Her name is a mist that light brushes without ever piercing, a sigh etched into the foam of rivers of abundance. She exists like a wish—half present, half absent—and the other flowers bend as she passes, not to honor her, but to listen to the silence she leaves simply by awakening.In every syllable of her name lies the weight of a drowned love and the lightness of an innocence that withered too soon.
"You turned out to be my redemption—more than that: the true reward that gives meaning to all my losses."All those days spent searching for the why of this "me" put to use became days devoted to the how of this "you."Perhaps you are only a flower, but you embody everything I needed.
Impossible to say when, but as I went on, as I got lost, I found a tree on the far plains. I couldn't bear being among them any longer except out of respect for the years gone by, and I had no desire to take part in that now-inevitable war between villages.Each time I returned, I heard the drums—here, I heard only the winds.
"I was alone, lost in loss and redundancy. But when I found you, you filled all those lacks. You became that companionship, the reflection of what I had lost, yet what it was still possible for me to preserve."
At the threshold of that tree, I found a passage speaking of a flat expanse said to hang above our heads. A flower marrying the orange of dawn and the pink of dusk.She was so beautiful, so young, so innocent, that I decided to feed her, to accompany her until she unfurled.
"You grow so fast, and yet you remain so wise. If only I could have been like you… A simple presence that a single remark would n—"
I watered her; I spent all my time telling her my life, my readings, my abandoned wishes. I witnessed her awakening, her rise from the soil, her ever-widening bloom—the only thing capable of holding so much beauty.
"Sometimes I wonder if it was the Angel's will. I mean: he's the one who let this sickness spread, and watched the fruit of what they provoked."
Soon, she was as tall as my posture on my knees. And, against all expectation, still able to reach further—as if, while keeping her innocence, she could pursue her sublime.
"Did I do right to stay by your side? Wasn't it mad, selfish?"
"—A——"
"?!"
"The only madness is believing you were wrong to exist, Addonis.""O-Ophé…? Y-you…"
"Now that I see your medium-length, wavy, platinum hair; your fine face, uncommitted to any single choice; your gentle hand despite its wounds… I don't understand them."
I didn't know what to answer. Words slipped away. My face trembled on the verge of a rare sob.
"This is the place where you have the right to be proud. You gave me life. You gave me speech. And the right to thank you."
"Ophélia…"
"But you also did more—you gave me a name, you drenched me in your selflessness, cradled me with all your words, watched me through each of your vows. You did what none of your kind has ever done. For yourself. Or for anyone."
"…"
"You truly devoted everything you could to someone other than yourself."
I thought I was going mad. But wasn't I, in the end, the most lucid of all?
"Not to what wasn't, nor to what might be.""I—I… Is that true?""As true as your pains ever were."
They could all think what they wanted, fight for the glory of a hypothetical result. I had—…
I couldn't hold it all back. My tears, perhaps for the first time, ran down my cheeks. For the first time… out of happiness.
"You told me your books always ended with the same quotation.""You remember that? It's onl—""To accomplish the world behind the world, the door behind the door, the wish from ever further away.""If the living being longs so ardently to go on, even beyond the book…""Then let him remember the passage found only at the end of his pages."
It was a riddle I never solved.
Perhaps because I never searched in the right place. Or perhaps… because I never looked at what was before me, in the right way.
"Are we there now?" Together. "Or… is it soon?"
We both knew what was coming. On the same wavelength, we kept talking, laughing, imagining the possible.
Yes, a war could very well break out. Either way, I would be gone long before.
"See you tomorrow, Addonis.""See you tomorrow, my Ophélia."
I took the road back to the village. And even if the air had cooled, even if it carried a sinister tint, I was too busy thinking about tomorrow. That was it—the world behind the world. Close, unique, mine alone.
I hadn't needed to die prematurely. I had only needed to survive… until that instant.
Perhaps that's why I saw nothing before I returned the next day.
When I crossed the plain, the forest, following my own traces left on purpose to find her each time… When I smiled like a child. When I failed to see that something was missing. Or rather, that something was no longer there.
I wished for only one thing: to lie down, to listen to her again, and for her to confirm I had followed the right path. The one leading to the true transition.
No more pains.No more wounds.But why hadn't I noticed that yesterday's cold air had turned incandescent?
And then, like that blade stroke that stopped me short.As I stepped out of the forest, everything halted.As suddenly as it had appeared.
"Companionship."
But within the lie, I walked.
Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.
Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.WalkedWalked.Walked.
Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.Walked.
And there is where I was supposed to find her—curiously close to a tree I had come to know by heart.
It was at that instant,at that heartbeat,that meaning lost its reason.