with the exact time since it's a pretty much

abstract concept, time is not something that can

be seen or touched, it's the way to evaluate on

how fast the day passes and putting aside the

contraptions that calculate that time for us, we all

have our own definition and feeling of time.

I wouldn't really be seeing two persons tell each other 'Yeah! We so have the same second!'... How

fast is a second for you?

There is no way you can tell me since your only way to measure time is the thing I'm asking you

to measure.

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The smart ones could probably say two words and

said that between them, a second have been

elapsed and that would most likely be right, but how would you know that his second was the

same as mine, what if my whole time

interpretation was slowed down by half, that

would mean that if you lived a day in my life you

would be living 48 hours every day. That sounds scary and pretty improbable but I took an

extreme example on purpose, it doesn't eliminate

the fact that this is a possibility and there is no

way to know or prove if I'm wrong or not.

This leads me in the same point of view that

mostly every abstract concept like time has this

same problem. Colors for one are something I

sometimes have difficulties to imagine. I'm certain that you know what the blue color is, right now

you probably think of some blue item or you at

least have an idea of the blue color in your mind if

you don't have something blue near you to make

you remember how it looks.

Of course you don't need such a reminder, the

blue color is a given for you, it is part of the light

spectrum and you've seen it enough now to be able to say in all honesty and humbleness that

you pretty much know everything about the blue

color. Oh I know that there are variants of the

color, like every other color, there is dark blue,

light blue etc.

But how would you describe the blue color?

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What would you do, or say, if you've made

yourself a friend that is blind, that person never

had the chance to actually see in his life, you can even pretend that he was born without eyes. You

can't just shove it off saying "It's like the sky"

since he never saw the sky, there are some

concepts he might be able to imagine even if he

never saw anything.

You could explain what is a table, it has legs like

him and wooden board is on the top and it's used

to put things on it, he can understand that since it's a physical object but a color is only a

reference to something that you can only see, you

can't make the difference between blue and green

balls just by touching them.

Oh and we also make the difference between

colors because we were taught what colors looked

like, I wonder what would happen if parents both

agreed to tell their child that red things are

actually blue.

Every time they would see something red, they would tell their newly-born child that it's what we

call the 'blue' color and vice versa. The child

would grow up, noticing the different variants of

red in the sky and when he would scrap his knee

on some rock, a lot of blue fluid would come out

of his wound. People would start thinking that this person has colorblind symptoms and even if that

person actually passed tests he would still be

considered as 'colorblind'.

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This kind of thing is irreversible, if your parents

came and tell you 'Oh yeah by the way we lied

when you were young, red is actually blue', you wouldn't be able to put a different name on the

colors, you would be too accustomed to seeing

red as blue, colorblind people can say that they

see green as purple for an example, but it's only

because they were told so, they don't make the difference themselves and you wouldn't be able

to. I suspect that some of the colorblind people

living in this world have this illness because their

parents felt like making a joke to the rest of the

universe, clever one, humanity.

Anyway, what is the point of explaining what

colors are to someone who would never be able to

see them; it doesn't serve any purpose to explain a concept to someone who doesn't have the tools

to understand it. What about the pertinence of

explaining time to someone who only knows how

to waste it? I can't really be a model to teach

somebody else about this, time is passing faster

than I can put my hand on, it can probably be called as a waste since I'm not enjoying every

moment I could but that's another story from

another world. I know how to make up subtle

excuses it seems, anyways...

With everything going so fast and when I noticed

that I spent too much of my time with wood, I

decided that I should at least take a break of renovating this house even is the price to pay was

to suddenly get hit on the head by a unsteady

ceiling wood piece, fortunately it didn't happen

yet.

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She became really good at cooking in no time and

that made me really happy since I like to eat good

food, that makes sense right? The bad side was that we had less opportunities to visit the town's

inn more often but none of us dared to bring the

subject so we just went along we what we had.

She started to write a bit, like I suggested, but

she didn't allow me to read any of her stories

before they were finished and since she was more

clever than I, she always stopped writing her

stories before finishing them thus leaving me without any chances of reading what she wrote.

That was a mischievous plan and my curiosity was

a bit too much piqued to leave it at that so I went

in the desk room during the night and shuffled

through the stories she abandoned.

They pretty much all followed the same dark

theme where the main character dies in a terrible

way or something like this. I must say that I was a bit afraid by what I read since she would write

her stories with her as the main character and the

way she was describing her own death was almost

like... if she already saw the way that she died...

and more than just one time. That was pretty creepy and sad too, she could be dreaming about

this right now and I had no idea of it, the

interesting thing about all of this though was that

like I said, she didn't finish her stories so I

couldn't read them, but most of them had the narrator dying at some point, what was supposed

to be after that?

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Sometimes the setting of the story would allow

her to take a distant voice and still be saying what

was happening but sometimes she just couldn't.

Was that because even with her clairvoyance

powers she still couldn't see what would happen

after she dies? Is it because this fate hasn't been written yet or is it because there isn't really

something after death but since she firmly

thought that there was something she couldn't

finish her stories?

This whole thing left me perplex and honestly I

didn't know what to think of it, I couldn't really

ask her about it this time since I wasn't supposed to have read those, I wouldn't want her to be mad

and even if I did, she might not even be able to

answer my questions. It may be the reason why

she forbid me to read anything she wrote before

she finished it because she couldn't even explain

to her why she couldn't write the ending, I wouldn't imagine how it would be if she tried to

explain it to me, that would only be embarrassing

and confusing for both of us.

I’ve put away the writings back to where they

were and made my way back to my bed, I didn't

want her to notice that I read the stories but I

conscienceless intentionally misplaced one or two,

maybe because deep inside me I wanted to talk about it but didn't want to engage the discussion

and maybe if she found out that I read them she

would start a discussion, or not, well that wasn't

the best plan I had but I was proud of it.

148

I slipped quietly under the light blanket that we

shared and the warmness of the summer forced

us to stay a fair distance from each other or else we would probably die of a heatstroke or

something. On my side of the narrow bed, I still

had my head full of questions and strange

conclusions that, as always, didn't make any

sense at all but that's how I was and I learned pretty quickly to live with myself. I once thought

that if someone would live with my mind, they

would probably want their head to explode or

something, I'm not sure anyone could bear it, but

then I realized that aside of me, nobody knew

that I had such twisted ideas because I don't

really disclose or talk about them with anybody.

Everybody might as well be the same...

And I couldn't just try my theory by asking people

on the streets "Hey do you think you have some

strange thoughts sometimes?" that was way too creepy and I wouldn't probably get the

information I need. I think that the only way to

know exactly what I want is to live a day in their

head, to see how they think and how they react to

what happens around them. I guess I could describe to them what I was thinking and other

stuff but that would take a long time and that

wouldn't suffice me honestly.

Before somebody else proves that I'm wrong, I

will say that everybody has strange thoughts, all

the time, of course we aren't thinking about the

same kind of strange things, that goes without

saying but since there isn't any 'normal' person.

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I don't think there is any 'normal' mind, a mind

that would only think about stuff that is normal to

think, like 'Is it going to rain tomorrow?'. I just thought that this was a normal thought, but why

is this normal, why would people ask themselves

if it would be rainy tomorrow, can they control

weather?

Are they thinking forward so they can plan other

an indoor activity if it rains but then why don't

they just always plan an indoor activity as soon as

they think of doing something outside? That would come together and people wouldn't have to

worry about tomorrow's weather! Because in all

honesty, it's useless to ask yourself if it's going to

rain tomorrow since you have no way to know it

for a fact.

I came to a conclusion that there are no 'normal'

thoughts, thinking was either something abnormal

or something everyone did in a total opposite manner, I would probably flip a coin tomorrow to

know which one is the truth...

I just hope it's not going to rain...

Is it going to rain tomorrow?

150

25 – The Girl in the Photograph

When I came back after work today, I found her

at the same place that I left her this morning,

under a light blanket on the right side of my bed. I found this amusing at first and wondered if she

just slept all day like a lazy girl, I can't really

blame her though, I have been the same at some

point in my life and nobody can honestly say that

sleeping isn't great.

It was pretty late though now so I decided to

wake her up but it's only when I came next to her

that I noticed that she wasn't sleeping. Her forehead was all sweaty and her face was red, I

was wondering if she just did something

physically demanding and she was extenuated as

a result.

The fact that she was still in her night dress

confirmed that I was wrong but still she was

breathing heavily. I got a bit closer to her and

asked her if she was all right, even if I knew that

she probably wasn't.

She said that she felt weak and couldn't find the strength to leave her bed, she also mentioned

that she was freezing while crawling back under

the blanket. It's the first time that I saw her

catching a cold, I did not know any good cure to

this except a lot of rest so I told her to do so, but I guess that it wasn't necessary since she wasn't

planning on going anywhere.

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I went outside a bit to burn my eyes with the

flaming colors of the leaves, grasping the few last

moments of autumn before the leaves fall on their own. It was a bit depressing in here when they all

have fallen, in other regions snow would cover

them and before it could thaw, those leaves would

have decomposed themselves, following the cycle

of nature but not in here, where snow refused to fall year after year, leaves were lying around the

naked trees like fallen bodies that nobody would

take care of. They would also decompose before

spring but that wasn't a pretty thing, I'm not

wondering anymore why there is a month called

'The Month of the Dead', that's slightly creepy.

At least it was a great show for a moment, there

was plenty of fiery colors that were accompanying the late sunset. Even if everything was really

beautiful, it still was boring. I found myself being

irritated by having nothing to do so I thought I'd

tidy up that desk room that we haven't really

touched since we started living here.

The room itself wasn't defying the theme of this

house, it was pretty small and narrow but there

still was an incredible amount of dust everywhere, like if even the people who lived here before

didn't enter the room either. I started dusting off

the empty bookshelves and thought that it would

be nice if they would be filled with books we

wrote, or at least that she wrote, well I guess I would be satisfied if they were just filled with

random books, since it would be pretty hard to

actually fill a whole shelf with your own books, I

think that it takes time to write a book, not even

mentioning the time required to improve the

152

quality of the story. While cleaning up the top of

the bookshelf, I noticed that a tiny piece of paper

was stuck between it and the wall, I tried to gently pull it out but it was really stuck there. I

thought I would just move the furniture a bit so it

would fall on itself but the bookshelf wouldn't

budge at all. It didn't look that heavy, why wasn't

I able to move it? I took a closer look at it and

noticed that the bookshelf was glued to the wall.

I thought that it was a pretty peculiar way to

make furniture stay on the wall, I couldn't really say that it was a bad method since it pretty much

worked so far but I must say that I started to be

curious, what would be the motive for someone to

glue his bookshelf to the wall, there must be a

reason! Was this place on high risks of earthquakes, if so that would explain why there

aren't any books in it and the accumulated dust

on it would only suggest that there never were

any books on those shelves.

Since there was another one on the opposite wall

I went to see if it suffered the same fate as his

neighbour book-holder. I wasn't really surprised

when I noticed that it also almost made one with the wall, the thing that surprised me was the fact

that it was the only thing that went through the

glue treatment, the desk was just lying there like

if nothing ever happened to its boring life and the

chair wasn't glued to the floor either, why would someone fall back to that barbaric technique? I'm

not saying that the inventor of the glue is a

barbarian, that would make no sense anyways but

still I found all this comedy pretty much

suspicious.

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Then it hit me, the piece of paper stuck between

the wall and the bookshelf, it was under the glue,

it made me believe that the person who did this wanted to hide something, now I was really

curious but I couldn't just start a mayhem in the

house right now since she was sleeping next door,

I had to use delicacy.

But how am I supposed to delicately do that? It

was a case of brute strength! The only option I

had was to dislodge it with a knife or something

so I ran to the kitchen and took the scariest knife I could find, thinking to myself that it would be

pretty funny if anyone saw me just rushing in the

kitchen to take it and then going back to the

room, but such a thing couldn't happen. I slid the

knife behind the bookshelf and to my greater appreciation I noticed the glue was only applied to

the sides so it went off relatively easily. I took

care to do it meticulously to keep anything that

would be behind it intact, I hastily moved it away

and what I found behind it stunned me.

There were a few dozens of old yellow sheets of

paper pinned to the wall, along with a few

pictures that looked really old. I was mesmerized by what I just found and I immediately wondered

if the same thing was hidden behind the other

one. I did the same process to the other bookcase

but since I was so eager to reveal what was

hidden behind it, I did it in a careless way and I might have lightly ripped a piece of paper with my

knife... unintentionally.

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That was pretty much the same thing mirrored on

the other wall but there wasn't any pictures, only

texts on old sheets of paper. I wanted to take a few to read them but I thought that they might

fall to pieces if I tried to move them so I just read

them directly on the wall. Most of them were

beginnings of stories, I think, that was strange, all

the stories were pretty different but they felt like

they were all linked together.

There was also a few pages of what seemed like a

diary or something like that, there was a date but the year wasn't specified, that's sad since it was

probably my only chance to evaluate how old

were those papers. Judging by the few diary

entries that I found, it seemed like the author was

writing as a living, strangely enough there wasn't any traces of a completed story on the wall,

maybe that she only kept the unused beginnings

as inspiration.

I said 'she' because at this point it was pretty

obvious to me that this person was a girl, the

handwriting was gracious and the pictures on the

other wall were displaying a girl. I know that it's a

bit strange to display pictures of yourself, you would probably keep pictures of your friends or

something but judging by the age of the pictures

it was probably during the time where you had to

pay a big price to obtain a picture and most of the

time you would get a picture of yourself if you were going to pay for it, that's my guess. I went

back to the other wall to look over those pictures.

155

The girl standing in front of me was really

beautiful, she had long silky hair, flowing down on

her shoulders like a streaming river, the picture was in black and white but I could guess that the

color of her hair was either light brown or red,

maybe blond.

I thought that red haired girls are better so I went

with that even if it didn't really matter that much,

she was holding a hat in her hands and she had

one of those smiles that makes me forget that the

picture is in black and white and is probably older

than myself.

I kept on browsing the sheets on the wall, there were some really interesting beginnings, I

wondered why she never continued them, maybe

she lacked imagination or wasn't just satisfied by

how she started but probably not since she kept it

on the wall. I noticed that there was more behind

the sheets so I proceeded to carefully move them to discover a newspaper article that has been

most likely cut off the local newspaper.

It appeared like it was even older than everything

pinned on this wall; it was behind everything after

all so it made sense. I started to read the article

and it said that an unexpected unknown town girl

won the literature contest with a story that moved

everyone's hearts. That sounded a bit too familiar, I rushed through the text to finally

confirm my interrogations, and the title of her

story was 'The boy who wanted to become a

knight'.

156

I cursed all the gods I knew over this, after all

we've been through, I always thought that this

story was only the fruit of her imagination and just today, while casually ungluing a bookshelf

from the wall of my house, I found out not only

that this story really happened but that the main

character of the story actually lived in my house a

century ago, or something like that.

I'm pretty open minded to believe in coincidences

and stuff like that but this was a bit too much,

there were now too many signs that it couldn't be a coincidence anymore, there was something

going on and nobody thought wise to warn me. I

didn't know yet if she was behind all this or not

but I couldn't just ask her now, not only she was

sleeping and sick but I think I had to find more by myself before being told another story with

hidden meanings. I re-read a few excerpts from

the wall to see if there was some similarities with

the stories she told me before but it didn't seem

like it, they weren't even of the same style, I was

on a blind lead, I had to find that book called 'The boy who wanted to become a knight' even if I

knew that it wouldn't help me.

How did she know this story? How could she

narrate it as if she was the main character,

expressing the feelings like if she was living it?

That could probably be explained by a good

imagination or story-telling skills but that didn't set aside the fact that the girl from the story lived

in the house that we decided to live in. Now that I

think of it, it was her that led us here and it was

her that found the miraculously abandoned house.

157

She probably knew what she was doing but I had

no idea, that's why I decided to investigate on the

'Red headed case', I had no proof that this girl also had red hair, but since such a coincidence

never comes alone, she probably had the same

hair color as her, without a doubt. Wait, since

when was it a coincidence?

I just totally lost my mind.

158

26 – Chronicles of a Distant Proximity

Almost a month had passed and my investigation

hadn't been really going forward, the principal

cause for this was that I didn't know where to look; I turned literally every wood plank in the

house without finding much. I finally got a lead

when I decided to ask people I was working with,

I told them if they knew about some writer that

lived in the same house as me before, most people said that they didn't, but one of them said

that I might want to ask the archivist of this town.

The archivist's job was to keep track of this town's history, recording all the events and the names of

everybody who lived in the town. Everything

would be written down in big books and then kept

from generations so we could always know what

happened to who in the city since it has been built. That seemed like a really good idea but the

problem was the fact that I didn't know when

exactly she lived or died, I did not know her name

and I wasn't even certain if she would have been

in the town's records since her house is a bit away

from it.

All I knew about her was the fact that she lived in

the house I live now and that she was a writer, that wasn't much. Well I had her background,

according to the story I got told but I didn't know

if it was true or fiction, I think I can fairly say that

I am far away from fiction right now though. With

nothing to lose, I decided to pay a visit to this

town's archivist to see what he could tell me.

159

A moment after I knocked three times on his

door, I saw him before me and I thought to

myself that if I have wanted to make a picture of him in my mind before seeing him, that would be

exactly how I would have seen him. He looked

like a wizard you'd hear of in those dragon tales,

his white beard was as long as his gray hair, he

was wearing a sort of old robe and I actually

wondered for a moment where he hid his staff.

When he saw me examining him, he adjusted his

glasses and asked me what business might have brought me here. I told him that I wanted to

know about somebody who lived here long ago,

interested by such an inquiry from someone of my

age, he invited me to enter his humble residence.

Humble was maybe pushed a bit, everything was pretty old but I guess that it followed the theme

of someone who lives through ages, like an

immortal. It was ancient but I felt that everything

in here was very valuable so I carefully sat down

on the armchair; waiting for him to come back

with some tea, the season was starting to be

quite cold after all.

Once we were ready to talk, I started to tell him that I wanted to know about a girl who lived here

a long time ago, I didn't know her name but I

knew she was a writer and I guessed that she was

at least a bit popular since she was living out of it.

At first, the archivist seemed a bit concerned by this and he told me that with that much of

information he couldn't do much, there are a lot

of people that lives and dies in a town and

unfortunately, nobody remembers them after a

few years.

160

Even when a relative dies, you'll probably

remember him for the rest of your life but what

about your children and grand-children? I also doubt that anybody would remember her except if

they have a book with her name written on it but

then again I didn't know her name. On the bright

side, he told me that according to what he

remembers, female writers were pretty rare in this town, if she had been at least talked about, it

might have been written somewhere. He started

to browse quickly in a huge book and asked me if

I had more details about her.

I told him that she might have been born in

another town that this one, she came for a

literature contest and won it with a story called

'The boy who wanted to become a knight', he frowned a bit, probably wondering how I knew so

much without even knowing her name. I asked if I

could be of some help, actually I was just really

curious to see what kind of information was

stored in those enormous books of lore. He told

me that he probably had the book that the information I was looking for was written in so I

shouldn't bother, I went back to the armchair and

waited for him to find her in that big book while

noisily slurping my tea.

After a few long minutes he finally stopped

flipping pages like he was on a flipping rampage

or a flipping ninja and said he might have found something, I immediately jumped out of my chair

but he made a sign with his hand that meant

something like I had to sit down, so I did.

161

He said that there was a girl called Sofia Swans

who lived a few years in this town, she was a

writer and she made some noise when she was younger since she won that literature contest

when nobody knew about her, it was really a big

moment, there weren't much more information

about her though. I asked him if he knew

something about her parents of where she lived before, even if she had a husband or a cat that

would still be helpful. He said that it was

mentioned once that she never disclosed where

she came from to anyone, she might have had a

shady past that she wanted to get rid of and

citizens of this town were pretty indulgent about

this.

One century ago, many new people arrived from different cities and towns to live here, most of

them were war veterans or people who wanted to

escape their past, most of this town inhabitants

understood the situations of men who have killed

at someone else's will and that now would feel

regret, life could get pretty hard on this point since other people would despise you for what

you did.

There were no records of marriage or newborns at

her name so she probably lives a single life or

something like that, I could imagine her, waking

up every morning and sitting at her her desk, in-

between her going-to-be-glued-to-the-wall bookshelves, they were probably not as empty as

I found them though. And then she would just

write all day, while watching the beautiful spring

blooming outside by her opened window that

wasn't probably refusing to open back then.

162

I guess I was kind of satisfied by what I've

learned today, I learned more in one afternoon

than in one month so that was a satisfying ratio, I wouldn't know right know where to look for more

information but I guess that would come with

time. As I was about to thank him for everything

he told me that her death was recorded a bit

further and he asked me if I wanted to know the details. That was right, I didn't even know that

she died, well I could have figured it but was kind

of an information, at first I thought that I'd want

to know it since every bit of information might

help me but at the same time, I was currently

living in her house and knowing how she died would probably make me feel uneasy when I'd

cross the front door.

The point that made me take a decision was the

fact that I quickly remembered that she was the

only girl from the stories she told me that didn't

die in the story; it was the missing information to

make the link between the stories so I asked him

to tell me. With a dark but professional voice he read me that about one century ago, she was

found dead in her remote house after committing

suicide.

He was about to give me more details but I told

him to stop, I had a pretty imaginative mind and

would probably start to hallucinate hung bodies

everywhere at night if she told me something like that, the suicide was already enough to give me

twisted ideas. I thanked him for the tea and the

knowledge and left his house, heading back to

mine.

163

While I was walking, I thought back on what I've

learned. A suicide was pretty different from the

two other deaths, well I guess I could have considered the one who died in her sleep as a

suicide since it kind of was her decision but I

thought that this was a bit taking it too far, I went

for an early conclusion that their death weren't

linked for now, there must have been some other link that I wasn't think about. They were all girls,

they all died and that was pretty much about it.

Well if I threw the girl I knew in the mix, since

she was the one who told me the stories, I

couldn't say that they all have died, well... I took

a big breath in and entered the house.

I found her at the same place that I left her this

morning, she has been bed-ridden for a long time now and I was starting to get worried. I went in

her room to see how she was doing and she

seemed fine, but she wasn't doing anything. She

was watching outside through the window

grasping the few warm colors left before the

approaching winter, I sat down next to her and patted her head, she closed her eyes for a

moment and then looked at me with a forced

smile.

She wasn't unhappy but she was pretty weak, she

has been sleeping most of her days since one

month now and when she was awake she was

either fine for a few hours or just really sick, she would also throw up the food she ate sometimes,

making it harder to get well fed.

164

I told her that I wanted to bring her to a doctor

but she said she didn't want to leave the house

and that her illness was quite normal, it's the pregnancy that caused those symptoms. I had a

few doubts myself about that but since I didn't

knew anything about it I trusted her words, it

looked like she knew what she was doing and the

bulge in her belly grew a lot while she was in the

bed.

I still decided to not talk about what I discovered

to her yet, it might really have been a coincidence and if I told her that we were actually living in

that house, well I'm not sure how to express it

but I'm afraid on how she would react to it if she

actually didn't know about it at all.

As I left her to sleep I wandered around,

wondering how I would keep on finding more

information on the 'Red headed case'. I just

remembered that Palsye from the first story had light blue hair, so I couldn't really call this the

'Red headed case', that also made me remember

more about that first story that I unconsciously

forgotten about.

She said that it happened in her hometown that

was a bit far from where we actually lived before,

I started to wonder if she actually were born in

another town or just hid the truth so I didn't know from the beginning that Palsye lived in the same

town as ours.

165

Trying to remember everything she said was

pretty hard but I could reminisce her saying that

her father was an alchemist and did something about having the right to stay in the town, so it

wasn't impossible that she came here when she

was young but I still knew her for a long time, we

kind of were childhood friends but that still was a

hazy topic even for me.

Still, a town without snow that wouldn't hesitate

to kill a townsfolk if they thought she would bring

misfortune, it sadly described the place where we

lived before...

166

27 – Heartblood Symphony

This morning I decided that I would try to talk to

her about the stories she had told me and more

importantly the girls that were the main characters of those stories. I thought I'd try a

subtler approach and only asking for information

so she doesn't start doubting anything about my

investigation.

Well, I wasn't really expecting anything but I had

least had to try, I wanted to know if those stories

had some kind of link together since they shared

similarities and if it had a link with the beginning of stories she wrote about those girls who would

always die in the story, but it would still go on,

leaving it unfinished. It was almost like if once the

character died, she found a way to keep making

her talk even if she was dead, it felt like if her soul got detached from her dying body and left a

few words before leaving this world.

I think I could understand now why she would never finish her written stories, it's relatively easy

for people to imagine scenes that take place

during life since everyone lives but even for the

author, it can get pretty complicated to find a way

to imagine how things would look like after death when you don't have a physical body anymore.

Even if the theory of wandering souls after death

is right, you don't have any eyes to see or hands

to touch, how do you actually confirm your own

existence?

167

My opinion is that she couldn't find the

imagination she needed to complete this part of

the story since she doesn't have any memories of it, again even if the theory was right, it also said

that you lost every memory you had about your

past life so you can start a brand new one, that

would possibly suggest that the memories are

stored in the body that dies. She might have found it hard to describe the way how her main

character would just wander around waiting for a

new body to accept this soul.

What would a soul do? It can't look after his past

friends or family since it doesn't remember

anything, it doesn't even know why it's there, I'm

not implying that we living humans know why

we're here but that's a whole different story that I don't want to induce in yet. I guess she could just

skip that part until it finds a new body but what

would be the point? I don't think she can't skip

this part or else it would only be two different

stories and that wouldn't make any sense, I'd

rather start writing another story, but again that

might be exactly what she did.

I entered the room and found her sitting in the bed, watching silently through the window again,

there was a light rain coming down from the

clouds, creating tiny rivers streaming down the

window, deforming the shapes that we could still

barely discern through the dirty and scratched glass. It was a bit of a sad portrayal of her on this

winter day, it looked like her life left her body but

she still had twice the amount of life I had,

literally.

168

I sat down next to her and she looked back at me,

smiling like a sunshine in this bad weather, my

heart felt warm for a moment and I wanted to take her in my arms to feel more of her warmth.

That's what I did, but she didn't feel warm at all,

rather, her body was quite cold and her hands

were frozen too, I took the nearest blanket and

placed it around her shoulders, she looked happy but she didn't say anything. She took out one arm

and proposed to share the blanket with her so I

went closer and entered the haven. She also drew

herself closer and rested her head against my

shoulder, that felt great. I didn't want to unsettle

her right now but I still wanted to ask her about

'that', I tried a relaxed approach.

"So, while I was tidying up the house a bit, I might or might not have found and read some of

the stories you wrote but never finished... those

you didn't want me to read" I started, waiting for

her reaction before attempting any questions on

the topic. She looked at me, intrigued. Shortly

after she would giggle and weakly waving her

hand.

"Ha-ha I knew you would stand the pressure of your curiosity and actually sneak up and read

them anyways. But why are you making such a

long face, were you expecting me to be angry at

you? I didn't want you to read them because I

thought they were boring and that you shouldn't waste your time on reading them... that is all."

she said to me. As I told myself earlier, I didn't

expect anything from this so it was already

something good.

169

I gave her my best smile while thinking on how I

would bring up my next point, I just threw on the

table that I read her stuff, I couldn't just end up the conversation now like I was only confessing

my sins, it would only mean that I really thought

that she would be angry at me and I'm not sure

that she would like to have that kind of feeling.

"Well, yeah I've read some of them and I noticed

that most of them followed pretty much the same

theme, the heroine would die a bit before the end

of the story and then it would stagnate and that's about where you finished usually. They felt a bit

similar to the stories that you've told me earlier,

except that they would actually have an ending

because the story actually ended when the

character died. I sort of figured that you were the author of the stories that you've told me, but why

were you trying this time to go further after the

character died?" I asked in a really long sentence,

hoping to not forget to mention anything without

mentioning something that I wasn't supposed to.

"You're right, I'm the person who invented those

stories." she looked down a bit, like if she was

defeated or something, she looked back at me. "For the written ones, I don't... really know the

reason was I was trying to keep on writing the

story even though the character died. I might

have drawn too close to the character so I

wouldn't want her to just disappear like this, even though I knew she'd die in the story. It might be

because I also want my story to continue after I

die, but I don't know how that works so I couldn't

really write about it." she explained.

170

She looked quite sad now, like if I woke up a

broken dream from her sub consciousness, I felt

bad for her but I still needed a confirmation on her part, she revealed something that suddenly

became crucial from my investigation.

"Yes, I think I somehow totally understand that feeling, I'm sorry to bring it up now." I said, while

watching at the now pouring rain outside. I

hesitated a bit but then finally asked her. "So you

said you invented every story that you told me?

That's pretty impressive, I liked them all, I think you're a great story-teller! I believe that my

favourite was the one with the sister that became

a writer, I'm not certain why though." I said with

every bit of delicacy I could find. I think that

worked pretty well since she sketched a smile, I

guessed she also liked to be praised a little bit.

"Thank you, those words means a lot for me. Yes

they all come from my imagination, I think I even invented one why I was telling it!" she laughed a

bit, probably remembering good memories. She

continued to talk a bit but I already had the

answer I wanted, my vision was starting to get

blurry as I made relations with fact I knew in my head. It wasn't really complicated, it all came

down to the fact that she invented the story of a

girl that already existed and the same girl wrote

the same novel as the one in her story. Until we

get further, it seems pretty possible that she just heard vaguely about the girl and her book

someday and after a while she thought of a story

that would fit her background. That was very

plausible and if you'd ask me that would probably

be my first guess.

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The only thing that annoyed me a little bit,

making me ambivalent about this conclusion is

probably the fact that we were currently living in her residence and that even some of her texts

were hidden behind glued bookshelves. I'm well

aware that this might just be a big coincidence,

that's why I'm not jumping to conclusions right

now and investigating on the topic before reaching something reasonable. Of course she

could have just lied to me and never have

invented those stories, but I trusted her right

now.

I guess I would have to take a moment of

cogitation to sort this out myself, I could also try

to learn more about that Palsye and the girl that

committed a dream-suicide. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they also really existed

before and they had a sort of relationship

between them. But again, I could be completely

wrong too. I decided to talk about another topic

since I was with her but my head was so full of

probabilities and theories that I couldn't think straight, I took a good look at her and then,

combing her soft hair with my hand and pointing

her belly with the other I spoke.

"So, how is it going down there, is it coming any

soon?" I asked with a light humoristic tone. I

didn't really bother counting the days bit I knew

that such a job took about nine months, and that made approximately nine months too. I didn't

really realize up to now that I would become a

father quite soon, I still wondered if I was ready

for it. Was she herself ready for it?

172

I guess those are questions you can't really

answer until you've actually lived the thing. I'm

not certain that you can say that you are ready for something you've never experienced before

but I guess it was possible to say that you are

totally not ready for it. Since I was wondering if I

was ready or not, that would probably mean that

I was at least a bit ready for it, but how did she felt about it? She was the one who proposed it

after all right? She should know what she's doing;

well that's at least what I believed.

"Yes I think it's going to be coming soon enough,

are you excited about this? I must admit that I

am, but I'm also a bit nervous too!" she said, with

an obvious tone of excitation. It was probably one

of her dreams coming true and I was kind of proud to be part of it. There was one thing that

was actually bothering me too, I remembered

about her heart's condition, about how small it

still was and how problematic this was.

Giving birth to a child was probably really

physically demanding and I wondered if she could

manage it. She said that her heart stopped

growing when she was 'pretty young' but I've never really heard about 'pretty young' girls

giving birth to a child so I couldn't compare.

To add another weight on the top of that, she was really weakened during the last month so her

heart might as well not be functioning as good as

a 'pretty young' girl's heart would.

173

As if she read through my worries, she smiled at

me, like if she was trying to reassure me saying

that everything will be alright. That somehow really felt like a balm on my wounded mind right

now, I felt like all the problems of the world just

became so tiny that it was pretty relevant to

ignore them right now.

"I like it when you smile but I love it when I'm the

reason" I told her, that made her happy and also

made me happy by the same occasion, it was a

bit like diving by zero and finding the answer.

I really wished I spent more time like this with

her, but now it might be too late for that.

174

28 – Three of a Kind

It has been raining for quite a few days now, I

was wondering if it was really winter, that rain

must have been really cold then, not a lukewarm one from the early summer. I was bound to stay

inside today and I cannot say that it bothered me

since I could stay with her. She was pretty weak

today and she couldn't even find the strength to

sit in a straight position to eat, I told her that she should just rest then, she could eat later and she

somewhat feel asleep.

I didn't want to bother her so I left the room but I didn't really know what to do, I didn't want to

venture outside since the rain was pretty violent

and I thought I should stay here in case she

needs my help, she was sound asleep but who

knows? I went into the desk room and found myself reading the manuscripts that the girl left

behind, they weren't really that interesting but it

sure helped me to pass time. I would sometimes

watch through the window, hoping that something

unusual would happen so I'd have something special to tell her when she wakes up, I always

dreamed of being the one that would tell her

stories, I guess I was a bit jealous.

To my light disappointment, nothing happened for

a few hours, I felt like I could do something better

than just spend my time like this, I began to

wonder how the girl who lived her killed herself. I

even started to regret a bit telling him to not tell

175

me, I should have known that my curiosity was

greater than every fear I could have.

I was a bit lost in my thoughts when some noise

brought me back to the real world, I heard her

moan in her room. At first I thought that was probably having one of those nightmares but I got

worried when she started to make more noise. I

went to see what was happening.

I found her sweating and curled up on the bed,

she looked like she was experiencing quite a

strong pain. I asked her what was wrong, and for

a moment she sighed in relief, relaxing her whole

body. She slowly turned her head and said to me that she had contractions, but she was fine now. I

was about to ask her what she meant by

contractions when I finally realized that the

source of her pain was the child she had in her

belly, it should have been obvious to me by now.

I didn't really know what to do about this so i

went by her side and sat on a chair next to her

bed and took her clenched fist in my hands. Every part of her body was burning hot, she probably

had a high fever too, this didn't look very good. I

kept supporting her quietly for a few hours, I tried

to talk with her about random topics so she could

at least forget a bit about her pain but I'm not certain that it was effective. It led me to realize

that I had no idea on how to proceed when a

woman was giving birth to a child, was I supposed

to do something? Well obviously I was, she

couldn't do everything on her own, I had to help her a lot but the idea of going to the town to get

someone who knows better than I to help.

176

I was about to tell her that I would be right back

with someone but she let out a cry that made me

feel like my presence was needed right now. I made a quick sum of the time required to run to

the town, convince somebody to come to my

house under this heavy rain and then coming

back here with the person, that would mean way

too much time.

I couldn't just leave her alone here even if it was

for a short moment. I still asked her opinion even

if she was in no state of giving arguments or whatever, she didn't answer but the way she

looked at me confirmed that I just couldn't leave

this chair.

I knew she had a lot of trust in me, maybe even

more that I do with myself right now but I

couldn't just let her down. I just stayed by her

side, helpless... watching her experiencing the

worst kind of pain a human could handle. She would something scream without a rest for long

minutes but at some point, the pain was so

intense that she passed out.

I got worried sick when she stopped crying, I

thought she died on me right at this moment. I

shook her up but she wouldn't move quite yet, I

took her wrist and noticed that her heart was still

beating. I was relieved but only after a few minutes she woke to the sharp and unbearable

pain; it was even painful to watch and to know

that I was being useless right now.

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And somehow for the first time since she told me

she would die soon, I realized what it would mean

for me when she would. I always tried to just not think about it but now that I saw her twisting her

weak and frail body to the excruciating pain, I

couldn't just remove it from my head. When I saw

her passing out, I felt such a deep grief in my

heart, I really thought she died and somehow one half of me just disappeared like it never existed,

that wasn't even something remotely close from a

sorrow I would have lived before.

I closed my eyes and wanted to take her in my

arms but I couldn't even do that right now, she

was in a pretty delicate situation and I could only

stare at her being ripped apart from the insides

and somewhat share a little bit of pain with her. She passed out a few more times, I was really at

my limit of seeing her that always had such a

beautiful smile on her face, now being twisted by

what she was living.

A thought crossed my mind and I remembered

my mother talking to me about my birth and how

it happened, I wondered if my mother went

through so much trouble for having and how did my father react to this, was he as inflicted by

sorrow and pain as I was right now? The answer

was probably and most likely yes, they did so

much for me and yet I left them without notice,

we also went part right after a fight, how could have I done this to my parents? Would they ever

want to see my face again?

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I also remembered vaguely what my mother said

the doctor that helped her to give birth to me had

to do. I took the opportunity while she was unconscious to run to the kitchen to get a big

cauldron and filling it with hot water, I also took

warm clothes and came back, hoping that I would

have came back before she woke up, I couldn't

even imagine how she would have felt if she woke up and I wouldn't be there, she would have

probably panicked. I held her hand again and she

woke up at the same moment and she stared at

me in the eyes, she didn't scream, rather, she

closed her eyes and tried to smile. It was a very

weak smile, I knew that it took most of her strength to sketch such a smile, it looked a bit

crooked too, yet it was the most beautiful and

heart-warming smile I have ever seen.

Not long after, the pain came back and it went on

like this for hours, it felt like it would never end,

like we would live the rest of our lives in this

room, she would be singing her pain and I could

only watch. It's a bit like those nightmares when you witness something terrible but you cannot

move or close your eyes to ignore it, yet it was

unbearable, I thought I would pass out myself too

at some point.

Fortunately, after some hours of labour,

something finally came out of it. Since I was the

only that could do it I went and tried to extract the child but I felt so clumsy and I also thought

that I wasn't doing it the good way, that was

really infuriating. I somehow managed to do it

anyways, that wasn't really done in a classy way

but I honestly think I did my best.

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I wrapped the newborn in a clean blanked and

held it in my arms, my heart raced and my vision

was starting to be blurry, I think that my eyes have watered too much. Once again she was

right, it was a girl, a beautiful little girl that had a

bright future ahead of her. I smiled while wiping

my eyes and I was so happy that it was finally

over, she wasn't screaming anymore, all we could

hear in the room was the little baby crying.

I went back next to her to tell her that she was

right about the daughter thing, but she looked extenuated. I could understand what she just

went through and since it was a really demanding

physical activity her heart probably had difficulties

following her needs. I started to worry a bit so I

shook her a bit to see if she passed out again. She opened her eyes slightly and smiled at me. I

was more than happy to see that she was still

alive but still tears were uncontrollably flowing out

of my eyes, I showed her the fruit of the

nightmare she just had, and the nine months of

having it in her belly.

I told her that she did great and that our child

was finally alive, she replied with simple words but she wasn't smiling anymore, I think she was

too tired to do it. I felt a bit bad about it but I

thought I had to keep her awake a bit; I wasn't

sure that going to sleep after feeling this amount

of pain was the best thing to do. She opened her eyes again, and gathering all the strength and will

she had left, she managed to tell me one last

thing.

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"Now it's your turn to tell me a story, take care of

her, I love you." she said, almost whispering. This

brought tears to my eyes, I wasn't sure what she meant by that but somehow it meant a lot for me.

She also murmured something like "Thank you for

everything" but then she closed her eyes, I tried

to shake her up again but she wasn't moving

anymore. I started panicking and yelling, hoping that she would wake up. In a last whim of hope, I

took her right wrist and pressed lightly against it.

There was no apparent sign of a pulse.

As an ultimate attempt, I reached her chest with

my free hand. My hand was shaking and I had

thousand of different emotions that went through

my mind. My hand made contact to her bare skin, it was still sweaty from all the pain she felt but

yet her skin was terribly cold, I kept my hand

here for about a minute or two... maybe ten...

hoping to feel at least one heartbeat, that would

have still gave me hope.

But nothing.

I was broken, I yelled in an ultimate cry of pain

and depression, doing way more noise that the

child I held in my arms now. My eyes went

completely dark and I couldn't see or think

anymore. I placed our child in a straw basket with some blankets before going berserk or something

and some moments after my mind went blank and

I passed out. I woke up the next morning in my

bed, stained with blood and body fluids, cuddling

with a frozen corpse, somehow hoping that this was all a dream, but dreams aren't this

convenient.

181

The child was still crying so I guessed it was still

alive at least. I took her in my arms and hugged

her once again but it felt way different than usual, I cried again for some time that I couldn't really

evaluate, but I think that it was pretty long

enough.

I didn't feel like doing anything else at all, ever.

182

29 – Divided Roads

I guess that living in Hell is not better than living

in Paradise, both meaning that you have died, the

details aren't that important. It has been about two weeks since she promptly left and I haven't

been able to sleep since. Of course I have fallen

unconscious a few times so my body could

somewhat recuperate but the events were too

much for me. I think that if there were a limit on information and feelings that could go through my

mind at once, my brain would have exploded at

least three times already.

Fortunately, my co-worker's wife has visited my

house a few times since she learned about what

happened. Two weeks ago I ran to the town under

the unending rain to get some help, the first

person I found was that friend, he immediately saw how destroyed I was and I quickly explained

to him what happened. His wife and himself were

pretty shocked by it and she even cried a little,

but I didn't really need their compassion, she still

proposed to help me out a bit with the child and

everything.

I refused at first but she came anyways and I let

her enter, so I guess I was fine with it. She taught me quite a few things that I didn't know

about feeding and raising a child. This woman

already had four children and she proposed to

take care of mine if I felt unable to do it, one

more wouldn't really make a difference.

183

I felt a bit offended by this proposal but I realized

that she only wanted to do something good, I still

refused though; I felt that it was my duty to take care of my daughter and I would do it alone. She

seemed pretty receptive about this but she still

came over every week, I can't say I hated it

though; it helped me quite a bit.

I still didn't really move out from my house, I

would spend days sitting alone in my bed,

remembering the time I spent with her. I

somehow felt really guilty about that 'Red haired case', it was pretty pointless on every aspect and

it burned a lot of my time, time that I could have

spent with her during her toughest days. She fell

sick and the only thing I could have thought of

doing was to lead some stupid detective investigation to feed my curiosity, I don't really

want to live in regret but I didn't even find what I

was looking for and then her time was up.

I guess that I could keep on investigating later

but I'll never really have the most accurate

answer. Time slowly passed as the winter made

everything rougher, I started to wonder if I would

have enough supplies to last through the winter.

I didn't really feel like going back to town to work

and I don't know how I would take care of my

daughter like this, it was a complicated situation and my head was already full of bad thoughts, I

couldn't even think of a solution.

184

But then, there was some light after all. I went to

the town with the little money I had to get some

food. I entered the inn and it was pretty quiet even if it was the afternoon, the owner greeted

me but almost fell down on his knees when he

saw that I was carrying a baby.

He had a ton of questions but as I replied to them

in a dark and annoyed voice, he thought that

something bad happened. I had no choice but to

tell him to, skipping a few parts that I hated to

even remember myself, he would get the point

anyways.

He looked pretty touched by my story and when I told him about my problem he said that he was

willing to help me. My gaze went up to this big

guy's trustworthy face when he told me that I

should drop her here during the day if I have to

work, he would take good care of her and would

also feed her so I didn't have to worry. I must say that I grazed the idea of letting someone take

care of her during the day but I did not know

who. I couldn't ask my co-worker's wife since she

was also working during the day and I didn't know

many people in this town yet.

I didn't think that this guy had such a great heart,

it made me feel warm and I almost wanted to hug

him but since I thought that my arms wouldn't probably reach his back, I abandoned the idea.

With a grateful nod, I left the inn heart-warmed,

forgetting why I even came here at the first place.

185

Maybe it was my subconscious that made me go

there since I knew that he would help me, I might

as well have been guided by something else, it was something beyond me right now so I just

went to buy some food and ran back to my house

before it started raining again.

I think it was the first time since she was born

that I actually smiled, she smiled back at me and

she had the exact same smile as her mother. This

gave me a strong bittersweet feeling but

somehow I realized how lucky I was to have her right now. She sure brought a lot of problems

with her birth, she was one of the causes of the

death of my beloved one but I still felt blessed to

be able to hold her in my arms today. No matter

how painful it was, this was a little fragment of

her and it was already really precious to me.

She probably knew that things would happen like

this, that's why she wanted to have a child with me, so I could still have something to protect

even after her death. I remembered her again,

being all mighty while climbing that mountain, she

always wanted to achieve great things for her

self-completion but I think they she also wanted me to do the same, it was a sort of preparation to

the kinds of challenges I would have to face. She

was probably already pretty weak herself when

we climbed that mountain, I don't know how she

managed to do it at my pace, it must have been really hard. Many short sequences of moments

with her passed before my eyes but one caught

my attention, the one when we finally reached the

top and then we would sit down, tasting our

victory and... her voice, so surreal...

186

"I think I could die here…"

Some warm tears rolled down my cheeks. I heard

her voice saying things again 'If the big things are

the most important, why are we ignoring the

stars?'. I didn't forget about the stars, I just

ignored the big things and lived like tomorrow would come no matter what. Look at me now, I

holding in my arms all what's left of her, I lost so

much and yet became something else, I was a

father now and that somehow didn't feel that right

to my ears. It was a bit ironic, yes I think the good word was irony. I never forgot about the

stars...

"Did you know that every time a star dies,

another one is born from its death?"

Once again I felt a strange chill going all the way down my spine. I'm not certain why memories of

her were flashing in my mind but I somehow

started to wonder if everything she told me that I

thought as casual chatter was actually meaning

something far beyond my comprehension. Did she mean that she was that star? Does that mean that

she already knew how she would die, that sounds

terrible to me. The more I thought about it and

lesser the doubts were, she obviously said that

referring to the fact that she would die when

giving birth to our daughter, but that probably also meant that I would have to love our daughter

as much as I loved her.

187

I know that I haven't told her many times how

much I did, but was that really necessary? I think

we both knew at what extent our feelings were for each other; this was a comprehension beyond

words. I started to believe more and more about

her ability to see into the future and by the same

occasion thought that it probably brought her

more grief and pain that actual advantages but she probably couldn't help it. Somehow some of

my own words also came to my mind.

"I promise to take over anything that you would

start, anything."

When I made that promise, I thought that I could probably be able to overcome every challenge the

life had to offer but I never thought it would come

down to something like this, still I wanted to keep

that promise until the end, and I had to. I looked

at our daughter and wondered what she was

thinking right now. Do babies even think about things, I'm aware that if they do it's probably

something pretty basic but personally when I'm

thinking, it's like I'm talking in my head but she

can't even talk yet, does that mean she cannot

think?

What would happen if she never learned to speak,

I didn't even want to think about it so I started

talking to her about my thoughts. I didn't care that she couldn't understand what I said, I didn't

really understand it either anyways, she looked

amused though and that made me feel happy.

188

We talked quite a bit about reincarnation together

while we still were on that hill but I somehow

unwillingly started to believe that it might be true. I knew that this felt crazy but I would be quite

pleased if her soul could make it through the

'afterlife' and come back in the living realm.

It didn't really matter if she came back in a

thousand years, she could have at least

experienced it so she would be able to write the

last chapter of her own story, the one she could

never finish on her own. I know that she isn't going to literally write it since she's dead... but I

can still see that she succeeded in her self-

completion, achieving something that actually felt

impossible, well it really was impossible. A

thought crossed my mind; I wondered what would happen if her soul would reincarnate soon and

that I met 'her'. Would I recognize her, even if it's

a fish or a flower? Probably not, what are the

chances of...

I looked down at my daughter, still wiggling in my

arms.

I immediately crossed this theory off my mind.

This wasn't even remotely close of something like

an unreal fantasy. Yeah it was this far from reality

and I don't even know I dared to use the word

'reality' in this case. I hit my head with my fist like it was broken or something and I hoped it

fixed it, I was thinking a bit too far right now and

that was being a bit unhealthy. I then finally

remembered her last words again, echoing in my

head since quite a bit now.

189

"Now it’s your turn to tell me a story"

What did that exactly mean, did she lose her mind

at the last moments of her life? I don't think so,

she probably has seen this scene happening many

times before she actually lived it, and she

probably picked her words with precaution. But maybe that was a bit too cautious since I didn't

really understand what she meant by that. In

theory, I can't really tell her a story now since she

died, she might want me to go tell her the story

of our daughter once she'll be older. I'll make sure to visit her grave every year to tell her how our

daughter has been doing, if she can hear me from

her grave.

That could be a possibility, her soul could still be

wandering around and hearing me talk, but that

could possibly mean that I didn't have to go to

her grave to talk to her. Why the grave exactly?

Did her body still have a link with her soul? Was she wandering only around the cemetery? I'm not

sure how we can converse with the dead but I will

find a way so it can finally be my turn to tell her a

story.

190

30 – The Color of My Soul

I've been investigating a bit on the side during the

past few months about that 'Red haired case' and

I must say I've learned quite a bit. I tried to speak more with the inhabitants of the town

about what I was looking for, re-telling the same

stories over and over again that she told me a bit

more than one year ago. It didn't tire me though,

I was kind of happy to spread her stories to people that seemed really interested by them,

that made me feel really happy and I guess it

would have made her too.

Sometimes, people would recognize the stories,

the story of Palsye was the most known I think,

but that wasn't really surprising since she told me

it was a tale from her former village. I wanted to

know more about her since I had the firm conviction that every of those stories were true so

I started asking people if they knew when snow

suddenly stopped to fall. To my greater content,

some of the elders of this town confirmed that

they have seen large amounts of snow during the winter in this very town, it gave me hope that I

could probably once again find answers if I asked

my friend the archivist.

This old man wasn't just writing a registry of the

name of all the people who lived in this town, he

was also a collector of tales from all around the

world, that alone felt really impressive to me

since I lived in two different towns in all my life.

191

He clearly had three times my age at least but

that still made him someone far more

knowledgeable than me, and I had a lot of respect for him. He welcomed me quite warmly as usual

and after a quick gossip I asked him if he knew

the story about when it stopped snowing. He

nodded and said that this was a pretty local tale

since it's only in our region that it stopped

snowing all of a sudden.

I made a quick allusion to Palsye, just to confirm

that we were talking about the same thing, and he nodded to everything, as if we had the exact

same version of the story. I started to believe

that she didn't made up every story she told me,

there was something that wasn't connecting with

what she said and the actual facts. When she told me the story of Lady Winter, she said herself that

it was a tale from her village but when I asked her

if she made up every story she told me she said

yes. I guess that she didn't bother thinking back

to confirm that every single story was from her

imagination, but that was changing my game just a little. If every story I thought that had a link

with her were actually stories that everybody

knew, that wouldn't lead me anywhere and that

could possibly a case closure for the 'Red haired

case'.

I decided to give it one last chance; I asked more

about Palsye's tale to the archivist. To my surprise, even if thought about it once, he told me

that the tale was originated from the town I came

from. That was quite a surprise on a few aspects,

the first one being that I didn't even know this

story myself before she told me.

192

Usually you get told myths and legends from your

own town when you're young, though I must

admit that it wasn't really a story for kids. The old man told me that there was a reason why I didn't

know about it, it's because almost nobody in my

old town knows about it so they couldn't tell me. I

was a bit perplexed at this statement but he

immediately saw through my anxious mind and

explained me the reason.

Soon after doing such a horrible act, people living

in the town felt guilty from doing such a thing and thought that it probably wasn't a good idea to tell

everyone about it so they kind of agreed to never

speak of it again. Of course, humans being how

they are, the story still got told to others,

especially to outsiders to scare them, this town never really liked people after all. That would

explain why more people here knew about the

story than where I lived. Something still tickled

me, the oldest in here said that they have

witnessed snow in their young ages, that would

mean that the tales isn't that old, I could probably said without a doubt that still a few people in my

old town knew about this story, she, for one,

knew it. He told to me that this story was quite

shameful for the people of the town; they

probably didn't want to talk too much about it,

even less to their children.

He was right, and that made me remember how much I already miss that town. I didn't know a lot

of people back then, well not as much as I do now

here, everybody's so nice to each other and I feel

like everyone wants to help me on my quest but

there are things that I just cannot replace.

193

I haven't seen my parents since the last time I

closed violently the door behind me on that day,

almost two years ago and I missed them, I wondered how they felt about me. I want to go

back there, I want to show them how much I

have changed in such a short time and I want

them to see my child so they can finally know that

they are grandparents.

I also want to go back on that hill to watch the

beautiful starry sky at least once again, there are

too many memories left behind to just abandon them right away, I kind of also want to know

more about that Palsye person but from the

people of my town. Waking up from my

daydream, I realized that I don't even have to

courage to go back there yet, there is a wound in my heart still opened and I still have some

business to do here anyway, I can't just abandon

the house where I lived with the one I loved like

this, the place where she died and where our

daughter was born. That was a strange dilemma,

like if I couldn't come back if I left this town. The road I had to walk was pretty long I must admit

but that wasn't really a factor, it could have been

if I planned to go there more often but I was only

planning to go back once for now.

The old man asked me if there was anything else

I wanted to know, I almost told him when I

thought I'd ask him about the girl who died in her sleep. I told him the story and for the first time

since I first him, I saw some kind of surprised

expression on his face. He was really curious how

I heard about this, and I was really curious why

he was so curious about this.

194

He told me that it was actually something that

happened about thirty or forty years ago but in a

distant city. Back then he was corresponding with another archivist from an overseas town and he

once told him this story that happened in a family

next to his. It wasn't exactly the same story

though, it was an unexplained death to everyone

but they found the stories she wrote about her dreams so they probably concluded that since she

was paralyzed and bored to death, she might just

have committed suicide. That was quite intriguing

since there is no way she could have known this

story, nor invented it and yet she knew the real

reason why the girl died.

After exchanging a few words of mutual respect, I

left his house with my head full of new theories. Could it be that she had another power than the

prophet one, she could have been able to see

thing from other places in the world. That would

have been awesome but it was also quite unlikely

since those stories happened in the past, she

wasn't even born when they happened and I refuse to believe that she had lived more than one

hundred years even if everything that I now

accepted as a fact was really out of this world,

that wasn't something I could even ponder at, she

had that child's heart after all.

I'm still unsure about the limits of the mind or the

spiritual realm but I know the physical limits of the humans. Then something made so much

sense that I felt stupid not to have thought about

it before, well it didn't really make any sense at

all but that's my way of saying it. What if the

spirit of those girls were all the same?

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What if it has been reincarnated at every

generation in a different girl, ending up living in

her? I know that it would be breaking the first rule of reincarnation who says that memories are

erased when you die but I think that it's not that

right.

I feel that memory gets erased but there are

some moments you just can't forget about no

matter how hard you try. I know that sounds

crazy but every story she told me about were the

peaks of those girls' lives.

That theory somehow pleased me, it would

explain why she knew all those stories when she thought she made them up and why she suddenly

chose to come to that house where the girl lived

before, she somewhat felt security between those

old walls.

I must say that now that I think back about it, it

also happened to me quite a few times, you know

when you live something and think to yourself

that you did that before even if you haven't, that's

what some people call 'déjà-vus'.

I heard the theory once that it might be memories

from another life you lived but back then I thought this was merely an interesting myth; I

didn't really bother about it. I must say though

that now, it is of the utmost interest to me, it

might as well be the answer to so many questions

I had before.

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I was satisfied with this conclusion. Even if it

seemed pretty unlikely and coming directly from a

tale where you would also see dragons and honest people, I believed strongly in it, I thought that it

was quite a beautiful story and a sad one too,

that's probably the kind of story I wanted to tell

people about.

I don't care if they don't believe it, I know that

most people are able to enjoy a story even if it

isn't true. I for one, liked every story she told me

even if I thought at the beginning that they were

inventions so why shouldn't I believe in this one?

I thought for a moment that it might have been why she said "Now it's your time to tell me a

story", she might have seen that I started to

suspect something and knowing me I would do

everything to know more about it and discover

the truth.

Even if I didn't I would probably come up with a

crazy theory, but sometimes in a crazy world the

fool is the king.

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31 – The Road That Always Takes You Back

It's only six years later that I finally found the

courage and the time to go back to my

hometown. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go on a long walk with dad and she euphorically

said yes before even knowing where we were

going. She grew up very well and she was now a

beautiful little girl, with red hair, I could recognize

her mother in a lot of aspects and that made me quite nostalgic but I was also very blessed to

have her with me.

I told her that we were going to the town where her mother and I lived when we were younger,

that felt strange to say since it somehow felt like

it was only last month that we were still carelessly

talking on the top of this hill. She sometimes

would ask about her mother and I gladly told her, it was a bit painful at first when I had to

remember about those forever gone moments

with her but I managed to find something good in

it, I am now reminiscing memories of her with a

smile.

She also has the same smile as her mother, it

makes me feel warm whenever I see it happen, I

feel that she is still with me even if we're so far from each other. I was glad that she had such

motivation to walk a lot but she probably didn't

even have the idea of how far this town was when

we had to walk to get there, it was a least one or

two days.

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On a quiet summer morning we left our residence

without regrets, I didn't know when we would

come back but I made a promise with myself that we would. I turned my head around a few times, I

felt like I was leaving her behind or something

like that but my overjoyed daughter was always

taking back my attention with her cute laughs and

questions. She seemed pretty curious about life even at her young age, I guess she finally

reached that age when she can think and wonder

about thing, I guess she took it from me a little

bit, always curious about everything! I don't think

that it's a bad thing though, I have seen so many

things with this curiosity that it might be a sin to

just ignore it or say it's bad.

I explained to her that we would go visit her grandparents, those people are my mother and

my father, she seemed quite impressed by this

and it made me smile. I told her that they were

members of her family and she immediately

asked me was really was a family. I told her that

in a family there usually was a father and a mother, she could have brothers and sisters too,

that would be children from the same parents and

I think I could discern from her disappointed face

that she realized she could probably never have a

brother or a sister even if she really wanted to.

She pretty much accepted by now that her

mother wasn't here anymore but I don't think she knows everything she's missing and I don't really

want to be the one that will have to tell her, I

prefer that she realizes it on her own, I know she

can.

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She asked if we could go see the parents of her

mother too but I said that I didn't know where

they were so we couldn't, I don't really like to lie but once again I couldn't even be certain myself if

they were dead or not and anyways I've never

met them before, how awkward could this get?

Oh hello miss, I am... the father of your

grandchild! They wouldn't probably even believe

me if they still lived, I thought to myself, laughing

quietly at the scene I just made in my mind. I

noticed that she was starting to fall asleep as she walked, it was almost night now, she must have

been extenuated.

I proposed to carry her on my back for a bit, she

accepted and once she has rested her tiny head

on my shoulder, she fell asleep almost instantly. I

kept on walking for a few more hours but when it

was too dark to continue I looked for a spot to

spend the night.

Even if it was really late, the warmness of the

summer kept me awake a bit while I was looking upon my daughter, peacefully dreaming at my

side, her head on my lap. I remembered quite a

few moments that happened like this, like the

very first time we slept together when climbing

the mountain, just having her that close to me

generated so much warmth that I had difficulties finding sleep, I wonder if she had the same

problem.

200

I have trouble sleeping when it's too hot, but also

when it's too cold, I guess I'm just picky about

temperature but does that make me ungrateful about nature? I mean, is anything more pleasant

than a wave of warmth when you're freezing and

a cold wind blow through your hair when it's hot?

Like if heaven listened to me or something, wind

started to blow gently, I looked up at the sky and noticed a few stars that I would recognize almost

every time. I don't know yet if they had a special

meaning for me but don't you think that's it's kind

of amazing to be able to be able to distinguish a

few out of a lot more? It's a bit like making

friends in a town full of people, you might not see them every day but if you look for them they'll be

there for you, anywhere.

When I woke up the next morning, I was quite a

bit nervous to not see my daughter next to me, I

jumped on my feet and it didn't take long before I

saw her in the distance, chasing something that

looked like a rabbit. Unfortunately for her, she

had approximately no chance at all to catch up to him even if he seemed a bit slow for a rabbit in

danger. I waved my hand at her and she quickly

turned around to come with me. I told her that we

might want to hurry up if we want to get to this

town before the afternoon, she looked quite playful, I guessed that she really liked being

outdoors and be free to run wherever she liked.

She would always stay inside when we were at

home, I didn't really know why but I thought that

she was afraid to go outside alone. I guess I could

understand that, the unknown is sometimes

pretty scary.

201

We started walking on a good pace towards the

town, humming joyful melodies and pointing at

the birds as they flew by, this was probably the best days I had since quite a few years and I was

really proud to be able to go through that, I

wondered how my parents will react when they'll

see me.

Do they still live at the same place? What if

they've moved, or... died? I somewhat started to

be anxious since the first reason why I made all

this walking was to be able to meet them again but I didn't think about what would I do if they

weren't at the same place I left them six years

ago.

I think my daughter saw in my face how disturbed

I was and she asked me what was wrong. I simply

told her that I wasn't even sure where my own

parents were and that made me feel anxious. She

said "Don't worry; I'm sure that you will find your parents. I will always find you, no matter where

you are!".

I looked at her, smiling at me as she finished this

heart-warming sentence, tears came to my eyes

but I quickly wiped them away. She was right. I

really had to see them and I wouldn't abandon

that easily, there were things to be said and

errors to be fixed. I patted her head as she awkwardly closed her eyes, I was already quite

proud of her and I couldn't wait to let my parents

meet her, they will probably love her too. We

walked a few more hours before seeing the

outlines of the town, I was nostalgia-struck.

202

Even if it had been six years, I felt like the town

didn't even change, it was a bit like if the town

itself got stuck in time when I left and would refuse to live another day without me. I walked

on the exact same tall grass I have been before,

crossing paths with the same trees and seeing the

same animals.

It's almost like I never left this town and what I

feared the most was actually happening, I felt like

I was living here. That was a bit problematic

because I probably wouldn't want to go back to my house, but I had to and I knew that if I came

here and felt like an outsider I wouldn't have any

problem going back.

I went directly to my parent's house, the house

that I lived the first part of my life, home of so

many memories, good and bad ones.

I was quite stressed when I approached it since it

looked like nobody was living in it, like if it was

abandoned. This house was always so lively and

yet it seemed dead, that was probably the only

change I noticed since I arrived.

I stopped in front of the massive wooden door

and took a big breath, I raised my fist to knock at the door but hesitated. My daughter looked up at

me, wondering what I was hesitating for, she held

my free hand as I knocked three times on the

door.

203

I waited for what felt like eternity but I finally

heard some footsteps behind the door, my heart

was beating so fast that it was audible, I felt a deep warmth going up my chest as the person on

the other side rotated the doorknob.

It was my mother who opened the door and when

she looked at me, she started crying.

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32 – A Succession of Tales

At first I wondered if my mother was sad or happy

to see me, because you can't really tell when

somebody's crying just like that. She pretty much cleared any doubts I had when she jumped

gracefully in my arms and almost hugged me to

death, hearing her cry my father ran to the door

to see what was happening and I think he almost

shed a tear too when he saw me. I was glad they were still there and that they have been missing

me too and I think I cried a little too with them.

My daughter looked at us and pouted, she said something like 'So older people still cry too?', I

turned around and told her that crying isn't a child

thing, it's just that older people tend to keep their

feelings for themselves.

My parents finally noticed my daughter and with

an interrogative look they asked me who she was,

even if they probably had their little idea.

I told them that she was my daughter and that by

the same occasion they were grandparents for six

years now, my mother was really happy seeing her but I think that my father didn't accept just

yet the big age leap I just forced upon him, he

still look pleased though. We were still standing

outside so my mother invited us to enter, it was a

bit weird of being invited to enter the house you

once lived in but I didn't make any remarks.

205

My mother kept repeating how much they missed

me and my father just nodded at everything she

said, I felt a bit bad for leaving them like this and it looks like it was painful for them too but I guess

that we were fine too. My father finally asked why

I wasn't with my girlfriend and that's when I told

them everything about our story, it took quite a

lot of time but I guess I made a good choice of telling them now since I wouldn't have to tell it

again to my daughter since she was listening too.

My mother cried a few times when she heard that she died, she said that I could have came back to

home since I was in a difficult position with the

child and being alone. I told her that I thought

once of coming back but I thought that I had to

get through this alone and I overcame that challenge that life has set for me, I can now come

back here stronger. I was also reticent to come

back here and ask for help since I wasn't sure if

you were mad at me or something. My mother

immediately talked back and said "We will never

be mad at you." I looked to the ground and

replied "I know...".

I'm certain that some parents can be mad at their children, but I don't think it's possible that they

would ignore them if they're in trouble or need

help. That's what parents are for after all, they're

going to support you during your whole life, not

only while you live under their roof. I looked at my daughter to see if she understood that. She

probably didn't but it wasn't important for now,

she would probably, like me, find it out when it

matters the most.

206

My mother said that we were welcome to stay

here but I said that we won't be staying long, I

came here because I had some business to do around here and I wanted to meet them too at

the same occasion, I had a job and a house in the

other town after all. Both my parents said that

they were really proud of me that I became so

independent on my own, when I still lived with them they thought I would never be able to do

something on my own and I would probably spend

the rest of my life day-dreaming around. Well the

last point wasn't really far from reality I must say

We had eaten dinner with them and after some

casual chat that took all afternoon, we left the

familial house, saying that we still had some

business to take care of. They bid us farewell and good travels as they begged for us to visit again. I

promised to come back sometimes as I waved my

hand at them. My daughter was still surprisingly

energetic from the boring day she just had, well I

guessed so since we mostly just talked and she

listened to us, it wasn't probably really interesting

for a child of her age, or so I thought.

"I had lots of fun today!" she said with a cute

smile. "I like your parents, they are nice persons"

That statement really surprised me but I couldn't

do anything else but smile back at her. We entered the town and the crowd was still pretty

dense, she held my hand tight. I quickly noticed

that compared to the other town, I didn't know

anybody in this town, even if I lived here longer,

that felt a bit weird.

207

I guess that's what we feel as a foreigner and I

think I was ready to leave this town now, without

regrets.

We couldn't leave just now thought, we still had

one thing to do here before leaving, I bought

some bread at the store and we walked in

direction of the hill.

The sunset was beautiful as always and her red hair was glowing more than ever, it almost felt

like it was ablaze. She frolicked to the top of the

hill as I followed her in a quick pace, she sat down

at the top and looked at me with wide eyes. I

gave her a chunk of bread that she instantly

started to nibble on.

"What are we doing here?" she asked with an

interrogative tone.

"Shhh!" I replied, holding one finger in the air to

signal we had to wait. "We'll have to wait until the

stars show themselves to start talking." She simply nodded at my quick explanation while

eating her bread. This scenery was worth

dreaming for, I was there standing on the top of

the hill I stood six years ago with the girl I loved

with all my heart, it brings back so many memories my heart aches with pain and joy, I

don't really know how to react right now but that

doesn't really matter right?

208

I took my daughter in my arms and hugged her

with all the might I could permit myself to use

against her frail body, I cried a little on her shoulder and she looked at me but she didn't say

anything, I think that she kind of felt what I was

feeling right now or maybe she only waited for the

stars to fill the sky before talking.

I was there, standing on the top of the hill, with

the girl I now loved with all my heart, my most

precious treasure and my blessing from the

heavens. I made a promise to myself that I would cherish her for the rest of my life. I looked deep in

her silent eyes and wondered one more time if it

was possible if she reincarnated as her daughter,

was that even possible?

I don't know and I don't think I ever will, unless

she starts telling me stories about Palsye or

something! The sun was down now and the sky

started to be dark, the moment I've waited for so many years will now begin in a few minutes, I was

really excited and emotional right now, so much

that I couldn't contain myself; I whispered to her

ear "It's my turn now to tell you a story".

Suddenly, all the moments I passed with her

flashed again before my eyes, I wish that she

could see the two of us tonight, on the hill that

hosted so many of our discussions about anything, could have we imagined that a few

years from there I would still be there with our

child? I think that if she told me that she foresaw

this, I wouldn't have believed her, or would have

I?

209

I still don't know but I always ended up believing

her and I guess that it was the right decision after

all. Well it wasn't impossible that she actually saw us, I will never be able to know for sure if she's

watching upon us or not but I can still think that

she does right?

Then, the first stars started to show themselves,

revealing their bright side to the veil of the night,

illuminating the sky like lighthouse to the ones

who are lost in their lives, I hope more people can

find the answers they're looking for in those inspiring constellations, they mean so much that

what they look like but unfortunately, most

people forget about the stars, that's a shame.

She raised her little arm to the sky, trying to

reach out something that wasn't there, she looked

at me, unsure if she could talk or not. I nodded at

her, holding back the train of feelings and tears I

had ready to burst out. She spoke.

"I... I wonder how far they are." she asked.

"T-the stars?" I asked with a voice that trembled

so much I felt the earth itself was shaking.

I hope this never ends.

210

211

Epilogue – The Day the World Revived

When I woke up this morning, snow was falling all

around me. A slight smile appeared on my face as

I remembered the dreams I had during the past month. I went outside and slipped a hand out of

my coat's pocket to gather a few snowflakes, they

quickly melted to the heat of my hand that I

closed immediately after.

A name suddenly came to my mind, it was the

name of a girl I met a few years ago, actually I

don't even know for how much time we've known

each other but we sure had a lot of fun together, I even considered her as my little sister and she

would call me her brother. It's funny because I

always lived alone with my mother so the idea of

having a sibling was pretty special to me, I felt

like I had to give all my heart and soul to protect her. Her name is Kai and depending where you

stand on the planet, this name might sound funny

to your ears, but it means a lot to me.

A few months ago, I've lost contact with Kai

because she had to leave the country and we

couldn't see each other again. That would

normally be fine with me, I knew she would come

back eventually and we would tell each other how we spent our lives during our separation, we

would laugh a lot and be happy to be together

again. Unfortunately I learned a bit before she left

that she had this heart illness, her heart stopped

growing as a child and it was now tired of working

this hard for a body too grown for his capacity.

212

Learning that pained me a lot and she also subtly

implied that she might die if it stays that way. I

had a lot of hope in her.

When she came back, she wasn't the same person

anymore. She looked very weak and seemed to

have lost hope in life. I don't think I ever had the opportunity to tell her what I did that was so

awesome when she was gone. I felt somewhat

uneasy to see her act like this. I started to talk

with one of her best friends and he also told me

that she was being weird and that he felt bad for this. I totally lost contact with her during the

summer this year, I would try to at least let her

know that I care about her and that I'm worried

but I wouldn't get any answer.

I received an email once, from her, it was her that

was telling me that she was sorry that we couldn't

talk, she fell really sick and had to go back to her

homeland, she said to not worry too much, she would come back eventually when she would be

alright. I once again believed strongly in her and

hoped that she would be fine, I replied to her a

long email, telling her all about what I felt about

this and how much I wanted her to get better. But

once again, I received no reply.

It's only when I finished school, everything in my

life was doing good, that I received a final email from her. She said she came back, she read my

email many times and she would cry every time,

she said she was glad to have somebody like me

in her life and I was very important to her. She

said she was doing a bit better and to not worry

213

too much. I really wanted to not worry and I

replied with a short email this time, saying that I

was really happy that she came back and I hope she would be okay soon, I told her a bit how I

progressed in my life but I didn't said too much.

That was the last time I heard from her, four

months ago.

I've put back my hand into my coat to shield my hand from the cold winter, I went to take the bus

that brings me to my job, staring at the morning

sky. I don't know where you are right now Kai,

I'm not even sure how to know the proper way to

tell you what I want to say right now. I'm always thinking about you even if it had been a lot of

time already; I will remember you no matter

what. I want you to know that I wrote something

for you, it's not a fancy email or an endless

conversation like we had before.

I wrote a novel, in about one month. I guess you

could say it's somewhat based on what we lived

together, to some extent since we never have been this serious together and never had a child

either, ha-ha... but I felt like this story revolved

around me and you. I would be blessed by the

gods if you ever read it, honestly I hate to say

such things but I don't even know if you're alive

right now, I will try by all means to let this reach you and I hope that one day, our paths will cross

again.

Even if it's not in this life.

214

I kept my eyes at the sky, the light was barely

crossing through the grey clouds. I wonder when I

will fall asleep again, I can't wait to see how it will come out, and what story will I be able to tell

about my dreams. I can't wait until my world

revives.

215

Greetings,

First of all, I would like to thank you personally,

person who reads my story. I hope you

appreciated reading it but don't worry if you didn't

like it, I'm quite aware that everybody's got

different tastes and that's all right, I'm still really

glad that you went through it anyways.

I would also like to say that this is my first novel ever (yay!) and I decided to write it in English

even though my main language is French. I had a

few reasons to do so but I apologize of all the

mistakes I could have made.

I don't feel that I have to describe myself as you

have seen me on every page of this novel, I will

instead talk more about this story. This was

written for NaNoWriMo, if you aren't really familiar with this, it stands for National Novel Writing

Month and it means pretty much what the name

says, the goal is to write an entire novel in one

month. The only restrictions are that it has to be

a fictional story and it must have 50,000 words in it and today on the last moments of November I

can say proudly that I have succeeded. Though

the story is fictional, my inspiration is some life

experience that I will never forget.

If you know that girl called Kai that has this heart

disease, please make her read the story, thanks!

Oh also, tell her I love her.