aching bones, aching teeth

02 - between letters and lies

The Aetos family home was near a park with a beautiful garden with a statue in the center, and the bench facing this view was Scylla's favorite place. Far enough away from your parents, but close enough for them not to complain.

You held a book in your lap, but could only stare at the water moving up and down the white marble sculpted arms.

It was a perfect sight, a comforting silence and a calm that could only be replicated when you were in the presence of your best friend.

Your fingers clenched together, nervous, not that it was apparent, anyone who saw you from the outside would find a girl as calm as the statue.

Your large, sad eyes were uncomfortable for your mother, and between humility or luxury, she seemed to see only the latter in the your irises. More annoying than the eyeballs was the time you spent in the bathroom. Her parents hated your vanity.

Your yellow tights covered your scraped knees, burning from the fervent prayer you had said last night. You felt lost, begged the heavens so much to be heard, to be changed, but to no avail: you still had the same feelings —and blamed yourself greatly for them.

Was a confession still valid if you lied about the real reasons behind your actions? You confessed seeking forgiveness, not to find other people to blame.

You confessed, and spent more time practicing your dance routine until your toes hurt, spent more time sewing clothes without taking care with the needle; You tried everything to feel less guilty about your lack of guilt.

You did like your mother, like the time she caught you reading The Well of Loneliness, and made you clean the whole house on your knees, begging forgiveness for yours and the writer's soul. You wondered if your mother really knew about the story, but you didn't dare question anything, your mother had certainly chastised you because she had heard what the book was about.

Of all the literature you had ever studied, Russian literature was the one that had taken up the most space in your heart. The melancholy in every word was something no one else could replicate. At least, no one else you could read, as your Arabic was weak and minuscule.

The teacher had split the class into three and given them each a different Russian work. The group was divided into two and each member had to present their own opinion on the theme of the book —as well as doing the technical analysis that you loved so much.

And you got even angrier, you had read the book and loved analyzing it, what was wrong with doing it?

The theme of the book and Dostoevsky's damning phrases about self-opinion... A little ironic that you had got that part of the debate right.

You opened the book again, flicking through the pages as if the answers were going to leap out of the paper and straight into your head.

You loved old literature, knowing that someone, years ago, decades ago, held the same book and read the same words, made you feel as if you weren't alone in her world of thoughts —you were connected to everything and everyone at the same time, all the time.

However, the beauty of the author's words did not take away the sadness of their truthfulness, what hurt hurt, and only became art once it stopped burning.
You opened to any page, your eyes skimming over the paragraph marked in neon colors.

"We always think of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why should it be? What if, instead of all that, you suddenly find just a little room in there, something like a village bath house, dirty, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is."

That paragraph never left your mind. You had always wanted eternity, to leave a legacy, you wanted to be important, to be remembered, and thinking of eternity as a dirty little room began to drive you crazy. Did the infinitude of the soul really not matter that much? you weren't afraid of dying, but you were afraid of not having anyone to remember you.