Eden In Black

[CHAPTER ONE]

 "Black pearls of pomegranates carefully spill, as I lie counting them to my glass fill"

   1.618 -"The sky is falling." He gasped, his heart beating fast. The heat of the air locking tight down his throat. His eyes burning and everything around him was fading to white, bright white. "It is the end of it all" he suddenly realized. How will death finally feel like? How painful will the last inevitable pain be? How hard was it to let this fear go and somehow accept the last breath of air? His mind was racing in thought.
  "The sky is falling..." He tried to repeat those words, not sure why. He thought it could be just to reassure himself of what was happening.

Thinking about every detail makes him calm. He placed his hand on his chest. His heart thumbing like it was going to explode. Maybe if he pushed his hand hard against his chest it would calm down.
He closed his eyes, trying to remember anything from his life. What a meaningless life he had, his dreams were like everyone, a job, a family, a house in some urban city away from city-X. He couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it all.
At this moment, nothing...nothing..."WHAT THE HELL WAS IT ALL FOR?" he was broken in pieces, he screamed those words and kneeled, his head low, and his eyes burning. Both his hands were grabbing tight to the dirt beneath him.
His fists squeezed tight. He sobbed and a puddle from his tears started to form beneath him, and all he could hear at that moment was the sound of his heart, beating loudly, drumming through his ears. His eyes finally opened by the sudden silence. He couldn't hear the loud thumbing or any loud white noise.
He looked around him, "Is it over? Did I die?" He thought. The light slowly turned to pitch black and he can suddenly smell a familiar scent, fresh clean sheets, and pine trees. HOME.

He realized it was his old room.

He looked around him as everything began to unfold, he recognized his own painting from when he was a kid, his parents were so proud of him,"an abstraction of elephants." he remembers proudly answering when they asked what they were. Across him was a complete shelved wall, books from the days he used to travel with his dad, from every language, most of the books were of architecture, he wanted to be like his father. He inhaled deeply, only a nightmare, he said beneath his breath.
He felt a string of water dripping down his back all the way from the nape of his neck. He tried to swipe it off with his fingers only to realize his whole shirt was drenched in sweat.
His head was still spinning moments after he stood up from his bed, the curtains were swiftly moving from the wind breeze, sending chills all over his body. The moon never looked so bright. The feeling he lost a long time ago, the air was crisp and fresh. He placed his hand over his heart. "I'm okay." he took a deep breath. His heart calmed down.

Inhale...Exhale...

The clock read 03:39, it was placed on his Eames desk, right next to his computer. He suddenly remembered the amount of work he had to submit for next Thursday's jury discussion.
 It's distressing how dreams can make you forget everything. He then got up and decided to get some work done taking advantage of his time being fully awake, he opened his computer screen and placed his hands on the keyboard. A sudden pause.
Nothing was coming to mind. He must be going crazy. Confused as he was, something made him decided to go and have a walk during the early dawn hours. Grabbing his keys and closing his bedroom door carefully ,he noticed the lights coming from the ground floor, just under the flight of glass stairs overlooking what is now a dark shadowed landscape through the ceiling to wall full glazed window. The house had an open plan design to it, it had a double volume design where a piano was placed right across the gallery walkway "When the piano is played, the house will drink all the notes and echoes of music" his dad explained.

Glass surrounded all the spaces in the upper floor which overlooked the ground floor, so that spaces can drink as much light as possible from the north and south sun throughout the year. He didn't expect anyone to be awake at this time as he heard two people's voices in whisper. As soon as he went down, he noticed both his parents near the kitchen counter, which was open to the vast living room right across it, his father insisted on creating as much open areas as possible through the interior divisions of the house, he knew how to manipulate light and he did it to perfection.
The finishing was impeccable, the white concrete, the white Italian marble kissed with a hint of blue, his mother's favorite color. "The white mansion" his friends used to call it; everything was washed in white. They were both whispering and he couldn't help but hear a hint of anger in their tones.

-"Honey? Why are you awake?" a classy lady in her nightgown unfolded her crossed arms as she moved towards him.
-"Eden, son. Are you okay?" a man in his fifties, handsome, tall, with features that marked him tired but somehow very strong.
 "You need a haircut." his mother softly touched a small handful strand of his hair and brushed it back away from his eyes.
 -"Is everything alright?" He hesitated to ask looking back and forth at both of them.
-"Don't even think about it Theo." The lady said firmly.

 Everyone was silent for a moment, both Eden's parents were staring at each other, his mother looked very disappointed and sad, her hand was stroking the side of her cheek nervously, trying to look as composed as she could, hiding the number of tears she was on the verge of gushing. His dad hit both his fists on the table counter, he looked bone-weary, deep in thought. Years and years of exhaustion got to him, the prizes he aspired to get at all costs took a toll on his health, and it showed. His hair flaming in white, his blue gray eyes tired and exhausted.

He won the ultimate Pritzker Architecture Prize a few years ago. Theodore van Doren was a name all architects knew, he was the ultimate designer, a star-architect. Everyone aspired to be him. His family however expected him to stop working so hard trying to grab project after project but instead ended up working harder, and worse, traveling even more.

-"I am going for a walk." Eden announced coldly heading towards the double-glazed main door after kissing his mother on her forehead, ignoring the rage his father suddenly portrayed.
 He didn't want to interfere; the fights were recently a usual thing among the couple and Eden concluded that it only got worse after his father decided that projects always come before family. "Beautiful spaces create beautiful people, a happy house is a happy community." his dad always lectured him, Eden found it ironic, and how his dad seemed to be the last one to live by his own words. He never called their house a home, it was as empty as a white paper sheet, filled with empty promises.

The white mansion was a white nightmare, it's depressing how a few drafting lines on paper can make one family as miserable as his.
 Eden felt the air current softly running through every centimeter of his skin, the cold morning air was crisp and fresh, he felt the chill on his cheeks, the wind whispering things he didn't understand, but of love and peace.

 The birds chippering and singing their early lullabies. He inhaled as much air as he possibly could. He was thankful the air was enough for everyone, or else he would've greedily taken it all in, and kept it in his own bare boned chest. He held his heart again as he walked, he was still alive, and that horrid feeling of pain is over. Nothing was burning in white anymore. The sky wasn't falling. He looked up.

The sky wasn't falling.