On the Wings of Hope: Prose (Recognized)

To forgive

A blow. And yet another one.

Small streams of blood, flowing down from a torn apart skin.

Pain. Waves of pain, twitching the body in spasms, dimming the reason.

Desperate silent semi-cry, full of indescribable grief.

Angry face of the father, bent absolutely close. Naked wide-open eyes... a sight, filled with rage and fury.

Pain again, as always. More. Even more.

A lump of something warm, stuck in a throat, leaving no way to make a breath. A spittle on a floor – a spittle with blood.

"Father, stop it! I b-b-b-b-e-e-e-g-g-g you... what f-o-o-r-r-r?!"

"You, pitiful moron! Didn't I tell you, that you must speak with adults politely and with all imaginable respect?! Especially with one such as I! How have you dared to call me an insect? How have you dared to name your father as such?! You, ungrateful degenerate! Take that, you, bastard! Take it, maggot!"

A rattle, coming from a throat. It's possible to breathe no more.

"Stop it, now! Why are you beating my child again, you, fool! What sort of vile beast are you? Stop it now – you are going to kill him!"

A voice of his mother, which had hardly reached his consciousness – silent and tender voice, which has become both hard as a stone and yet somehow completely broken. It always was like that when his father punished him. But yet no more than that.

"Silence, woman! You are not in a position to give me orders here! I am in charge here, and you will carry out my will! That bastard has dared to call me an insect – and I do not forgive such foolishness! Did you hear me right?! I am a man to be proud and not some little pitiful louse – and I grant no forgiveness for such mistakes. Ever!"

A new blow, time and again. How damn painful is that... His body didn't become iron, no matter how strongly he thirsted for it in times...

And once again the voice of his mother breaches through the invisible veil – but this time it's so quiet... almost silent. How strange... does she speaks like that... or has he already ceased to hear?

A blow.

The world changed – all sounds simply vanished. Judging by faces of his parents, it was obvious, that they were still arguing – but he heard them no longer.

It appeared that father shouted something once in response to his wife, but then, suddenly, confusion break through to his face, and he almost lowered his hand, carrying a weighty wooden club... But – just for an instance. Only partially. Suddenly his face once again altered his form to a furious and terribly repellent kind. He turned back to his child. Now. He is going to strike once more now...

A blow. A blow. A blow.

A breaking wood. A new flash of pain.

The world dimmed.

* * *

A low voice, caressing hearing like warm waves of a sea surf. A bent face of his mother over his own. A flowing calm song.

A mix of gray and fair hair. Gray-haired... But she, his lovely mum, was yet so young... I must have the strength to sustain it. I have to – no matter what. I am obliged. No other choice is an option. I must.

And the oblivion comes again.

He opened his eyes. Indeed, it's still his world, the one he was born in. A kind one?

Mother, his dear mother has always been telling him, that this world is the one people see it – and the one they aspire to make it. The world becomes as such to every and each one. Good or evil, beautiful or ugly, full of incredible mysteries or totally senseless. It's impossible to say how, but the personal world becomes as such, time and again.

He closed his eyes. The hearing was slowly returning, and his body, though hardly, was gradually starting to be felt.

Then he fell asleep once more – and has been sleeping for a long time. It seemed to him as if the whole eternity has passed before his sleeping eyes, though in reality, it was, possibly, less than a whole day. He heard voices of people – heard their laughter and felt their joy. He exulted together with them, he sang with them all and his voice somehow intertwined in the common harmony of voices and then a song-joy, a song-triumph sounded even finer and happily. He rejoiced along with others – ones, able to rejoice. He loved life – despite obstacles, despite troubles. Indeed, he loved life...

And then he suddenly woke up...

* * *

A young man woke up and shook his head somehow awkwardly, trying to drive away recent delusion of a beating. Was that really a delusion, though?

No. He perfectly did know that it happened once – was part of his past. Indeed, he remembered it – what for, why couldn't he just throw away all these fragments of former memory of own tortures, why his devoted memory had no desire to do such a thing? For what unknown purpose did it store these old memories of years long since gone? Who knows for sure...

He tried to drive these events from his thoughts so hard, so strenuously thirsted to forget them... But – no way, it wasn't possible until now.

Why even now, when he was given so much by this life at last... his beloved woman, who is so close to his heart and who understands him from a half-word, loving deeply; fine job, allowing him to aid lots of people; glory, riches, recognition, success... why even now these terrible images – monsters of his past – still haunt him, flowing before his eyes time and again, as always? A reminder of what he had to suffer?

A warning?

Enough of running away, he thought suddenly. Enough of fearing. Enough of remembering of this and enough of constant milling it in own memory. The time has come to forgive people at last – to forgive for errors, to forgive and release this pain from oneself.

To forget – and to forgive. To forgive – and to forget.

And then, having faced a window and lifted eyes towards to ascending morning sun, he cried out "Father, I do forgive you now for all the pain and sufferings, which you have caused me. I forgive you and let you go in peace. Go now your own path. We will part our ways with no rage and hatred. Let you be forgiven by me!"

He cried all that loudly and joyfully. He cried as though warriors do after a long-desired victory.

"I forgive you! Let it be so!"

"Let it be so," his voice was carried far away to surroundings...

And just a moment later a wonderful music, a music of joy and triumph filled his ears. It was his own music – that one of his childhood.

A sign of his way.