The come back

- I wanted to tell her how much I had been missing the old life. I wanted to cry a little, with melancholic eyes. I wanted to feel as much sorrow as she felt that night when we found each other again. But I couldn't. I felt no sorrow, I wanted to never return. That life, the one from long ago, was lost to me, it was a blur that ached in my mind. I wanted to forget. Fernanda was siting across the table, telling me her adventures of the past years. I listened with a smile. I nodded every single time, laughed and cried when it was necessary. I looked at her and said "I missed you" with a truthful feeling. She left and I forgot the old life.

- You can't forget just like that, honey, snap and it's gone.

- I can.

- Come on, you know it's not possible. Maybe you've tried, but if you're still feeling the pain...

China stood up, a car just stopped by the street light. Romi was walking back from the motel across the street. The dealer wasn't there that night. I looked up to the night sky, the stars were nowhere to be found, only the city lights glowed on the clouds. The light hurts my eyes, I thought. And so does the memory. I smiled at Romi as she sat next to me on the bench. I also whispered a song. 

- Are you praying?

- No. I've never prayed.

- You don't believe in God?

- I don't believe in religion... It's different.

- How come?

- Well... - I paused. - It's hard to explain.

- We've got time. There's no other costumer around, but the one that China is up to. - China entered the car and sat next to the driver. It looked like an old car that had just been renewed. - So?

- It's the system. I don't believe in the system. I don't think it works. If there is a higher being out there, if we are his, hers, its creations... Why are we setting the rules for him, her, it? Why do we decide that it wants us to strike, with words and fists, those who doesn't believe what we say it said? The Bible is but a book, and books are objects, objects are made by people, humans, like you and me, not gods, mortals like us...

- Wow... You are really hurt, huh? Does it really ache that much, darling?

- It does.

I was having a rough night. Seeing Fernanda for the first time in years took my mind back to the dark days. I had nightmares every day, ever since. It all came back, the struggle, the war, the cell, the beating, the agony... the release. I've never told them how I was finally set free after a year or so of torture. I've never told them about that last conversation with The Voice. It destroyed me. It made me the creature that I am today... And here I was, thinking that everything was going to be OK, that I could finally go back to the world of the living, to the sunshine. Just a night filled with memories and I was stocked again into the shadows.