The World Behind the Blue Skies

Ce la posso fare?

   It was early morning. The sun just started to rise up from the horizon.. Darius was VERY exhausted from working non-stop last night. He didn't get a chance to go home and rest, but that didn't matter. He was soon filled up with his regular teenage energy despite being 40 years old already. But then he sat on the ground with a blank face as if he remembered something that he forgot long ago. No, it wasn't his mother who was currently asleep. It was something else entirely... It was a dream he started having from the age of 16 and onward.
   That dream was about young Darius going outside Rome and finding a young girl about 1 or 2 years younger. She had very long dark-brown hair tied up into a loose ponytail above the nape. The hair ties were bright yellow in colour. Her bangs were a bit sharp and her hair strands were below her collarbone. Her skin was pale, had rosy lips, but most importantly, her eyes seemed very magical too... They had a lot of shades of pale blue and sky blue, but also dark blue. Judging by her dress, she was Greek.
   In that dream, Darius greeted the girl happily and told her where she was. Despite the two speaking completely different languages, they could understand each other perfectly somehow.. They explored the whole Rome together. In the evening, they climbed up on the top of Emperor's palace and watched the stars together, and it's not just that... They even began asking each other how their life was. This talk eventually became a flirtatious one...they even leaned on closer and almost kissed, but sadly that's where the dream cuts off, and it frustrated Darius the most. But...the current question is...why did he remember it just now? Just now after finishing his first and biggest invention? A whole engineering miracle? So many questions and yet so little answers...

   Darius shook his head and stood up. He ran away from his ship to go back to Rome, wake up his mother and show her what he has been working on for so long. Due to his speed, he was able to reach his house in a few seconds. Good thing no one was around during that moment, or else it would have been very suspicious...
   The Cassia household was quite big. The house was 3 floors tall. On the first floor, there was living room combined with the kitchen. In the corner there was a trap door that led to the basement full of bags of food ingredients. On the 2nd floor is Livia's bedroom and on the 3rd floor was Darius' bedroom. Darius ran upstairs and quietly bounced to the sleeping Livia. He began gently shaking her "Hey... Mom... Wake up.. The sun's rising.." He whispered. Livia groaned as she opened her eyes to see her son "You're looking way too delighted, son... Tell me, did you do something big yesterday?" She sarcastically chuckled and so did Darius "Yes, mom. I finally did it... I finished my ship!" And from these words, Livia gasped as she quickly stood up. But that was kind of painful due to old age(she's 64 years old now).. Darius panicked a bit "Mom, don't do that! You do know that it's painful, right?" "I know I know, I'm sorry.. I just suddenly started feeling younger than ever, heheh.." Livia chuckled once again as Darius helped her to stand up on her feet "Do you wanna see my masterpiece? You'll love it for sure!" Livia gave a big smile that fit her very well no matter how old she was "Sure thing, son! I'm still surprised that your spaceship is the reason why you always came back home late" "Oh, seriously-" Then the two laughed at their jokes.

   Eventually the laughter had to stop. Darius led Livia into the woods outside Rome's Western wall. Soon infront of them was a whole true engineering miracle... Something that no one ever attempted to build...a literal modernized spaceship. Darius looked at his greatest invention with a proud and confident smile. Livia's jaw dropped at the sight. It was beyond EVERYTHING she saw... She could barely find words to describe this view "I-I... W-Wow... O-Oh mio dio... H-How... H-How did you manage to build something like this?! What a miracle!" These words made Darius' proud smile turn into a shy and embarrassed one "Well... You know mom, lots of years of hard work and all.." "Oh, come here my young God!" Livia interrupts and rushes to hug her son, congratulating him for such amazing achievement. Darius' eyes widened in surprise at the nickname but said nothing and hugged his mother back "You know... I've actually planned to depart today...".