1. Life Vs. Maiah
Life, full of mysteries, full of wonders, was knocking me out again. Life, temperamental as a toddler, strong as a weight-lifter, threw a punch right at my heart and crushed all my ribs in the way. But Life didn't want to stop there, not yet.
Life grabbed my heart with its sharp claws and started biting it. Life had fangs. Life was a monster.
It didn't help that Life had left my mother. She was there, lying in that coffin, staring at me with dark eyes that missed that spark. Her gentle hands were holding a single red rose. She hated roses. And I'm sure she would have been scandalized with all the make-up she was wearing right now. My mother was nothing like the woman that was right now lying there. Her free-spirit was everything but confined in the tiny space provided by the wooden box. But Life had left her alone.
And when Life went away, Death came with all its friends. Apparently my Aunt was one of Death's best friends forever and ever. Aunt, eccentric as ever, wouldn't even let me say a proper goodbye to Mother when she grabbed me and dragged me to her house. Being seventeen years old and fatherless left me without a choice: Aunt was my legal guardian.
Never, in my wildest dreams, had I imagined a life without Mother and with Aunt. There were many reasons they didn't speak to one another, one of them being that Aunt denied any link to the poor life they once shared. Mother, on the other side, always made the best of what she had. She taught me to be grateful no matter the circumstances Life gave me. I was finding fairly difficult remembering that on that moment. Life was smirking at me, I was almost defeated.
And when I thought that Life couldn't do anything more to destroy me, when I thought that my existence was forgotten, someone else came into my life. Love had usually been good with me, usually. Apparently this time it wasn't going to be that way.
