---------------------------ACT 8--------------------------------------
ETERNITY
Page one.
Liliana and Laizen ran through the meads of spring, in the flowing grassland together.
Page two
They both turned seven years old today, their families united and tied their knot of fate.
She carried a garland on her head and a locket of her baby tooth he carried.
Page three
They turned fourteen, and bought their first sheep. They named it "Lien". Together, left their home town and set their foot in the world. Making friends, growing in harmony and love. They always had each others hand.
Page four
At the age of nineteen, they made a toast and drank a barrel of beer together. Made love,leaving a mark on the world. A hut they built, a small farm, pond, friends, loving neighbour. They had it all. The man built a statue of his women to leave a mark on history. The women cherished his lineage with bearing children.
They both did their best in their own way,
After this line started athyna's everyday diary.
Dear diary, was her friend with the words she couldn't tell anyone but the diary. Yet someone was there with her, a puppet, a doll, a clown.
After being immersed in the wall, Caesar walked on a giant page. The street carved with sentences as he walked on with a coat and a stick.
He looked behind and saw, a gigantic eye was looking at him, as the road stretched beyond the observers gaze. The sentences formed like plants growing.
He walked on them.
Clank!
He saw her life forming on them and passing. The shift from curiosity to dread. From lively happiness of everyday to slumber and weight of the crown He looked around, the sentences stretched in every direction.
Clank!
"I want to run away." That's how everyday of her ended. Chains of the crown strangled her life, her heart, her mind. With each word, his understanding of her was increasing.
The halcyonic feeling was hovering around like fog. Athyna thought of the puppet as her hiraeth and she was a lachrymose.
Clank!
Caesar walked further, birds chirped and cats purred. Many peaceful whispers and voices filled the eerie silence. He walked, crushing over the sentences.
"I wonder what it's like to be free?" He walked over it. The sentence slowly turned into a plant growing on emotions that were supposed to be there but weren't.
More sentences appeared: "Am I insane or is this world dumb?"
"You are just ahead of this place." He answered, the sentence started to germinate in a sapling.
Clank!
"If I ran away with you, would you marry me?", "I will," he answered.
"If I died, will you still unify with my corpse for the love? Or will the love die with me?",
"For eternity, I will preserve you."
As he answered questions, they dwelled in the darkest corners of the human mind.
He then noticed his arms and body were clanking, instead of crackling of the bones.
He wasn't human but a mere puppet. His body was tied to strings in the hands someone, a giant eye looking at him. Athyna when she was a mere child, watched him.
The sprouting plants slowly started to dry. The eye teared up, and the strings started to break.
....
Athyna was in a dream or was she waking up? She woke up with her head resting on her notebook, when she was young she was playing with her doll. She attached its strings in her fingers and made it walk on her notebook, using pages as the foundation for a small story she was thinking.
With a finger of her representing herself in the story, one day a small girl walked near a clown. He was showing off some magic tricks as the children left, the clown and girl were alone together. She watched his trick and took a balloon.
As Athyna was playing with her toy, her stepmother called out for her.
"Athyna!" She walked out, leaving the toy behind. Like a innocent butterfly, flying into a spider's web.
She heard the news that her mother had run away with her siblings. And now her new mother was her mother's sister who would handle the kingdom. Athyna, a small innocent girl, was crowned as the heir to the kingdom, the crowned one. Heavy and painful, she had to attend every assembly, every court trial as the heir.
"My head hurts." She pleaded, but she was silenced.
"My head hurts!" She cried, she was locked away.
"My head..hurts!" She shared it with her notebook, no one yelled at her. She was at ease.
........
Caesar saw a sentence beneath his feet, "My head hurts!" He knelt and touched it.
The strings broke, as he walked further. There was a peaceful silence, a undefined sized room. Where in the center was a three-legged round desk. He saw a small, white flower growing up there in a corner. Slowly withering away.
He walked near it, as he came closer, his veins were tightened as if turning into realistic veins of a tree. His leg numbed, his vision halved. A long branch grew from his right temple.
The strings which ones bound him were lay lifelessly on the ground. On the round desk,
Lay a doll. A torn doll, resting there eternally. Her neck, hands and dress were torn. He stepped near it, picking up the threads resting on the ground.
He broke a small pin like stem piece from his temple, as his whole bottom was turned into an old bark of a tree whose roots were deep shrouded into the ground. He sewed the doll, over and over. Until it stood there again, full of life. But the sewing had one fault: the original face had a smile upside-down. So from his threads he sewed an smile on the doll's face.
A drop fell on his head
........
Athyna was sitting with many versions of her in the park, eating a warm bun in the shade of cherry blossom.
They asked. "Did you find it?"
She was confused, every version of her asked it again. From the confusion she stood up, her head was paining, she ran on the road, tracing till it's end. She hit her head on a prism cube. A big one, where inside, gloomy and shady environment. A clown, age of a child was performing. With everything he had. She looked around and a child was holding his hand, kid athyna was looking at clown too.
"Hmph!" A old yet full of wisdom voice snickered, "what they meant by 'it' was your freedom."
It was an old lady with grace, her own version.
......
Athyna, was called into the ceremony today, the crown was coating with a layer of metal again. It was heavier today, she cried on her notebook again and again.
.....
Caesar saw a big eye looking at him slowly shredding a tear. He reached her cheek and rubbed gently, "Do you wanna see a trick?" he asked.
He added, "I'm here with you. That's my last act. Don't worry."
A tear dropped on him, he collected it in his palm and watered the rose with it. Soon every sentence he left behind was glowing with leaves and flowers.
A horse appeared from the sentences, made out of wood. "I will liberate you," he said.
As he sat on the horse and it ran. He galloped on the nonexistent ground, through the air the window, it aimed for the moon.
.......
As Athyna was watching the prism glass cube, her chest ached. The crescent moon's remnant was still there in her heart. She didn't back down now and punched the glass, over and over—again and again.
The old self of her was smiling in pain and her younger and innocent self was punching the glass with fragile but determined will.
The glass cracked. She looked back. All versions of her were there for her. They together pushed and made it through the glass.
Athyna ran towards the small boy, a young soul performing endlessly. She hugged him, ,picked him up and ran from everyone and everything. Through the streets, from the eyes staring into their soul.
As they both faded away.
....
The horse fell, but Caesar with all strength he jumped towards the moon and touched it. His body perished but somewhere he did not.
An open garden. Athyna was standing in front of him, so was he.
The scent of summer filled the air. Caesar was stood in front of her, so did she.
But something was off.
.....
La mes asked me, "Is it fine for me to write the ending? You know I'm more of a postmodern literature type person. I am more into sad ending rather than a happy one!"
She proclaimed, rotating her pen in her hand.
"No worries, try your best to end it with a tear. Only I can do that, you know?"
I combed her hair while standing behind her.
"Hmm! challenging me? Don't be so confident. It will drown you."
She sighed and started to write, "I think a male character fits more into anchoring, no? And female as the fleeting sail, the inevitable separation."
....
Tears fell down, Athyna's cheeks shone in the bright fields. She looked around—it was freedom. A ship was about to sail from the island. Caesar extended his arm towards her as the new start of a journey. He looked back at a home he made for himself and her.
They could live freely together with no pressure or dread. But,
They both were looking opposite directions.
Caesar had saved her; his back was sore and full of scars. Burned from touching the moon. But once a wise man said 'When a blind person gains vision, the first thing he throws is his stick'
She turned back. Towards the ship her steps started to move, he was trembling, a fear dwelling into his stomach, a slumber aching his heart.
He wanted to speak, to cry, to yell—Stop!
She wanted him to do something she didn't know; otherwise, their journey ends here.
She was getting closer to the ship.
His hands were trembling, his eyes were paining, the tears were supposed to fall. But dried out sorrow—could only leave his eyes.
He fell on his knees, he was feeling an immeasurable pain just from this very sight.
She was getting closer and closer to the ship. The captain of the ship gave her a sign that if she didn't went faster. The ship will leave her.
She lifted up her skirt high and started to run, faster and faster.
His heart was painfully throbbing.
...
La mes's ink broke, she stood up and took a new one with a bundle near the book.
She wrote while speaking, "Last line should be.. "
I smiled.
....
Athyna, stepped up on the wooden deck of the ship climbing onto it's edge looking down, not having courage to meet his gaze.
Caesar was violently shaking, he st- fell down. He punched on the ground and sto- he again fell.
.....
"What is this?" La mes spoke as she changed broken ink again.
....
Caesar stood up, his hand on his chest. He extended his arm trying to reach the boat.
Far from him the ship sailed, slowly drifting away from the shore.
He stood up, and gulped.
...
"And next, he went unconscious as she left him forever. The en-" The ink broke as she stood up, took another one. She came back and saw the line was perishing, she was surprised but determined she wrote again.
"And he waited for her till eternity and died alone. The en-" The ink broke and spilled over the page, she hurriedly cleaned it with a tissue as the line was erased again.
She asked, "Why can't I write the ending?"
I answered with a pat on her head, "Just spill some ink on the page, let it settle and see the sentences form on their own ." On my words she did the same and the words came to light.
.....
She looked up trying to meet his gaze. He mustered up his courage and everything even if he was never meant to say this, never meant to perform this action.
By going against the very sentences of his existence he coughed blood and cried out loud, "ATHYNA! I LOVE YOU!" These words settled deep in her heart as she tore her long skirt into shorter and jumped from the ship.
She ran towards the islands, over tha grass. He knelt, and she jumped over him, tightly hugging him.
The moment their bodies met, the glass broke. The invisible prison wall broke between them. Athyna was unconscious sleeping on the lap of Caesar.
He stood up and carried her on his back as the first ray of sun came through the carvings. From a broken hole they both left the castle. Into the fields, He ran and ran. away from everything. She left her book and crown, he left his mask and tricks.
They broke their chains and became one with freedom.
A breath, took with ease. Their heart, left the unspoken burden behind.