The Discarded

Alone Chapter 18 - 2

Cesare found Elizabeth beneath the willow tree. She'd brought a deep green blanket to spread across the ground, the color of old moss, it bridged the gap between grass and tree. Elizabeth loved the earth, everything she did was with that one love in mind. She patterned her life after it, drawing her lessons from the living world that loved her so much.

She'd chosen the blanket because it reminded her of the world she was devoted to. Sitting, with the ravens hopping around them in a squabbling cloud of feathers and impatience, he realized how different they were.

She had a realness he didn't, they all did, but with Elizabeth it towered so high he was left shamed in its shadow. As alone as her life had been, she'd lived it, carving out her joys from the carcass of disappointment. She cared for animals more than people, treating them with a love saved for children. Books called to her in a voice ancient with wisdom, speaking to a mind eager to know. Full bodied and rich, her life was like a good wine, complex and ever evolving with each taste.

Cesare loved books; they were the friends when he was alone. Comfort on lonely nights, someone to cry too, and the father you always wanted. Books had been the only thing that hadn't betrayed him. He liked a good meal and a nice bed, enjoyed a hard fight, lusted after hurting others more than he liked to admit. But so much of what he liked, what he loved, revolved around the women. He was their shadow, as empty and useless without them as that patch of shade. When a man had no desires, is he really living? Our desires make us who we are, they pull us into life, without them, we're shades without color. But all his colors seemed to be gray's and black.

Silently, he threw nuggets to the ravens, his mind lost in darkness as he watched the grim birds scramble for the bits of chicken. "What do you want?" Elizabeth asked, concern tightening her face.

"You know, I was just thinking about that," Cesare said, setting his tray aside as he laid back on the blanket. "This place was supposed to be a way forward, a diploma to get me into a shit job. The only way off the streets is education. You can sell drugs or pimp girls, but you're not off the streets, all your doing is standing on the corpses so your own feet don't touch the sidewalk."

Cesare closed his eyes, enjoying the cool breeze that washed over him. This was nice, to be out in the world feeling the earth against his back, the sun on his face, and life around him. Elizabeth laid down next to him the weight of her eyes steady and sure.

"You said that in the past tense, have your feelings changed?" The whisper caressed across his soul, a soothing balm turning cold darkness to velvet.

"I still think education's the only out of the gutter. If you want to be part of society, you need to know the language, you're not going to learn that scrambling for food or peddling meth. A man without an education's trapped in his own mind, chained to his ignorance. His mutterings nothing more than the ravings of a rabid animal to the educated."

People who were homeless, broken, insane, and forgotten, didn't have the language to make their pain known. They didn't have the words to make others understand, didn't know how to get the help they needed, or find a way out of drowning in their shit. That's what education was, it was the power to change your life.

"Then what's changed?" she asked quietly, the squabbling of the ravens settling as they took flight into the branches of the willow.

"I looked at this school as a place where I could learn the skills to join society. Somewhere along the way, I lost myself, became a bit player in other people's stories instead of writing my own. I have more options than I've ever had but the only one I want is the one I thought I'd give anything to escape."

She was silent for long minutes. "You've changed so much since you came here. Sometimes I wonder what you'll be at the end."

Cesare smiled tightly, hateful currents boiling and twisting in his mind. "I'm meaner than I've ever been. More in tune with the darkness of my soul, more accepting of the evil in my heart. I enjoy hurting people, controlling their lives, and commanding their actions. I used to hate who I was because I knew I wasn't good. That hate is now just one among many, a small serpent lost in the coils of all the others."