The eternality in our ephemerality

Chapter 32. Pain is hereditary.

My lips, hidden behind a cloud of scepticism, could not be tempted to interrupt in such a moment: I was petrified and astounded; I had been too immersed in my own arrogant belief that I did know her, that I forgot to actually believe that there was more to her. Of course there was!

When has she ever stated a fact about where she truly is from?

When has she told a story about her family background: besides names on tombstones or metallic dates, there was nothing more to the story of my peculiar family: I was ignorant to my family history....

Her wide heart is a collection of layers: some grey, some pale...The ones she never told, despite her colour, were inked with a stain of pitch-black and sealed behind those red lips: too feeble that no one had suspected to have a prison in...

She continued with the tale: my eyes sharp as daggers and my acute ears accused of writing every word, as hot iron would, in my frontal lobe.

"The love I had with Nathaniel still haunts me up to date" she commenced, her feet paralyzed with fear and her eyes far from where I could see. "I did not know how much I could love until I met him and saw how likely I would sacrifice myself in the hopes of his memory being safe: I loved Nathaniel. I realised it was love when I was willing to give my life for his and knew that I could only live with him being safe and far from peril....And though I had sworn I would loathe him for all eternity, for he had hurt me in more ways a respectable lady of the date can count, I knew that if I wanted a future: his heart and mine could never interact with the other. Your grandfather, unlike Nathaniel, had always been there and I had taken him for granted because my heart was drowned in another man's eyes.

You cannot trust your heart darling; no women in this family can.

You know. You have lived the pain and ache that I once did...I truly hope that your sister can avoid the fate you and I have lived through —although she does not seem to mind and I find her happy with that boy Peter— But my point is" Her coil glazing over the side of the shoulder and looking at my figure, still laid on the bed, with both lips shut. With wounded sarcasm, all my mind could perceive were the words: the perks of inheriting a broken history

"Appearances can deceive, honey, looks can deceive more than any other type of communication simply because our souls cannot be trusted: they are free and guide us, but just like they do, they can lead to a path of danger and sorrow. I warn you my precious girl, we must settle with what we have and be contempt that we have a safe heart rather than a broken one. You do not need anyone to save you, but you need to secure and inhibit jeopardy; take it from a former damsel in distress"

I laughed at her final words, but kept my thoughts sealed behind my fence; the words she had said would unlikely be repeated and so I pucker my lips and kissed her on her chin. She squeezed my hand, as cold as mine, and directed it out the door.

"Come on" she enforced; I moaned theatrically. "Lets go downstairs and find some candies"

"Yay" and I snorted in delight.

"Your welcome,"

Once we had stepped out of the room, and were attacked by comments that cursed our disappearance, we ate; and though my appetite was scarcely found in my stomach, I battled through my mind in the hopes of reaching dessert: although it was always the same- ice cream and cookies- my taste palette demanded some sugar after such words that did not seem to be turning into fading memories: they lived within each of my cells. My twisted mind had fueled its thoughts with her words...and the subtle warning that periled the fragile dictatorship of my heart and the vows I had imposed in attempts to overthrow such injustice.

It had been universally acknowledged that we attract souls who are similar to us, that we are likelier to love what we know than what we don't... but she attracts what wounds her because she was as curious as I...With all those years, is it true that she is smarter?

For all she was trying to do was prevent my loss: spare me from ache and save my sins from being committed once again, she was enforcing her role as a grandmother: she was protecting me.

I cannot be as foolish as to neglect her advice.

I cannot enforce my connection with the fool.

I begun to assemble  the plates and cutlery, washing them and arranging them in my grandmas particular order was my pass to watching an ancient film named Casablanca, and just like it was in black and white: so were my thoughts that could not depart my mind: as slow as white sinks into pitch-black. I must confess, my attempts to pay attention were exhaustive, but the facility in which I could sink into my mind was effortless, easier than it was to blink.  In some occasions, my mind even had to remind  my lungs to breathe and my heart to beat.

Every electrical road my neurons lighted ended in the concussive questions my grandmama's story had evoked: I now feared my heart, my mind uselessly attempted to reach more domains. She had ached and suffered, and as an empathetic heart, wanted to prevent mine.

 I must believe what she said: her heart, free from the grips of censorship, had been irrefutably condemned to love. Nathaniel was her true love... passionate, inevitable, forceful.

With the sun setting, our departure commenced, kissing and embracing my grandmama; spoking into her ear a thank you for her advice and staring at the droplets of water that began to caress the car's window.

The sky, once again, supported my dejection to a choice that I could not imitate: she chose comfort over truth.

Can I? Will i? 

The ambitions in my heart speak, my bravery dared follow...but when the time comes, will I bare to rip the vows that insure a secured heart?