Anathema

6:56am

It was a beautiful morning, Anathema thought, like any and every normal morning. The sky was bright blue, the sun delicately caressed her beautiful almost sculpted face, the wind gently passed through her perfect marbled hair. To any normal pair of human mortal eyes, she would appear to be a perfect, beautiful, accomplished lady, sipping her organic tea in a perfect synchronized motion, while admiring the view of her perfectly designed and ridiculously huge garden. 

But to her, Anathema thought with a certain cynicism, she was a lot of things, but perfect was not in any way one of them.

6:57am

It was one unforgettable year, she thought. Things took an unpredictable path, one she was still trying to understand. She was still trying to figure out a way around the consequences of this past year. Yes, things took one very unpredictable and very improbable path when evaluated from where she was standing. 

Lost in her thought, and only brought back to reality by an unpleasant experience she was living at that moment. 

6:58am

It was green tea, with a hint of jasmine and cinnamon, she realized with disdain after her third sip. Mortals are either deft or very idiotic. Probably both, she thought. She specifically asked for some green with a hint of rose and cinnamon. The rose washed three times, and the Cinnamon brewed thirty seconds in thirty millilitre of cold water. They thought she would not taste the difference, but if what she gets is green tea with a hint of jasmine and cinnamon, than What they'll get is an absence of reference for their next job, she nodded with a cold indifference. 

6:59am

So many things had happened in one year. Corvus was not part of her existence anymore. The passing away of the bastard was not as useful as he expected it would be, she thought with a vague regret. She could only blame herself, Cepheus had warned her about the implications of involving the bastard in the matter. She thought she was doing what was best for the family, at least that's what she was aiming for when it all started. She had distributed the seats of the circle in a specific order of importance. Cassiopeia wanted to start with the imminent family, she wanted to favour what she called the legitimates, the direct descendants of lady Astoria. She was the first one to publicly stand against inserting the bastard in the family equation. It was too risky for her. It turned out she was right, it was far way more risky than she would ever have anticipated. Anathema would never admit it, but the reticence of Cassiopeia Helped her a lot in controlling the damages her stubbornness and pride had caused to everyone. Anathema knew she was wrong, but that was the one thing she would never admit out loud, not to Cassiopeia.

7:00am

-My lady, your guest has arrived and is waiting for you at your study, announced one of her incompetent new staff. He brought... Hum... She added hesitantly before Anathema stopped her from continuing any further.

"You are meant to deliver a message my dear incompetent fool. I hope you took care of  The package with no irrelevant questions, nor any question at all" she said. And As if she was not expecting an answer, indifferent to her servant's obvious discomfort, she continued, "I expect for the table to be ready in two hours. The family are all coming to the blessing of our heir. Everything's must go by the book, or else my dear " she added with a dangerously beautiful cold smile in her sculpted face. "I will not elaborate any further. You are dismissed now" She said as she was walking to greet her guests.

8:58am

Everyone was present. Everyone who was supposed to be there was there. They were sitting around the large dinner table, contemplating and almost religiously admiring the beautiful figure that entered the ball room. She was walking toward them with a surreal grace, almost flying her way to the master seat. She was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her, exactly a year ago, Cepheus thought.  She was floating around the room in her traditional emerald green robes, he noted with an unfamiliar feeling of grief. 

"Greetings everyone. Here we are, gathered around the same table, ready to share this lovely meal together", greeted Anathema. "Shall our family be blessed, shall we all be blessed the same way I was blessed" she added with a slight apparent hesitation. "Shall our line be blessed the same way I have been blessed with an heir, my heir, our heir. The one that will insure our family's expansion, the one that will permit for our noble, powerful and ancient name to subsist. The heir that will permit the line of lady Astoria to flourish. The heir I was waiting for. The one we were all waiting for. Shall we, the legitimates of lady Astoria be blessed" she said with a cold confident voice.

8:59am

After they recovered from her spectacular, magical entry, some of the family members had suspicious looks, some of them were still beamed by her elegance while some of them clearly did not want to be there. Although, when she progressed in her speech, everyone was so silent that they could hear the sound of the wind outside. Cepheus was the most impressed with her. She changed a lot. She was not the naïf, idealistic young woman he once knew. But after what she went threw last year, he was frankly expecting worse than what was in front of his eyes. Corvus, it was his doing. He never thought he would ever be fond of the bastard, and he wasn't. Nevertheless, Cepheus was an intelligent, cunning man. He managed to get hold of the heiress, the matriarch, the head of the inner circle. She was already a lost cause when she got the power of command, and he, he was her saviour, her one and only. He became everything to her, her friend, her confident, her advisor, and after a while, her mate. She had the thrown but he had command. He had command for so long, everything was going according to plan. He was happy, she was happy, Everyone was happy. They were leading the life promised centuries ago, prophesied millenniums ago, at least they were living it up until one year ago, when she decided to distribute the infamous seats. Ever since she even started of thinking about the project, Cepheus knew it was going to cause him a headache he was not going to recover from anytime soon. He tried to make her change her mind, distributing seats meant one and one thing only to him, it meant opening the family register, which necessarily implies old agendas.  Cepheus was very intelligent. Cunning men like himself know that if there is one thing we should avoid bringing back to light, if we don't want to disturb the fragile peace, this one thing would be old agendas. 

To no one's surprise, he was right.

9:00am

"My lady, it is time" announced the servant while bringing the main plate.

"We shall begin, shall we now" smirked Cassiopeia from her seat next to Anathema.

"We shall" said Anathema when opening the plate with a subtitle hesitation that was obvious to everyone else in the room.

She looked at it. It was there. What she was waiting for all along, what they were all waiting for. It was the best blessing and the worst curse she could ever come across. It was the one thing that could guarantee her existence, the existence of her family, her clan, the people she was responsible for. She had to do it, it was an honour, a blessing, she tried to convince herself. It is a gift from existence that she should take without hesitation. It was her way out. Her only way to fixe everything that had happened, that she made happen, all the damage she caused would be forgotten after this. She had an opportunity of redemption, she had to take it and for his sake, she was going to take it.

9:01am

"Cold feet my lady" mocked Cassiopeia with a look of superiority that Anathema wanted to burn out of her face.

"We shall" said Anathema without consideration to Cassiopeia's comment. 

She took a deep breath, a fork, closed her eyes and opened the fest with her first bite.

While doing it, everyone was looking at her with anticipation and a hint of respect in their eyes. Cassiopeia's face was the one not to forget, as if she could never have believed her cousin was capable of such thing. To be fair, she never thought she could survive one day on duty, but now Cassiopeia had other things to consider. 

Cepheus could do nothing other than close his eyes. He was feeling Anathema's pain. Her unbearable deep horrible pain, hate and regret. After Cassiopeia's comment, he intended to stop her. He was about to stop her, but deep down he knew it was inevitable. She had to do it. She did it.

9:02am

"My lady, it is the way you hoped for it to be?" Asked the anxious servant that brought the plate.

Anathema looked at him deeply, as if she was not looking at him but piercing through his Soul. After an uncomfortable silence, she gave a quick nod and said with indifference:

"It tasted like any baby brain would taste I suppose", after a short pause she added "but than again, I never tasted MY baby's brain after all, how would I know."

Waves, Stars...

I’m counting stars, contemplating their beauty, quantifying their magnificence and underestimating their ability to backfire.
I have been surrounded by only stars for a very long time, a time where I never felt the need to consider nor to calculate a thing for that matter.
I had always taken it for granted, up until the time it could not be taken for granted anymore.

I was the consciousness that processed the information of their existence, I was the one who made them matter. I took them when they were only a wave of hope, a wave of wanting to be… I took them when they were not even sure what they were. I took them, I quantified them.

I was surrounded by abstract waves of incertitude, of undecided yet filled of hope entities. 
I processed them with my very own consciousness and made them one with nature. 
I can say this much about myself. 
I can say this much about the manifestation of what makes my presence present.  I carried this with me for more than I should have carried this with me. 
As unsettling as this might sound, it was an honor to finally deliver this unquantified unqualified state. 
I finally delivered the absence of my soul, the very reason I had to be surrounded with those unsettling waves of stars.

The End?

I was laying , powerless, helpless and hopeless
Assisting a live debate between life and death

When you came.

Feeling your presence has frozen my blood,
Obstructed my airways,
Stopped oxygen from going through my veins to my brain,
When it hit me,
It was time,
The moment of truth,
The ultimate test...

The one you were either going to pass or fail.

You don't realize it's the end until it really is...
when disappointment takes place...
when regret is in the horizon...
when big becomes small...
I guess this is it,

I'm done.

my love.

big.

Small?

You don't realize it's the end... until it really is.
You went away and left me behind.
You went away and left me alone.
You went away when I needed you most.
You went away and did the one thing I was afraid you would do...

I apprehended this moment since the first time I realized I loved you.
I kept asking myself what you could do.
I feared the answer as much as fire fears water...
I apprehended the answer I knew deep inside me.
I feared this moment since the first time I talked to you and realized i wanted you.

You possess my Soul...
Prisoner in your soft warm strong hands.
The warm heat that I feel when your fresh fingers kindly suave it, or when your gloomy look gets lost contemplating it...
I still remember the shiver going all through my spine when you hold it a little tight, and the aura of tenderness that crosses my chest when I see you powerless,
When I realize I can do nothing but help you.

Sometimes, I can't help but wonder...
who are you? what are you?
An Angel from sky or a devil from hell?
A blessing or a curse?
How can I possibly define this unquantifible passion I feel for you?

Nonetheless, none of this matters anymore.
Not here, not now.
Not after what you did.
Not after what you didn't do...

Big

All of it started the first time I’ve met you. I sat next to you in class, not on purpose.

At the beginning, I thought you hated me. I have no idea why though, probably because of the neutral expression of your face, or your "I’m better than anyone in this class room and I know it" allure. I wanted to know if you were actually as unpleasant as you seemed to be, or was it just a very unfortunate first impression that you give people. I wanted to know. I needed to know who you were. 

The occasion presented itself later that day, when the teacher told us to grab a paper and share it with the person next to us. I suggested we share mine, you politely refused with a smile of excuse. You already had a paper.
I was disappointed.

Go and ask me why. I have no idea.

Since the first time I saw you, you became the enigma to me. I wanted to know you, I needed to know who this mystery person was; the one hidden under that so perfectly made neutral expression that inspires curiosity. I felt an urge need to figure that out.

The first part of the class ended, and since we had a ten minutes break, I went to see my best friend that was waiting for me. I was so excited to tell her about how went my first class in college; I was so excited that I've  almost forgotten about you. I didn’t think I had to tell her about you so soon, it was nothing.

You were just the mystery big guy in my class.

While I was walking towards her, she was making a face. The happy "I just spot someone" face. I was happy for her.
I knew she wanted to experiment the whole teenage crush thing that was impossible for her since we were in a girls only high school. We both knew that college was the one place we could live the things we missed. 
We were not wrong.

I faced her with a very excited "what’s the new gossip" face, but her answer froze me. 

An awkward feeling, one that I never thought I would ever experiment, not with her, jalousie. 

It happened so quickly that I didn’t see it coming. 
It soon had been replace with guilt and hate. 

First: I felt guilty over envying my sister. 
Second: I hated you. 

You were standing like nothing happened, living your life the way you wanted, and not having to wonder why you have been put in my life, or why from all people, my best friend, my sister liked you.          
Yes, she liked you. And it killed me.

She saw you first, she gets you first. That was my plan. I didn’t want to piss her off, or steal her crush. I had mine. She has to have hers. I owed her that much. 

I decided to keep it for me. She shouldn’t have to know anything. She wasn’t going to know anything.

She wanted to know you name. I helped her. You were practically in all my classes. We looked for your name on the college e-mail, using my laptop. We were in the fifth floor, next to physics class. I remember. I was trying to be happy for her while trying to calm the monster in me that was clamming you mine. I knew I had to get you out of my head. My sister wanted you, and we wouldn’t fight over a guy. We shouldn’t fight over you, and we will not. We did not. The price is way too high, and you didn’t worth it. 

So I decided to step aside.

We found your name. We discovered that you were from a certain culture she was not fond of. She didn’t like that. 

She seemed to lose interest, but she kept talking about you still. I decided to go for it, we talked about you, the mystery you seem to be, the personality you would have. I kept trying to get you out of my head. You could become my sister’s boyfriend, and I couldn’t live with the fact of having misplaced thoughts regarding you. It was practically incest to do so. 
It became more and more urgent for me to forget you. 

Few days later she decided to let go. I guess her interest wasn’t that big after all. For me, it was a huge relief, because even though I decided to let you out of my head, I couldn’t. 
I cannot put words on the big happiness of mine, especially after she looked at me and said the one sentence that gave me freedom: «you can have him, I don’t care. »

I thought this would be the end of my nightmares.

Lord I was wrong.

It was just the beginning.

The painful beginning of a Long and life changing journey. 

                                                                                          

What should I do?

I feel like even though every morning is suppose to be a brand new page of our life' s tale, and the beginning of a unique and unprecedented story, but the first thing that goes through my conscience mind is a question mark. 

I wake up having no idea which day it is, which year we're at, or even what am I supposed to do with this life that happens to be mine. I drag myself to the shower where I face my special morning mask. Every morning is the same show, yet I'm  always surprised. Everyday is a new present from mother nature. If it's not a pimple, it is a dark spot coming from no where. If it's not sebum excess, it is visible pores. Every morning I am faced with a new concern, a new challenge. And yet, Every morning, I still am surprised.

I shower, I eat, I drink, I dress up for work, I go to work, I go to school, I pay my bills, I play with makeup, I watch movies, I eat popcorn, I buy nail polish, I play with makeup. 

Then again, I still feel an awfully painful emptiness. I try to read, I try to go out, I tried everything in my reach and power to empty the void, fill this nothingness that I happen to be experimenting first thing in the morning and that accompanies me throughout my day. 

Yet, I'm still trying.

And nothing works.

What if?

When you realize It is happening without you.
When you arrive late to the train station.
When you realize your train left,
Without you in it.

When you think  it's the end of it all,
When you think you did it all,
When you think  you own it all,
When you think you have it all,

When you realize you don't.

When your dreams are crushed before you start dreaming,
When you're answered no before you ask your question,
When you feel like dying, before you feel like living,

When you realize your life is happening without you,
When you realize your train is leaving you behind,
When you can't dream anymore,

When you couldn't care less.

When wanting to watch the sunrise you end up facing the sunset,
When darkness envelopes the horizons,
When lightning starts depending on inexistent stars,

When breathing becomes a chore,
When it is not about living anymore,
When it becomes about surviving.

When no senses starts making sense.