The Council of Ten

Chapter 16 - A Love That Runs So Deep (The Memoirs of Paolo Bianchi)

Chapter Sixteen – A Love That Runs So Deep (The Memoirs of Paolo Bianchi)

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“When love is not madness, it is not love.” ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

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I have come to know a love so deep it surpasses all explanation and I could not do it justice with my words. But this love is not for a person, but a place. Venice, although to many you are just a city, to me you are more. My love for you is not just for your buildings, your walls and floors. No. It is for your voice, your people and your magic. I don’t expect you to understand, dear reader, but this love that runs so deep into the foundations of origins, is the thing that got me is this mess. Is the thing that led me on.

So desperate was I, to help. So desperate was I, to protect. To be a part of the higher culture in Venice. Oh how I wanted to help her. How I craved it. But it never happened, for I was mislead by people and characters, who had no intentions of setting the city free, but to wrap it in even more chains than it already had. To lock it away even further out of my reach. Venice is dying, as I’ve mentioned so many times before. It was dying because of the chains, that wrapped so tightly, suffocating the life the city holds, squeezing its breath until it had no more. But the situation worsened, when I decided to help.

Little did I know my help would be entangled in a far greater plan, that would destroy Venice for what she is, rather than restore her to her original glory. Oh, the pain! I can hardly bare to think of what I’ve done. Sometimes I begin to wonder, whether it’s the guilt that drove me to madness, or the love. Either has the power to make a man lose his mind, and mine is definitely gone to some far off place, where I can only hope I shall see it again. Alas, I tend to sense my mind is forever lost to my living body, and I shall only be reunited with it in death. Ah, sweet death, what comfort you shall bring. I await the peace, the reassurance. For when I die, all will be well and if not, my soul shall not rest until it is.

All is fair in love and war. Is it? Is it really? I wouldn’t mind meeting the man who first said that, to talk it over. For what is fair about a war you didn’t mean to cause? What is fair about a love you had no control over? There is no fairness in death, in pain. There is no fairness or perhaps...there is. You never really can tell, for it is difficult to define words. It is difficult to judge, where boundaries lie, what they mean. All we do is guess, really, that is all it is. When we use words, it is an estimate, an accurate one at that, on how they will be perceived. How the sentence will form in other’s eyes, what it will say. Words really are strange things, I can never be sure how others will understand. Although the general meaning will be there, perhaps the feelings will not be conveyed.

I like it when you find a truly good writer, when you almost see through their eyes. Although, you never really can be sure, if that is how they felt. The best judge is how other people perceived, if they felt the same. Then there is an almost certainty, that you have perceived correctly, with the rest of the world. If not, the person is quite the opposite of a good writer, in fact, they must be very bad. But I am trailing off topic. What I meant to say was that, a truly good writer allows his reader to read as he did as he wrote. Exactly the same. Unfortunately, I’m not a good writer, merely an unaccomplished man trying to record his thoughts as he descends into madness.

But on the real dark days, I think I am already there.

Stay sane, dear reader, read well and write often, it is all we can do.

Your humble servant,

Paolo Bianchi

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Author's Note: The title is no conincidence haha, I'm constantly looking for inspiration for Paolo's chapters, what he can talk about, it seemed the perfect day to talk of love. Happy Valentine's Day, my dear readers :) Sorry if it got confusing and you have indeed lost Paolo's thread. Blame it on his madness, if you will, I am a tired writer and not quite sure what I'm saying, only sure what I'm trying to say. Thank you for reading! :D