l'osservatore della bellezza | wolfstar

after everything, there is light

1504 (around a year later).
Somewhere in Florence.

There was once a time in his life, when Remus Lupin would find himself holding his breath.

Not in the literal sense, of course - one tends to need air to actually function, odd as it may seem.

It was more like he was waiting. Waiting for the world he had built for himself to collapse around his ears; waiting to make a mistake so terrible that there was no hope of coming back from it.

It's so easy to go through life and not notice that you are too afraid to live it. It is so, so much harder to step back and realise that all you are doing is existing, and that death is probably a better option in the face of a boring, meaningless survival.

But Remus, against all odds, had survived. He had gone through the endless motions, never quite caught in the moment, cautiously indifferent to life so that in case it were taken from him, he would not be too badly upset.

Alas, we are all human. You cannot resign yourself from having emotions, and Remus was no exception. He knew that now.

This is not metaphorical. Not anymore. Because you, my reader, have been made to experience more than you possibly ever expected to. You have, like Remus, sometimes lived without living, perhaps have taken a breath while wondering why. You have, in short, survived - and this is no small feat.

But anyway, let us continue. The story is not quite over yet.

***

In a small corner of Florence that no one had ever heard of (unless they had), there was another corner, home to an artist that everyone had heard of (unless they hadn't, but I don't want to imagine what kind of rock these people were living under).

Remus Lupin was sat at his desk by a large window, writing feverishly. The window looked out over the familiar streets far below him; they looked like they'd been sketched, with untidy little people scribbled over them. It was a hot day, and warm light was slanting through the window onto his paper. High in the sky was the sun, reaching out over the city, shining on each building like yellow paint.

If you asked him, he wouldn't be able to tell you where the time had gone. Life had moved quickly, one thing after the next, a wheel that spun on and on and twisted the thread of time.

If you asked him, he would tell you that he was happy, and a smile would pull his face up and his eyes would wrinkle like they always seemed to do.

He had been swept up in a creative frenzy these last few months, the fruits of which were visible throughout the house. Every wall was crammed with canvases, thick with colours, the same person painted over and over (as though Remus believed that painting them was the best way to commit every one of their features to memory). Every table (and many chairs) was home to stacks of poetry, the same name written over and over, like a prayer.

Dorcas had been driven mad by the mess ("Chairs are for sitting, you idiot!"), though Remus did his best to appease her. It didn't often work.

Not that her wrath was stemming his flow in any way: he was still painting regularly, and writing even more.  He was caught in a virtual storm of bluish ink and smudged letters that stained his hands and filled his sheets. He'd barely been sleeping, but couldn't seem to care. Nothing could stop him.