Life's Pathway

I took a small break from Fall of Constantinople, and I started writing short stories to hone and improve my writing skill. Enjoy it, and still take note it's my first attempt, so it might not be that interesting. :grin:

Life's Pathway

They started again, the loud sounds coming to his ears like cannons firing their deadly, shrieking shells. The young teenager cupped his small hands over his ears and curled himself in an awkward foetal position in a corner of the living room sofa. It seemed all distant to him once he covered his ears, but he still couldn't ignore the sounds coming from the kitchen. They were muffled by the thick door covering the entrance to the kitchen, but they were loud enough to be discernible and fully comprehensible, adding to the sadness it caused from the beginning. The rasps came constant with brief periods of silence, like tsunami waves crashing in a wall with a precise cadence. The boy shrugged off his fears but the tears started leaking in at the corner of his emerald green eyes. He let himself fall easily on the Persian rug in the living room and, more dragging himself than walking, he headed towards the oak door of the apartment. Taking out his usual sneakers from the shelf beside the entrance, he opened the door slowly without making any sounds and left his house, leaving behind the raging battle between his parents, who were unaware of what was going on with their own son.

Outside the grey block of flats cornering a large boulevard, a cold and snowy afternoon blew against the youngster's face. It soothed him, but he was still in shock and dismay at the constant domestic fights he had to endure without saying a word. To him, the people wandering around the streets, seemingly enjoying the whiteness and purity, looked as if he had entered a completely different world, far from the problems and quarrels he was seeing and hearing every day in his house. As he stood idle in the middle of the sidewalk, a small child came around him laughing continuously, hiding behind his legs trying to fool his father who was following him in a playful manner. The teenager only managed to show a faint smile as the father came around him and hugged his toddler, taking him away to the rest of his family in a chorus of laughs and applause from the mother and the other children beside her. It was a silver lining he couldn't grasp, even more so the steam he blew off which formed curious figures in front of his eyes. Crumbling, and crumbling fast, with no future, the boy thought. Tears flooded his eyes, no longer able to contain his sorrow and unable to bear the view of the picture of happy family unfolding beneath him. Strangely enough, he felt no blow, no shock, as they continued to enjoy their moments together in front of him. The inevitable comparison with his own family sent a shockwave through his entire being, making him desperate to forget about it and think of more enjoyable and pleasurable things that life had to offer. Shaking from inside like a man with hypothermia, he thought to himself he should stop continuing this shameful behaviour in front of the people walking on the streets. But he couldn't. It was too hard for him.

Walking adrift like a rudderless ship amidst high seas, he fumbled against the powdery snow magically set atop the roads as it gave off a beautiful white aura. Coldness came to his feet as the sneakers he wore weren't the most recommended footwear in this type of weather but he ignored it. Because of his will or because of the experience, he couldn't have said if you have asked him. He managed to walk a couple more meters until he stopped abruptly, lowering himself to the pavement to rest against a telephone pole. He sobbed continuously, and even when he looked up, he bent his head upwards completely, hot tears dripping inside his clothes from the edges of his face. His eyes were no longer the emerald bright green you could delve into without measure. Now they were nothing more than two freakishly red spots looking at you, resigned and with despair, that could not be grappled nor understood by anyone except himself.

He got up to his feet eventually and knocked the powdered snow off with a slight shove of his palms on the tweed jacket. Suddenly, without warning, the boy started running towards the middle of the busy road, heading as fast as he could go to the other side of the road. A couple of cars managed to avoid him but one of them skidded like a sledge in a frantic attempt to brake, softly hitting his side with the bumper. The impact threw him violently on the steel hood like a rag doll in convulsions, eventually dropping on his side back on the snow-covered tarmac. The world disappeared for the boy for a couple of moments but he regained his consciousness slowly. The webs had formed at the corners of his view steadily started to disappear, and he regained his full eyesight before long. He stood up and looked at the vehicle standing beside him, seeming like a mass of tangled steel. His young mind realised that these were the temporary effects of a strong concussion, but he shook it off and started walking again, fumbling even worse than before. For him, it seemed normal to get up and leave, but for the driver of the car who had bumped into him it wasn't such a normal experience.

“Are you well?” asked the scared driver.

The boy didn't bother replying. He didn't look back one moment, running again to the other side of the sidewalk between the cars which desperately tried to avoid him. He did not know where he was going. The drivers who managed to avoid him stopped suddenly but they did not ask where he was going, seeing him running away and clearly injured. Everyone was baffled and shocked, apart form the boy, who kept running in a direction unbeknown except for him.

The park beside the sidewalk he arrived at was nothing like he had seen before. He had never seen it covered in snow, but then again, he rarely ventured outside his house without his parents. He was more than 12 years of age, but even so, his parents did not regard parks as interesting places. He himself was too scared to come out of his own nest as shaken as it had been. Walking aimlessly through the park, which was devoid of people, he quickly a spotted a small grove of beautifully white oaks and pines that came into his view, offering him solace and enjoyment. Everything seemed unusually quiet around him, particularly because of the park, which was nestled between blocks of flats on one side and a residential area on the other. The boy let himself fall down on the soft blanket of snow, drifting off into a dreamless sleep between the tears and endless sobs.

He woke up slowly afterwards, looking towards a wooden bench that was empty. The whole area seemed deserted, and, by the time he woke up, his tracks were completely covered. He himself was covered in a thin layer of snow, his jacket and trousers almost white. Rubbing his eyes and shaking off the snow from his face, he went straight towards the bench and sat down. It was an eerie silence, he thought. Everything just seemed out of place, out of the normality, or the abnormality, that he had lived in. It just couldn't be real for him to discover a park, right in the middle of a big city resembling a small forest that no one visited. As he looked around him, he could see no one. He could see nothing apart from pure white snow, trees and a covered pathway leading back to the expanded city boulevard. The calmness soothed him and calmed him down, his crying stopped long time ago. Occasionally, like an infrequent beat, he could hear a car horn in the distance, but that was it. Gripped by excitement and joy, the boy jumped in the snow and started twirling in it like a playful dog rolling around in the snow for enjoyment. In those moments he forgot about his troubles and enjoyed his time as a child slowly turning into a teenager, still enjoying the innocent games that characterize every person in their youth. Although his family life was a shambles, he was as sound and as normal as any child. He wasn't the only one enjoying it, however. Behind one of the trees was an old man, with a beard as white as the snow at his feet, smiling warmly towards the child who was laughing by himself in the crystalline snow.

“It seems you have found the place, my young boy.”

Startled at the sudden sound coming from behind the the trees, the boy jumped to his feet, but slipped immediately, falling in the snow on his back as he tried to get away from the stranger. The man slowly approached him and showed with his gloveless aged hand the wooden bench that he had sat on before.

“May I offer you a hand?” said the stranger, offering his hand after seeing the boy's reluctance to come to the resting place.

The boy simply nodded and took the man's hand, feeling his impressive strength as he was pulled up from the mountain of snow that he was trapped in.

“Have a seat on the bench. Do not fear, I will do you no harm.” said the old man, sensing the boy's fear.

The young teenager didn't appear convinced but it was somehow the warmth that the old man emanated that eventually convinced him to sit down beside him. As the boy sat down, he looked through the kind, gray eyes and didn't speak for a couple of moments, still trying to understand the recent events that had happened in the past hour. It seemed as if he had left his old life behind and he had entered a new world full of peace and opportunities, whatever they were and whenever they might arise. It was just too confusing as he tried to clear his head and sort the experiences in his mind.

“You are not the first one to come here. Most people do not know about this beautiful place, but I think it is better that way. What do you think?”

“I think so too. This is a very beautiful place.” agreed the boy immediately, acknlowedging with a faint nod of his head.

“So what has happened with you? Why did you end up in this place? Nobody comes here on purpose. Everyone here comes by accident.”

“I don't know. I ran away from home. My parents keep fighting every day, they ignore me. In the last few days I have not spoken to them at all.”

“Is it that that is bothering you?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you know why they argue with each other?”

“I do not know. They always talk about not understanding each other, and that I am useless to them. I am a “deadweight”, that is what my mum has said. I do not know what it means, but I think it is something bad.”

“Have you done anything that may make them consider you like that?”

“I have always been a good kid. I never went out of their way, I always listen to them. But they ignore me. I am most of the times alone at home, and when they come back home, they do not even speak to me.”

“I see. Did they beat you or threaten you in any other way?”

“No. Father did that when I was young, but he said ignoring me is a better option for him.”

“Do you want them to talk to you?”

At that point the child did not know what to reply. He just shrugged his shoulders and started sobbing again in his chin, the analysis too hard for his young mind to bear. He wiped the tears off with the sleeve of his jacket and turned around back to the old man, seeing him look forwards towards the trees in front of his eyes.

“What do you see?” asked the man.

“Trees. Snow. White.”

“What do you hear?”

The boy concentrated and did not speak for a couple of moments.

“I hear nothing apart from the cars going on the streets.”

“Listen once more.”

The boy concentrated once more for a couple of minutes, blowing off the steam in controlled bursts as he focused on the sounds grazing gently against his ears.

“I hear the wind blowing. It blows against the trees. And with that it shakes the snow off.”

The man simply stood up and went towards the nearest pine tree, gently touching its branches covered in snow. He turned his head towards the boy but eventually turned his entire body around with a solemn expression on his face. Looking at the boy, he could see that his spirits had lifted a little, but he still looked confused and always bent his body to the left for some reason unknown to him.

“Your parents are fighting each other. Let them do it. You must understand they are doing it because they are different from what you are. You must learn to control your differences and achieve a balance within your heart. Look at the tree. You hear the wind blowing and you see the snow shaken off the branches. That is what you must do yourself. Let it go out, let it consume itself. You are doing yourself no good by simply running away. You are running away from your problems. Let me tell you a story, about my own life...” the man trailed off.

He turned back towards the tree, looking upwards towards its peak. He turned back again but this time towards the boy with a smile on his face, a smile of peace and self fulfilment that the boy had never seen before. It was an intriguing sight to see and explore at the same time.

“I was born in the age when you did not have all of the things you have today. Life was simple. Children like you played with other children freely. In our days, we had to go to work when we were your age. We did not like it, but we had to do it. And now you have the opportunity to change things. What I am saying to you, young man, is to make a change in this world. Do not run away from your problems, they will come back and haunt you like the ghosts in your dreams. You do not want ghosts, do you? Face the truth, however bad it sounds and however badly it will hurt. Your parents may not get along well, but you have your own road to follow, and you must learn from their mistakes. What they have done to you, do not do to your own children. Remember that.”

The boy didn't respond to the man, who came back on the bench and looked at him warmly through his small spectacles. He put a hand on the back of the child who seemed a bit more comforted, but still very confused and disorientated.

“Go now, and you shall see it in a different light.”

He acknowledged the advice and stood up beside the man, turning his neck around in a complete circular movement to admire once more the beautiful landscape that still seemed incredible and spectacular to him. The magnitude of such beauty could not be measured in his eye, and he knew that for the rest of his life he would remember these moments, they will always be deeply imprinted on his young mind. He turned to the man sitting beside him and simply smiled, offering a shaky wave of his hand. The man simply bowed his head, rested against his wooden cane for a couple of moments and turned around, leaving the path between the trees through the pathway between the trees, disappearing immediately between them. Standing there all alone as the snow came rushing down with wind gusts blowing powerfully, somehow the young teenager felt calm and fulfilled, his experience resembling something of a Buddhist illumination. The boy ran after the man, following his footsteps but they suddenly disappeared at the intersection, with another path inside the more populated area of the park. He knew nothing where the man was headed, and to him it was a mystery that only added to the existing confusion. He thought better of it, however, and returned to his preferred place, coming back to see his own tracks covered in just a couple of minutes by the falling snow.
Returning to his recurring thoughts about his parents, he thought he would speak to them like a man of the world towards his fellow men. But then again, the boy wondered if they would ever want to see him again after his leaving home. He was sure they would not understand his little failings; they would not understand the weakness of his poor, child nature. Would they even want to even talk to him again, he did not know. But he was determined to find out; the stoic determination of young child marked for life by an unpleasant experience. His mentor was gone, and something told him he would never see him again, but in his honour, he would consider his advice. Better yet, he would follow it precisely.

Leaving his place behind and once arriving back at the boulevard, he could see the driver of the car who had bumped him earlier. He sat resting against his vehicle, parked beside the edge of the sidewalk, looking shocked and with a cigarette in his hand. Puffing the smoke in short bursts like a chimney blowing off, he didn’t notice the small creature creeping up on him. Poked in the back, he threw his hands up in despair on seeing the boy and motioned frantically towards the police who came rushing towards his car. The driver looked at him straight in the eye but the young teenager didn't say anything. He did not resort to any other measures except for one. The boy hugged the driver compassionately and waved to him afterwards, smiling continuously as he slowly departed from his car. The police didn't understand what was going on, and neither did the driver, but they took no action as the boy left and lost himself in the mass of people on the sidewalk.

Back in his apartment, he found the entrance the door wide open, but there was nobody inside to greet him. There was no one to see his tears, no one to see his suffering. He was all alone, all alone to manage it and continue his life just as he had left it before leaving his room. He had suddenly matured all too quickly, but he had a life ahead of him that presented countless opportunities. Clenched tightly in his hand was a small piece of paper inscribed by the old man that would turn out to be the boy's personal motto later in his life.

“A crisis is the life's pathway – when you have managed to get over another crisis, you have taken the right road once more.”