Homecoming (Sequel)

VII. Dissolution In The Citadel

The only sound that inhabited the old truck on the way home, was the melancholic twang of a male counter singer, failing to soothe the panic that had sprouted in our hearts, that had severed our vocal chords, that had chilled our muscles into a state of absolute frost. Panic created by a moment I had hoped I would not have to experience, by words mixed together in a sentence that I had hoped I would not have to hear, by the thought of a proximity so close that I had thought I would never grow anxious of. However, my hopes were rendered futile the very second after the words left Joeʼs plump lips, as my safe haven was compromised, my ordinary life was once again made a spectacle worth seeing and my heart was once again rattled out of the cocoon I had spun it into diligently.
As we joined Nate in his truck, jumping through the open doors while he was already speeding homeward-bound, as my heartʼs cocoon and safe space were shattered with silver daggers, all my efforts were made a mockery of, their aim to serve for a greater good ignored and shat upon. Keeping everyone that held a piece of my split soul out of my life so they could keep being in control of theirs, playing Zeus as I wanted to guarantee that their passings would not come until decades, warm in their elderly beds, not before their entrance to the twenties with a bullet sped through their skulls – it was all lost. Leaving, erasing myself out of their physical reach, for two years, it all meant nothing the very second my ears caught wind of his presence here, in Owl Creek.
While Nate put a pedal to the metal, leaving anyone who had wished to follow us to asphyxiate in a cloud of good old Wyoming dust, that old wound, contracted during my darkest hours in Rodeo, was opened once more and it did not take long for blood to trickle out of the scarred muscle, as it once had done. The sore was still the same, every drop of blood lost was enough to pull me further into the dark tunnel, back to my forefathers who had brought the very persons upon this earth who had wanted my head on the end of their revolver. And no matter how hard Domenico tried, suturing the wound with the same precious face that had been sighted this afternoon, I knew it would not close. For as it healed me, it too punctured me deeper and deeper each time.
The way back to the ranch was nothing but a blur, all that really stuck with me of our road-trip cut terribly short, was the sound of Nateʼs breathing – as obnoxious as it was, with a male sense of adrenaline pumping through his veins, I too found comfort in knowing that he would remain breathing in my proximity because I needed him. When he jumped on the break in front of the centuries-old castle, he nor Joe did hover, bothering me with attempts to halt me while my relatives found curiosity in the speedy manner of our arrival. No questioning looks were answered by my vocal chords, nor by my watery eyes, as I let Domenico waddle away towards Nonna and stalked into the house, going to my room with no detours heading towards the chocolate stash and slamming the door shut. It had me amazed. After all this time spent with soul-searching, understanding and healing it, all it took, was the indirect mention of him to make every speckle of Zoloft to abandon their post amidst the chemicals in my brain and leave me a catastrophically psychotic mess, with all matters of rational behavior thrown out the window.
In familiar patterns, I neurotically paced over the wooden boards in my room time and again, shook my hands clean of the hypothetical, future blood that would be on my hands, as if that would make the unraveling I foresaw halt in the slightest. My eyes, alike to the other organs that housed my ability to sense, were behaving sporadical, copying along to the panic that had my heart pounding in my chest, making the blood trickle out quicker as it did so. Only when my eyes caught wind a specific artifact above my bed, a specific photo, did they slow down and tell the rest of my body to follow their lead. My fingers reached for it without my command, wanting what they had but couldnʼt have anymore, grasping it, forcing my eyes to slither down and look upon it, destroying the last of my sanity with one glance at his joyous grin eternally captured.
Feelings that had been dulled down for weeks came rushing back to the surface, attacking me all at once and shocking my system, until they were completely free to reek havoc to their heartsʼ desires. Fear was pushing against the walls of my mindʼs fortress, anger was ambushing it with crossbows and sadness was fuelling their soldiers, bringing them absolute power to breach and conquer me. With so great a power, my own soldiers were rendered futile and were battered to their doom in mere seconds, and left the fortress up for grasp. Sadness swept through the streets of the fortress, bringing demise to all who vacated and thought themselves safe there. Anger tore down every wall to make every memory of a once blooming citadel die amidst the rubble. Fear entered the Royal Hall, ripping out the hearts of the Imperial couple, taking their crowns and thrones for its own.
As my heart bled, I could feel the demise spreading through my entire body, as if it were an anchor, a stunt double, for my mindʼs games, like a burning sore did it travel to the tips of my fingers and toes, setting me alight with a pain so vivid that even I had never felt it before. And this pain sparked a desire to have this anguish lifted off my shoulders, so I could breathe and be my own executive once more, not have it overthrown by a conniving tyrant. To only way to defeat this foe, to not feel the demise it sowed, was to not feel anything at all. To defeat my foe, I resorted to the only manner which I knew was capable of such a siege: total and unconditional destruction. Two oval bombs, that could be dropped above the citadel, filling its tiers with pearly white fumes, bringing suffocation to whatever still remained alive, leaving not a fibre of their beating hearts untouched.
But I did not. Against the will of my demons, I breathed slowly, driving them away with the Imperial Inquisition. When Sadness, Fear and Anger were no more than a ghost in the rumble of the citadel, the Empress once again climbed her throne, with her sceptre in one hand, her crown again perched upon her head and in the other hand, as if it were an orb and cross, their still hearts, their tissues greying as their life had formed into a scarlet puddle on the floor. She pushes her heart back inside, embracing it as a broken part that could only work sluggishly. She didnʼt need her whole heart to sit upon her throne, to only rule over ghosts in a destroyed empire, and neither did I.