I wrote this in 2006.
In a different life, in a different world — when I was someone who still believed that love could walk through iron doors and brush the dust from someone’s soul.
It waited twenty years in the dark.
Perhaps it needed to. Perhaps it was waiting for the right walls to live on.
This is not a dark story. This is the darkest kind of love story — the one where someone chooses to stay.
— Emilia
The great doors… iron fittings… I touch them… they open…
I breathe in the scent of dampness…
I enter…
a silence that has weight… a silence that remembers…
the delicate scent of candles reaches my nostrils…
someone was here… long ago… or never…
I see nothing but… but
…You…
you stand at the end… your hair falls across your face…
you look beautiful in your black tunic… I think…
and immediately I am ashamed of that thought…
because you do not know that you are beautiful…
you have forgotten…
dusty windows… dusty castle… dusty memory… dusty feelings…
…dusty life… sorrow… dried drops of tears…
stairs leading to life… no one has climbed them in a long time…
I wonder how many times you tried…
and how many times you returned below…
I approach you… I brush your cheek…
leaving my scent… the scent of life…
…you do not look… will you not look???
I understand…
I must brush the dust from you…
I trace the outline of your lips with my finger… several times…
they must fill with the red of life…
I touch your eyes… their contours… they do not look…
I draw closer leaving upon them the warmth of my lips…
still you do not look…
I do it once more… you looked… shyly… you look…
do you know that you have beautiful eyes?
…you do not know…
…you have forgotten…
My hands wander through your hair… it is so beautiful and long…
I bury my face in it… trying to catch its former scent…
I cover your hair with kisses… I tangle my hands within it…
it regains its former lustre… all of you… you are waking to life…
my heart rejoices at this sight…
this is why I am here… to give you the magic of my life…
I hold you close… I take the dust from you… within me it disappears…
do you know what it means to carry someone’s dust within you?
it means that you love…
you stand still… you look… I see a gentle smile in your eyes…
what will you do now?… I think…
…I…
…I must go…
I turn… I walk toward my beloved stairs…
my dress with grace caresses and warms the cold of the marble…
…I do not turn toward you…
I have done what I could… only that… or as much as that…
more I cannot give… nor do…
only I beg you — do not stand still!!!
your soul called to mine… so I am here…
in this moment everything depends on you…
there is nothing left upon you that could hold you back…
…you see… you feel… you breathe… the dust is gone…
but forever???…
…you have a choice…
sometimes that is terrible… the curse of choice…
in this moment let it be cursed…
…I hear footsteps… the stairs below… you are coming…
I stop…
my hand on the banister… my heart in my throat… I do not turn yet…
I am afraid it is an illusion… that the dust will return… that you will stop…
but the footsteps are real…
slowly holding the banister… an unsteady and uncertain step…
but you are coming…
and in this moment I understand…
that I did not come here to save you…
I came to remind you that it is worth it…
…I know it is hard for you… no strength…
and the worst is when you no longer have the strength to walk…
…cunning doubt approaches…
go up or return below?
you doubt and you fall… and I am right beside you offering you my hand…
…I lift you… we walk on…
if you doubt you will not fall… because…
I will always be beside you…
…we still have so many stairs to walk…
stairs going up…
…into the heaven of our souls…
