Paranimal

Chapter 9

I wait until after I've eaten dinner with my parents and thoroughly showered before taking a look at Volowskii's last gift.

Sprawled across my cosy bed, I gently take out the thick oblong package and stare at it, worriedly.

What could lie between these fine folds of hazelnut paper, the thin sheet of secrets? Would some things be best left untouched? Do I want to remember, to feel the pain all over again?

Gingerly, I pull on the strings of the purple ribbon, letting its course texture graze across my pale palm. The bow falls apart, and slowly, I untie it before peeling back the crispy paper, my heart pounding, a cold shudder running down my spine in desperate anxiety.

What could Vol have possibly left for me?

I decide that the tension is too great...and tear away the wrapping. To reveal...another layer of paper. What the hell?

Slightly excited, I tear away the next layer. And the next.

What is this? What game is Vol playing?

Frustrated, I rip away the next three sheets. Grrr. Another. And another. The package has decreased visibly and now it is little more than paper-thin. Tearing off another layer, I finally reach the last sheet. But inside...

A single sheet of curled yellowing parchment flutters from my hands, drifting like a lost autumn leaf before sliding along the pale floorboards to rest beside the double glass doors of the balcony.

Scrambling from my bed, I run to kneel beside the sheet, gingerly reaching out, then picking it up and turning it over.

It's difficult to find anything handwritten and even more rare to come across paper, yet here in my hands, I hold something so precious, I find my hands shaking.

The parchment is a very pale yellow with a rough texture and slightly curled around the edges. Black inked letters roll in Volowskii's sophisticated and beautiful handwriting.

Holding the precious artefact as gently as I can, I begin to read Volowskii's last words to me:

My Dearest Bertie,

I hold very little doubt that you must be desperately at loss with the world. For one so young, it cannot possibly feel right to experience a pain so beyond your own understanding, a pain very much unfathomable. I too, have suffered what you now must be enduring, and thus, I agree, it does not feel good in the slightest. But with time, a wound heals, even if the scars remain with you forever, but even if there is no complete redemption, there is ease of a certain extent. To ask you not to weep and mourn for me, would be beyond any sane man's mind, therefore, I simply ask for you to shed a little light around you, even if the pain still pierces and the tears still roll.

Time will teach you that no matter how strong a love is, there will always be pain. How can one possibly understand what it is to love, if one does not know how it feels to hate? How can you feel the heat if you cannot feel the cold? How can you know what it's like to see beauty, if you have never seen the ugly? Life is full of many hardships that we feel we cannot conquer, and at times, this is true. Not everything can be defeated, whether good or bad, but as I have told you, time and time again, as long as there is love and strength, there will be a spark of light, a shred of hope, no matter how small.

Now, I hope you found the whole opening procedure rather exciting. As i wrote this letter, I could almost imagine your face, tearing at the paper; impatient as always. Oh, how the young have little patience. However, just this once, my patience is running particularly low too. There will be too many things left...unsaid. But neither am i too sure that those words were chosen to be spoken, even with my experience as a public speaker and leader of the Felidae's, I feel that no amount of speech could have done justice to what I am about to tell you. It seems so much better, written, with every full meaning, every detail, instead of just the surface, brushed by our voices, never fully explained, never really understood.