When the Flowers and the Stars Sing

VII: ARIADNE

This is the story of how I died.

I awoke to the sound of the waves and the foam of the water tickling my bare feet. It was night, and there was no star in the sky. Around me, only darkness and silence.

A minute went by, then another, and then another. I didn't move a muscle because of a strange feeling in me that I couldn't explain: if I made even the slightest movement, I thought, I would have lost everything.

I didn't realize right away: it was a slow death, the kind that wear you down from the inside and extinguish every glimmer of light that remains in you one by one, and you suffer and suffer and cry in the pain that afflicts you so insistently, but you can't still figure out what's going on, until the moment comes, and the soul leaves the body before you even understand it.

When I finally plucked up my courage and stood up and looked around me hoping to see him, he wasn't there.

And then, and only then, I felt the cold arms of Death suddenly wrap around my shoulders, and for a moment I was so tempted to abandon myself to His embrace once and for all.

I should have realized that sooner; the way he looked at her, the way he talked to her, and the way I began to be less and less part of the hours that made up his day: they were all very clear warning signs, but I was too scared to take them.

I spent my time deceiving myself that everything would be resolved once we would have reached Athens, that everything would have gone back to how it had begun; in the end, i loved him and he loved me, that's all we ever needed. It was us against the world, it had always been like this, I didn't understand why everything would have to change suddenly.

A sweet hoax, a foolish hope. That was it, and it was nothing more.

A thought popped into my head, and I wish once again to be dead: "Has anything really changed for him? Did he truly love me, or was it just another deception destined to end?"

The fear of having been the only one to feel love between the two suffocates me, tightens my chest, clouds my mind.

I can't think of anything else, and a feeling that is mixed with anger and despair knots in my throat, and that prevents me from screaming. I try, but no sound comes out of my mouth.

I was alone.

I was abandoned and betrayed by the person I thought was closest to my heart. Awareness kills my soul which runs away from me and also leaves me to bear my body alone, this shell of flesh which no longer has a reason to exist.

I had truly believed that I was special to someone, how could I ever know that the one who for me was the only one in the world didn't see me the same way, when he promised me that he would have given me all his love until the end of time?

I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to curse his name and all his family and all the children he will have with her because nothing would ever give me peace until I saw him suffer like he made me suffer.

But I didn't do any of this; I surrendered to the tiredness of my body and bent my knees and dropped to the ground, contemplating the horizon of the sea and hoping that, perhaps, he would come back.

What seemed like months to me went by, and the Sun rose, and the knowledge that that would be one of the last times I would be able to see Him nestles in my lungs, now tired of breathing.

How long would it take for Death to take me with Him and transport me to His lightless realm?

Sure, I could have always shortened the wait and fix the problem myself. The waves called me to them and every minute that passed the temptation to let them suffocate me was getting stronger and stronger.

But somehow, I didn't deserve it. That situation was my fault.

If I had never looked at him from afar, if I hadn't let him kiss and touch me and I hadn't been persuaded to help him, I would never have found myself there, alone and trapped in a prison with no way out.

It was my fault, and I certainly did not deserve the consolation of my body's death.

I decided to leave it up to the Gods to decide when would have been the moment I would have deserved it.

Only They could have decided my fate. I convinced myself that the only thing left for me to do was pray: pray to get their attention and maybe convince them to give me my end faster.

It worked out more than I expected.

I don't remember how much time I spent whispering prayers to the Gods, kneeling on the seashore as the waves dying on the beach gently brushed my landed nose.

But I do remember the shiver I felt going through my spine when I felt his arm around my shoulders and his fingers under my chin nudging me, slightly, to look up.

For a moment, I thought it was Death.

For a split second, I thought the sweetness of the end would come like this, caressing and holding you like it was someone you love and who loves you back.

I soon realized that that was not the case.

Before me, another figure, which I had never seen before except in the paintings that adorned my palace; before me, a figure that shines with its own light.

Before me there was a god, and he caressed me and held me as if I already loved him and he loved me back.

I lost myself in his eyes, and finally, without thinking about it, I abandoned myself in his arms.

And finally I cried, and I cried, and I cried and I thought I'd never felt more alive than before.

I felt his gentle hands running through my hair, I felt his immortal breath in my ear and his head resting lightly on my shoulder, and I clung to him so tightly that I completely forgot about his divine nature because in that moment he is the one who saved me, the one that took my soul by the hand and brought it back to life when I had lost all hope.

When we break the embrace that has held us close to each other for what seemed too little time, he soothed my cheeks and looked at me with his gaze as beautiful as the setting sky, and said, softly , as if he wanted to tell me a secret only to me in a room full of people: "I heard you."

And so months go by, for real this time, and time means nothing to me anymore but in just a few mortal hours we'll be married.

I'm on Olympus with him, watching the stars light up the night, and he holds my hand and I think how funny life is sometimes: you lose a man and you find a god. You die and then you become immortal.

I feel like laughing and he, seeing it, approaches my face to kiss my smile.

When our lips are about to touch, for that umpteenth time, he stops and looks up, towards the starry vault, and shows me a dark point in the sky, where nothing yet shines.

"You always tell me how I lit up your life like the stars do with the sky" he says, "let me show you now how you lit mine, my love"

I kiss him as new stars are born above us, fading away every last trace of darkness that ever hung over us.

This is the story of how I came back to life.