As The World Falls Down

Be brave for each other

"Please, Robbe."

He felt his cheek on his back, his arms tighten on him.

"Please." Sander's soft whisper brushed on his shirt.

Robbe closed his eyes, and took in the warm nearness of him, his arms which reached into his heart, enveloping it in a tight softness. His arms moved to cradle those arms over his body. Has anything ever felt so right? Like pieces falling soflty to their places, gentle clicks, filling the cracks and fissures, no lines, soundlessly. In that moment, everything felt so clear, no chaos, no grief, just calmness, just this simple sense of belonging. They stayed like that for a while. Then he let Sander turned him around, looking into his soft eyes.

"Can I tell you a story?"

Robbe stared at him and nodded silently. Sander took his wrist, they walked to the table and sat down, Sander didn't let go of his arm. Robbe waited for him to gather himself.

"Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved to laugh and found everything in the world to be beautiful. He had a beautiful mother who was gentle and patient, and a wonderful sister that he grew to love with all his heart. He also had a father, that was big and strong, that he admired as much as he feared. Since he was a baby, the boy was very quiet, he hardly cried but he also never said a single word. The boy could feel that his father didn't love him, not in the way that he loved his sister, even when he finally said his first word when he was two years old. But, even though he was quiet, the boy was cheerful as to his eyes the world was so beautiful. He loved the trees, the blue blue sky, he laughed with the birds and sang songs to butterflies, listen to the stars telling him secret of the world at night. Sadly the little boy proven to be more and more a disappointment, as he was slow in his learning, he stuttered or made nonsense sounds when he read, the little boy couldn't seem to get his letters right. 'The boy's mind is broken', his father said. The boy was sad and he tried to be better so that his father and his teachers would love him, so that his friends would stop laughing at him and called him names. As they grew older, the contrast between the boy and his sister was clear in everybody's eyes. The sister was fair, and clever, light on her feet and cheerful, the boy was dim, lazy, and always caught daydreaming in his study. But, the boy loved her just as much as everyone else, even more to his little heart. Because his sister was always kind to him, she never laughed at him, always played with him, and protected him from harm. They would run on the grass, arms spread wide because they believed they were birds and that they were flying toward the sunset. They would lie on the floor in the evening and she would ask him to tell her stories, because he made the best stories and she was always a beautiful princess in each of them. The world was big to them, they were the best of friends and insepareable."

Sander fell silent, his eyes distant, there was a small wistful smile on his lips. Robbe could see it his mind, the little boy and his sister, chasing sunset.

"So, even though he was sad, the boy was also happy, because he was only a little boy, he had his sister, his mother and the world was beautiful. When he was eleven years old, their mother was driving the two of them to school, when death came with his sickle. One second he was laughing with his sister, and the next second there was a loud crash, the world turned upside down, all was black and sharp glasses and pain, screams and blood. When he opened his eyes, the boy didn't know where he was because the world had changed forever. His mother and his beloved sister was nowhere, death had took them away from him. 'It's a miracle', they whispered. But the little boy didn't feel so. Why didn't death take him, too? The boy thought. He cried and cried, he begged for death to come, so that he could be with his bestfriend again, but even death didn't want him. Everytime his father looked at him, the boy could see it in his eyes, that his father thought the same thing, that it should be him and not his mother and his sister. The boy and the father were two broken people, who had lost the only thin line that tied them together, strangers living in an empty house. The father drowned his grief in alcohol and the boy lived in an endless thick, grey fog that he never seemed to get out from. The father would hurt him, and the boy learned to protect himself with fists and anger, because his sister was not there anymore."