Crumbling Visage

Escaped

It was a day in November- bitterly cold, with invisible sheets of rain hanging in the air against the tranquil pallor of grey serenity.

Maria walked down the narrow country lane almost like a ghost in the early morning haze; her black eyes curiously light-almost grey in the little light of late dawn. Walking some way down the untrodden path-as it was called- she stopped just before the great oak tree. The house lay beyond the rusty, iron gates- just as it had all those years ago. Waiting, patient, uncomplaining- anticipating the return of its masters or master.

Her eyes wandered around the swing still hanging by its heavy chains, a little pitter-patter of rain washing anew the seat; and the lantern hanging beside the doorstep- cold, unlit and crooked but still there. The doorframe with broken nameplates and half-faded scratches. The overgrown weed in the garden.
And just for a moment she closed her eyes and fancied herself in love. With all of it. And just for another moment, it overwhelmed her, gushed through her, seized her.

Snapping out of her reverie, she walked a few paces until she was gripping the cold bars of the iron gate, looking through it into a cage of past times. Entering the desolate abode, she could feel the rain easing out- almost reverently. The garden path was of cobblestone with overgrown shrubs protruding from within the gaps, the swing moved vaguely-almost imperceptibly- swaying in a lulled stupor and as she reached the wooden front doors- her eyes had already grown accustomed to these visions of a past life.

It was as easy as falling back with no care of falling down. It was closing your eyes and sailing through the air. It was a knife driven clean through your heart, dispensing of any shred of consciousness.

And then she was back. She was seven and running about the house, down the staircase- into the main hall, through the kitchen and out to the back garden. Even then, with the fear and dread- there was thrill and excitement.

"Maria, it's alright dear." Her mother's soft voice had carried searchingly through the kitchen window, "They've left, they're gone...gone, gone for good..."

She could hear it; she could hear the exact moment her mother broke. They didn't have long before they had to leave- leave the place forever, flee and escape. Escape and live or confess and die.

She'd known it since she was born or since she could know the ways of the world. Her father had been a traitor, a conspirator evading justice- if it truly was justice to reduce a family to smithereens- and the price must be paid; to leave and run as delinquents or to pay with blood.

Survival came first, next were the questions of wrong and right-reduced to such insignificance by the present, urgent needs. All she knew was that the price of betrayal in war came with a price on her head- as soon as she was born, or even before.

Twenty-two years was a blink of an eye. Reduced to a single moment of blinding pain and anguish. Of despair and loss.

Her kind mother- the very picture of patience- had perished first. Her demise was just like her- like the falling leaves of autumn, succumbing to nature ever so calmly, with an admirable resignation. She'd hung herself in a quiet little inn in the middle of nowhere. It'd been the family's refuge against the bloodthirsty world outside. The first night there, after putting her children to sleep with soft smiles and loving lullabies, she had put herself to sleep in the arms of nature.
Maria and her little brother had awoken to the sunlight filtering on their mother's still form- a frozen picture of hollowed out beauty, with her blue eyes like melting icicles and hollow cheeks immobile in incoherent prayers.

Maria had been eight then.

"One of you dies for the love of the others." Maria remembered every enunciation of the phrase uttered ten years ago. The three traitors captured after the war and reaping their karma- a twisted, cruel poetic justice. They were once a family.

Her little brother-so young, only seventeen, had died as he looked Maria straight in the eye with a little wilted smile- the smile of one who had known his fate since the day his mother fell.

Maria had been nineteen then.

Five years. For five years, she lived in captivity- not one of war-incapacitated prisoners, but a captive of distorted love and family.

Her father passed away after five years of existing in frozen grief and searing anger. Maria was twenty-four then.

Five years after liberation from the claws of her miserable father, five years after losing her last connection in the forlorn world, she was back to the start. Her childhood home lay passive and docile, unrelenting to the changes of time and as she looked at it, she could almost fancy that twenty-two years was nothing.

She was surprised that it hadn't been auctioned off to an industrialist willing to tear every shred of it down till the only reminder of her home was a hazy, half-forgotten memory. She could imagine it being sold off to another family who would clear off the weed and grass, the rusted swing and the molding or obsolete furniture. They would wash off all the memories of the family that had lived before them.

She hadn't expected to find it every bit the home she had left save for the disuse, filth and neglect that reeked off its surface. The rain was starting to ease out completely, leaving a cold mist in the air. Maria wondered again, why, just why had she come back to the start after so long. She had been in a daze- the train to her town had been at hand, the path to her house had been every bit the same and her home had been there, waiting patiently.

She picked up the broken nameplate hanging off the wall with trembling hands and watched wood dust crumble under her fingers.

She was the last one standing, she thought, as she entered past the threshold into the musty house. Paintings and pictures stood crooked on the wall; shattered plates, broken glasses and scattered remains of clothes lay strewn around.
Throughout her life, every moment she had evaded death- she'd been filled with duality of relief and sorrow. When she'd watched her mother crumble and die, Maria had been filled with a strength of spirit- to never cry or fall. She would escape all the anguish and pain and never break. And she had escaped.

When she had watched her brother sacrifice himself without reluctance or a fight, her pain had taught her to fight and escape. She'd run away with her father and she had escaped.

When she had watched her father fall into an abyss of self-pity and fury, she had sworn to never be like him. She had sworn never to die of such grueling self-hate. She would work, keep her head up and never think of the past. And she did- she had escaped.

But now, when she was back where she had started, she wondered- was it worth it? Was it worth it to escape after everything?

She had handed her mother the noose that night to end her suffering. She knew that her poor, sweet mother would only hold them back and crumble eventually.

So, she'd embraced her mother before killing her. Maria had been eight then.

She had told her brother to do it for them all- that he was the most suited to die, that it was an act of love for his family. And he had smiled, looked her in the eye and died so much like his mother. Maria had been nineteen then.

She had told her father that he had failed his family, he had failed her and that was all it took for the ghost of a man- that was all it took for him to fall and wilt. To die in hopeless contempt of himself, like his wife and son. Maria had been twenty-four then.
Sometimes there were no right ways to survive. And the wrong ways crushed you as much as they helped you escape.
As she climbed up to the roof, she was filled with a heavy heart, close to crumbling and for one moment she indulged in limitless pain and love. She felt what it was like to be at the edge and falling, she felt love and hate and bravery, she felt anger and incompetence. She had come back to the start because she longed for the things she had escaped- longed to feel everything, longed to be filled with misery.

And as she soared off the roof into the arms of the morning, into the bitter comfort of death and sorrow, into her inevitable demise- she knew she had not escaped after all.