To The Place I Belong

SYLVIA

Sometimes, peace isn’t sleep, or food or music or locking yourself up away from the world. Sometimes it is just people and places. I’ll tell you what- I think, for me it’s Ethan.
I have never felt this good before. It’s been a while, and I think I do want to belong to somebody.

By the time I made my grand appearance in the entrance of my house, it was shaking with the warning of a cold war. Jane was sitting at the sofa with her head completely turned away from dad who was luxuriously sipping at his scotch glass at dinning table. There was silence-stone-cold, bone-shattering silence.
“Wassup?” I asked eyeing Jane.
“Ask him-that old hag-”
“Don’t you dare call me a hag you burdensome sack of a 100 kgs…”
“I? 100 kgs?” Jane almost snorted “Even if I am, that doesn’t give you the licence to ruin you health at this crucial- ”
“Jane Davenant! You better don’t instruct me and dare you call me by that ruddy tag-‘hag’”
“So this is what it is about? 100 kgs and old hag?” I asked utterly irritated.
“Wh-what? No! Syl can’t you see what that drunken bastard is doing? Ruining his liver…”
“Just once won’t do me any harm and anyways I have lung cancer not liver.” Dad stated emphatically, trying with all his might to justify what he had been doing .
“For god’s sake dad,” I said making my way towards him, “Lung cancer doesn’t imply that you’re allowed to intoxicate your liver and end up in hospital bed for another two weeks.” I was now looming over him with my threat-like pleas. “I think it would be best to send you away to the hospital and keep you there until we get you cured completely.”
“Yes, do away with the hag, it’s a nice idea” said Jane nodding vigorously and with triumph radiating on her face.
“Wha-WHAT? You two got nuts in your head or somethin’?”
“Yes, we got that.” said Jane, relaxing at the sofa and flipping through a magazine.
I emptied the glass in the wash basin and took the bottle of scotch in my hand, as a “now-in-custody” sort of thing. He knew that rules once taken into my hand could not be changed easily.
He took flight into his own bedroom, thundering at us, eventually bolting the door with a crash.

I seated myself at the sofa, and Jane turned around to look at me like a perfect gossipy lady who wants news on your life, as a what-has-been-happening-lately thing.
“No nothing.” I dismissed her even before she could begin.
“What? You’ve been out with someone, after let me guess what, like in two whole years and you’re saying nothing? And you want me to believe that?” Jane’s manner of throwing around those sentences at me was what I called 18 years of Jane-ish expertise.
I didn’t want to discuss any of it so I went over to the larger sofa and flung my body on it, with my head on Jane’s lap.
“Jane?”
“Yes dearie…” she replied stroking my hair gently, “they want me to go to the graveyard.”
“What?” and then there was a pause, she asked again, “but is that an alarming idea?”
“I believe yes, it is.”
“Why so darling?”
“I…” the words got stuck in my throat forming a hard lump. “I-I don’t really know…”. “Sometimes I just don’t know about the ‘whys’ of my behaviour, I just don’t. But is that okay?”
“Okay what?”
“Okay to not know why people behave in a certain manner, especially when the ‘people’ here concerned is me?”
“Oh darling, of course it is, to not know. Of course. It’s ok to not be okay, it’s okay to not know the whys of life, and its ok if you don’t feel like yourself. It’s not a crime darling. But that’s how complex humans are. That’s how complex life is. Anything apart will be recalled not as ‘life’ but as ‘death’-no emotions-no complexity-no questions-it is death my dear.” She then added, “and about the graveyard thing, what’s in a graveyard, Syl? I know the air around there is morose, melancholic, quiet and things like that but that doesn’t change anything, does it? Even if you don’t wan’t to go I don’t think there’s anything wrong about that. But it’s about time, we need to grow out of certain things that intoxicate our minds.”

I sat up, hugging her tight, sucking in as much of Jane-ish fragrance as possible. She is the most lovely woman I will ever meet, only after my mother. She has that vibe that one can never repel.
For a length of time, I lay there, not moving, before I dozed off finally, it was the greatest comfort-a closure of the world.
…
“I will go to the graveyard, but not in here. I wanna go to the one at Rochdale” I ended and looked up at the four of them. The library’s silence wasn’t harmed by my soft murmur. Instead, it added a chill, nobody could shrug off. At the most it made George drop a heavy book on Isabel’s foot and in turn received a slur of niceties and endearments.
“But why?” asked Ben, “few days ago you wouldn’t want to join and today you even come up with some specification, is everything all right?”
“Yes, everything is” I assured him sealing my assurance with a smile.
Ethan intervened to say “it’s okay if you want to go there.” His hand was extended and placed over mine, pressing it gently but I shook them off immediately. He continued, undeterred, “Our main motive is a graveyard. The location isn’t a concern. So Rochdale then.”
George, the most astonished and seemingly scared whispered something into Ethan’s ear while we exited the library with a handful of books on Graveyard poetry. The whisper sounded something like “Are you sure?”
All Ethan could do was nod and and blink his eyes.
“Tomorrow, at what time but?” asked Ben. “When does the cemetery open? Sylvia?”
“11”
“Sure?”
“Positive.” After all who could know it better than me.