THE GRIM BALLAD OF GAIA, tom riddle

𝗍𝗋𝖾

     Tom nodded his head, urging her to continue.

     "La mia casa è molto piccola,  so I apologize if there is barely any room to move around. You will get your own bedroom though, so I supposed there is a bright side." Gaia had not thought of the house she was inviting him to stay in, and she felt a bit ashamed for having so little space to roam around.

     Tom let out a loose chuckle which caused Gaia to tense up, "That is perfectly fine, Gaia. It is much better than sleeping on the side of the road after all."

     "I suppose it is." She let out a heavy exhale, shoulders relaxing against the push of gravity.

     Gaia never considered herself to be an ungrateful girl; she was the exact opposite. Though, there were always times in her life when the topic of money slithered its way into her conversations —  venom indignity injecting through acuate fangs by the walls of her abdomen.

     She grew up in a humble household where fresh fruit was a privilege, and the radiator seemed to break down every other week. Her mamma would soothe her worries by saying, "Do not worry, bambina, when your papà returns, he will fix it."

     The radiator stayed broken.

      Though it was not because of her papà's unfaithfulness to his wife, but rather for his untimely death in October of 1940 due to his role as an aircraft pilot. For months, Gaia had written splotchy letters with her dried-out ink pens, sending them to her papà until she was positive he could fill up two duffle bags.

     But, her letters remained unanswered, and she was later glad they stayed that way. For when she learned about her papà's support of their fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, and his cause, the mere idea of conversing with her papà drove a skewer through her heart.

     It was comical how the ones you trust the most can betray you.

     Gaia now lived in an apartamento that was a modest place, but certainly not the best. Her windows faced a dingy courtyard that had not been tended to in a few years. Weeds sprouted from cracked cobblestone, and busted drainpipes dripped droplets of polluted rainfall onto mounds of saturated dirt. Every once and a while, the echo of a scavaging animal would resound through the yard, the scuttle of small paw steps pattering against the swamped stone.

     Gaia hoped one day that she would be able to afford a house that faced the city.

"This apartamento is beautiful. Go look out the window for what the view looks like, bambina." Her mamma had said.

"Oh, it is an interesting view that is for certain."

"I am sure it is not that bad." The older woman walked towards the window, "I stand corrected."

     The pair continued their walk — the heavens teasing a midnights kiss while tenderly stroking Monet's languid sky in Van Gogh's Starry Night.

     Though she walked with the awareness of fauna's prey, her mind rippled through the great lakes of her mind — every thought as clear as fresh sap when it at its smallest, but as opaque as hardened amber when at its grandest. She skipped rocks over and over again with the stones of her rumination, analyzing the man across the pond who was made of blurred lines and crystal stanzas.

     "Excuse me if this sounds unkind," Gaia started, escaping her wondrous mind, " but how come you dress so nicely yet cannot afford a decent hotel?" She tilted her heart-shaped face to the side, brushing a loose strand of hair out of the way.