Pseudonym

The Last, Unfinished Story

Chapter 19: The Last, Unfinished Story

The last notebook contained Leon's story. No, I don't mean that I found his story in there and interpreted it from various poems and beginnings of novels as I have done previously. What I mean is that Leon himself tried to write his story.

He started it just a few days before he…ended it all for himself.

Too often I have been told that I write well. That I can put emotions write onto paper, saying it just the way it feels. I have written stories by looking through others' eyes. I have tried looking at life through others and exploring what it must be like to be them. All this I did in a quest to find myself. Indeed, after years of searching, I found that what I needed most was right beside me, right inside me. It has been there all along, though I have denied its existence. Buried deep in the corners of all our souls, covered by worldly things and cunning and evil and all forms of idolatry, lies love.

It has been twenty years since I became convinced that love did not exist, that people used other people despite all that they say. Religion became a 'ritual' to me. Hard work became worthy only when I saw that it could help me attain independence—from my broken family, from friends who did not understand, and from emotion.

Too long I have hidden behind smiles and a pen name. I have made my beliefs and they have made me. They are me. What am I now that I see the errors of my youth that I have grown up this way, that I have truly lost all chance of redemption from my hell on earth?

What now, now that I see for the first time since I closed my eyes on the suffering around me, choosing only what could help me find where I belonged?

What now, that I bleed again and she's not here to stop the pain; none of those who cared remain?

Could it be, that she was right, on those days that she told me that she loved me and love and all that was beautiful was real? How could I be so blind as not to see the courage and the strength that people have; that it is not merely emptiness and evil that the world has to show?

Is there any chance for redemption from this hell on earth I have called upon myself, knowing that there's no one else, knowing that all I have is myself, and a broken mask, a haunting pseudonym.

As a child I woke to see a brand new world through brand new eyes each day. The world was safe and happy and I knew nothing and everything. As I grew up, I saw what I thought was Earth's core: evil and spite and other synonyms. I cared not to see anything else but the ugly beauty before me.

There was a chance before, a chance to redeem myself. A candle in the wind, a lighthouse at the shore, an open door for my lonely wandering heart. Now I must wonder, where could it be today, why did I let her slip away.

Ria won't you come and save my day once more, won't you come so I can

And that was where it ended. The story was nicely written out (relative to his earlier notebooks—Leon's handwriting wasn't the neatest). I was speechless as I saw those last words on paper. What were his last words, his last thoughts? This meant that in the end…it was me. He needed me, and I wasn't there.

But even if I was there…I could never have been what he needed, never have given him what he craved after finding out what it was to feel that way once more.

Mixed emotions filled me as I read that unfinished story, that 'autobiography'. He had loved me. But it had been too late. How was I supposed to feel? Part of me felt relief—he was gone, so I would not have to think twice about my marriage to Carlo. Another part of me felt sadness for Leon. Who wouldn't? In the end, everything had been taken away from him. I felt happy for his learning how to love once more, yet unrequited love is a hard thing to be happy about! I was happy when I loved him, I was never jealous or angry or sad about loving him. I was only sad that he would never be happy. I can proudly say that I loved him selflessly. Could he have done the same?