The Plans We Made

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

The sound of several horns brings me back to where I am. Apparently we have just cut a car off.

I find my voice, “Excuse me?! Excuse me?! Can you please slow down?"  He continues as if I'm not even speaking.

"This is ridiculous! I will pay you twice as much if you slow down!”

All of the sudden it appears he understands English. The speedometer begins to drop down until finally we’re going a much more appropriate speed. My breathing is still rough and my fingers hurt from clutching the seat belt.

I push back the thoughts of the accident focusing hard on the images outside my window. For a moments I think I feel something… Something other than the numbness that won’t go away. It’s a mixture of guilt and sadness; I keep pushing it away until I am sure it is gone.

I try to enjoy Olympia, but my thoughts have left me hazy. Nothing seems clear and it is hard for me to focus. My mind is constantly clouded with memory after memory, all trying at once to unwind me. My concentration wavers as I stare at the bulky stone steps in front of me. As I wearily climb, I try to focus on what I am here to see, ignoring my own past so I can delve into their history instead.

I learn that this is not just a mere monument, but rather a large scale tribute the Zeus. In front of me are massive stone columns roughly forty feet tall fifteen feet around… But the layout is incomplete because most of what was Zeus’ Temple is now gone. Rubble lay everywhere around me. There are piles upon piles of what used to be glorious pillars. They are in a round shape but have flat edges all around and were actually made from many pieces stacked atop one another. Those pieces look like a graveyard of gears, exposure leaving them gray and worn. Something that used to be an amazing shrine for a great God is now left for the elements to corrode as they see fit. It is already obvious how much damage the wind, rain, and earth have caused to this once great place; not to mention what we human beings have done to it in our selfish conquests.

Though the ride here was difficult, I can only bare to stay so long. It is a depressing place when you really look at all that has happened here. The magnitude of it weighs heavy on me. Once again, I want to be away from anything that makes me feel, the numbness is a safer place for me, the only way I know how to survive.

The next day is my adventure to Acropolis to see the Parthenon. Unfortunately, it reminds me of Olympia in many ways. Though in much better condition, time has still worn away some of the beauty that it once held. Despite the many parts of it that are grand and intact, it feels like a ghost town. It is such a majestic place, that one expects the people who created it to be there in the midst of the hustle and bustle of their ancient lives. It seems wrong for us to trespass on the floors where gold was stored for the Goddess Athena, to view the art that was once brightly colored in faithful tribute, and even to touch the rubble that lay there mostly because we as people are flawed and prone to great wars of destruction.

People of all different shapes, sizes, and ethnicities are taking photographs and smiling, talking happily amongst each other and enjoying the view. The whole scene seems incredibly appalling to me. Seeing somewhere that once was incredibly beautiful and pristine now broken and shattered into mere rubble is more than enough to make one morose.

How can no one else see that? How can everyone be oblivious to the gloomy atmosphere?

Once again, I leave a highly admired place in an awful mood. A vacation to an exotic location, sightseeing and taking in the culture is supposed to be a positive experience, but it has not seemed that way at all. Maybe it is because I have no one here to share it with. The letters seem to be making it harder rather than easier, but I cannot just stop; that wouldn’t be right. I wish I could be more positive, be happy, smile, but the second I start to feel something, it always turns to pain.

In the safety of my hotel room, I stare down at my stationary, trying to think of a reason not to write. All of my excuses, however, are selfish. Even so, I decide that I’d like to be out in fresh air when I write this letter; like the others before, it will be harder to write than the last.

I end up on Santorini Island, a place that entirely embodies the beauty and tradition Greece has to offer. With deep blue seas all around, covered in small white homes complete with matching blue roofs and plenty of natives, it feels quaint and private. Sitting on a gray rounded rock, staring out at the night, stars shining down from clear skies, I admit to myself that I need to write a letter.

Nicholas,

You would absolutely love Greece. In comparison to London and Paris, Athens is your type of place. The sights here are very interesting, most of which was built so long ago I can’t even imagine. It‘s sad to see the condition that much of it is in, though. I suppose that time changes things, makes them weaker, harder to recognize. Even with the inevitability of it all, I can’t say that it doesn’t bother me.

Maybe if you were here, you could remind me of the beauty in this place, instead of me focusing on the negative. But you aren’t here and I am faced more and more with the fact that it is my fault.

Why was I so upset about some woman you worked with? Never did I ever think you would cheat or leave me, but that night I was so jealous… for no reason. What a waste of time! And then I drive like an idiot, not paying attention to what’s ahead of me until it’s too late. I wish that our car had spun the other way, that I had been on the side that hit. You didn’t deserve that, and you couldn’t handle it.

I remember the accident. The crash happened too fast for me to register it all, but after the initial impact, everything is clear. I don’t think I ever really talked about it, whether because I felt too much at blame or because your pride couldn’t take it, I don’t know.

The burden I will always feel, the weight on my shoulders, won’t ever leave. I took our happy lives and mutilated them beyond repair. I still hope that I get the worst of it; I know I deserve it, but I worry sometimes, that I’m not paying enough for my mistakes.

Even now, trying to escape my miserable life, I know I don’t deserve it and I shouldn’t enjoy it. It’s the only way I know how to survive, but without you, I don’t know that I can justify it.

I am so sorry for all that I have done; for the burden left by the effects of one night of my awful decisions. If only I had made different choices, let you drive or driven better, not gotten mad about something outside your control. If nothing else I will always be pained beyond what some hell could give me when I think of that night. Even worse, I think about after the night. Maybe it isn’t okay that I try to block these images out so that I can be numb. It isn’t fair, after what I have done to you that I can be numb, I should have to feel all the pain I am avoiding. I don’t know if I can survive it, though. I don’t really deserve to, do I? A part of me is one hundred percent sure you would agree… but there is another part that remembers the look in your eye when I said yes to your wedding proposal, which could never imagine you wanting me to suffer.

Despite all of this, I will love you until hearts fail to beat.

Always,

Aurora

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