The Classical Elements.

I was exhausted from this daily routine of mine. It was frustrating and I couldn’t go on anymore. I kept thinking of running away as I headed home to my little room in the suburbs of London from the restaurant I worked in after school.

I live in the house which belonged to my grandma, who adopted me after she found me at her doorstep. And, I was brought up by her, rather with care, unlike the typical orphan stories. But ever since grandma died, my problems started. The heir of grandma’s house was her witch of a daughter, the middle aged woman who thought of me as nothing but the burden of her mum’s infinite generosity. The sole reason she let me live there was because it was one of the conditions applied to her when she inherits the property.

I get in from the back door, since Ms. Rosie ( lazy )  Dawner didn’t like ‘sundries’ to  go through the front one, since it ‘lowered the sophistication’ of the family. I was as quite as I could be climbing up to my room. Locking the door of my room in the attic, I threw myself on the bed, still wearing my worn out jeans and Linkin Park t-shirt.

I was at the verge of falling asleep, and as if on cue, Ms. Lazy shouted.

‘I want my clothes folded, you urchin! ‘ I heard her say. She’d call me various names filled with her ‘love’ towards me ever since she got the house, and, a year later, it meant nothing to me.  ‘I’m going out for the night! And when I come back, I want them folded!’   she announced to me.

I stared at the ceiling, thinking about the peace I’d find tonight, although whether or not she was in the house didn’t make any difference to me.   the door slam shut, meaning that the devil went out. Plenty of time to fold her clothes.

I sat up and picked my bag from the floor, placing it in front of me on the bed, pulling out the bundle of my earnings from weekly tutoring at school. Done counting, there was £50.

I looked for my little box, the one I kept hidden under a loose wooden floorboard in the corner of the room.

Finding it, I sat legs crossed on the floor, and ran my fingers along the elegant design carved on the lid. Looking Inside, I scanned the components as I had done so many times previously. There was moderately thick bundle of money, not much, but not less;  a little blanket, the one I was wrapped in when grandma found me on the doorstep, and a thick wad of photos held together with a rubber band.

I started looking through them, the pictures of my childhood, spent with someone who wasn’t related to me, but still loved me more than her own. My first days of school, and all those first times in my life of sixteen years. But there were two others, of a baby wrapped in the same blanket which rested in the box, held by a couple, who I assumed would’ve been my parents. These two photos came here with me.

The woman, my mum, had black hair like me, with a petite frame, and wore a smile which exhibited grace even when looking from a photograph. My father on the other hand was the beholder of stern features, yet his brown eyes were filled with love as he looked at the woman holding the baby. Seeing these pictures meant that, although I could reminiscence the life with grandma, I also had to carry the burden of  questions I asked myself, like  “why had my parents left me?’ ‘What had I done wrong?’ ‘Didn’t it hurt their conscience to leave their own child at the doors of a stranger?’ and yet, I had no answers to these.

The realisation of the tears running down my cheeks was anomalistic, since I had never cried for those people. I wiped them down and that was when I realized that the ring on my pointer finger was giving off a faint glow.

Taking it off, I felt the hollow of the engraving on the inner side of the ring. This ring was the thing my name was derived from. It was hanging from a black thread round the neck of the child 16 years ago, carrying the engraved portrayal of my name, Aelia. There was also something written beside the name, something like άνεμος, although I couldn’t understand what it meant. I looked at it more carefully, looking for the insignia of that glow the ring was giving off.  But how could it? It was, as far as rational thinking went, the mere fantasy of my mind, which was waiting for a miracle to happen – a miracle which didn’t exist….

 All that did exist was feeling of restraint surrounding me, a feeling I had to get rid of.