Bane Of Time (Completed)

The life changing trip

   The books had always calmed me.

   Old books, new books, books that smelled of dust and memories and lives passed. When they surrounded me, I felt tiny in the most liberating sense, as if I could get lost amongst them like only one more story. Ironically, the world of words and tales and history was the one place I could rest my mind when I chose for it to be, while remaining exciting and new every other time. 

   The library, then, was a sort of safe haven I'd long since baptized as my own. It was no wonder I had ran away to it unthinkingly at the news. I was hiding and I was a coward for it, I knew that. My life was falling apart outside of this otherworldly realm of minds' corpses. But, I thought idly, it almost didn't count if I were here. I could almost ignore the quiet anxiety calmly wrapping its tentacles around my heart and squeezing with every breath I took. I could almost forget about the pain igniting my bones. I could almost silence the panicked thoughts of betrayal and self-hatred. 

   Everything was silent here. Numb. Empty. My distress was paralyzed and dull, somehow. My Father had always criticized me for that, disdain dripping off his tongue like venom with every word he stabbed me with. "You'd sit still and wave as you watch life pass you right by if given the choice," he'd say, and scoff, "Thinking, thinking, thinking. Where will you get thinking and not doing shit?" I couldn't help it. I was a coward, and scared, so very scared. 

   I missed Mom. It was a nearly successful escapade, but not quite. I knew the promise that the echoes of pain made even as I attempted to forget she existed, until my eighteenth birthday, which is next week, I'll finally be able to move in with her or finally get out from my father's bloody house and be free again. The books helped, nonetheless. My sad eyes were contrasted by my straight face. The bitter clench of my jaw when unnoticed by anyone who might care. And when I cried, I did it without a sound.

   It's that day of drowning, here again, the cold wash only I can feel. I don't want to get up. I don't want to move at all. And in that moment it takes all the strength I have to make a good choice, to reach for an oxygen tank and take a breath - that's my good mood music playlist. It gives me the thoughts I need, that I am someone worthy of love and joy. The first tracks aren't easy. They show the tears in my soul, but without that how would the soul stay alive? So I let them call to me and bring the salty rivers. This is how I stay alive. This is how the universe reaches me and tells me good things are coming.

   I hate my father, and my mother had every right to divorce him. How dare he insult her in front of me? How dare he judge my life style? "Go find a place to work at," he said, "go do something useful instead of reading these stupid books, life isn't a fairytale, and I'm not going to pay for your living once you move out from my place."

   I shut out every insult he ever said to me and ran to my manor to pack my bags, he wouldn't care if I left earlier than planned, I bet he would actually be really happy, he can finally bring his lovers home without worrying about me seeing him with them. 

   I did leave him a note saying, "I knew when you walked in the door the place would go to the dogs. You lacked the integrity to do any job right. I watched the way you cut corners on every little task, always taking the easy route. That stuff adds up, it really does. So though you're my father and I should love you, know this, I don't, not at all. When your life is summed up, when you see what you amounted to, you'll know you were no more than a puppet on a string. You'll know that without integrity you became a zero sum, your good and bad cancelling one another out. Yet really, if you're only good when it suits you, does it count at all? Isn't that just self-interest? Isn't doing the right thing when no-one's looking the only type of goodness that matters? Isn't it only the goodness that makes self-sacrifice and says "No" to bad deeds that counts? You never did that, not once. You were a leaf in the wind, and like that leaf, though you gave all the appearance of being alive you were just dying slowly, inside and out. It takes a courageous spirit to live well, one who knows how to walk the right path and does it just because it's the right thing to do. Now you look at me like I'm the crazy one, like doing the wrong things over and over is "just how we get along in the world." Well, I don't want that world; I'll be leaving now." not because I don't want him to worry but to write every word I couldn't say out loud.

   I sent a text message to Aishling, hoping she would read it after I leave town, so I took the train north hoping I would arrive during the daylight to my mother's cottage. I sit down in my cart looking out of the window, toward the green meadow, there was a happy song, a poetry to eye and soul, bright in all the hues our Earth can dream of. Soft grass, a line of willow trees, there I want to lay all day and read books while living free of responsibilities.

   People are right, life isn't some kind of fantasy, where the sun is always shining and the birds are singing, life has its ups and downs and it's my choice to live it the way I want.