Chapter I - A Dream once Loved

His head held in his hands, ringing and throbbing a vain memory to be recollected, still too vainly.

It passes, this pain, and what overcomes him is another falsehood. A peace he should not have, for he says, “Peace is nothing I’ve obtained. But, they have. They have obtained it. Not I.”

Peace is what? Reserved for the dead? Or, do we desire it, when we are alive, too? Does that make us suicidal? Who speaks, for it is a man named Alessio Neil, spoken aloud as thus, “I am Alessio Neil, son of Martha and Scot Neil, who has not found what two dead parents have gained.”

No knife is near his veins. No noose is wrapped about his neck. Nothing, that is, to indicate his immediate desire for peace.

His felt peace was merely the relief of a pain passed.

Before then, he felt the presence of someone near. Love had its hand in that scenario, by whatever shape love took. Whatever shape love took, was to him, a resemblance of something sinister. Whatever shape, and to himself, to Alessio Neil, it was a hideous recollection.

He places pieces together, in his mind, while looking over the newspaper in front of him. Images, upon words, upon the white, as images are meant to be upon words, and are meant to be upon the emptiness. A newspaper, held in one hand, and a mug of coffee, in the other.

His eyes hover and glance, above the words to the page he holds. He catches each detail, before it moves away from him, documenting it to his subconscious. Whatever read, whatever misunderstood, is brought down to the basement of his mind.

That subconscious. That devilish subconscious.

It is the place where we, when we were once children, knew nothing about the dangers around us. Then, we buried each misunderstood thought in a cellar, called that subconscious.

We do it still, even when fully grown. We do it still so easily. We bury thoughts that are not understood.

We bury them, when they are not understood, because fear places itself before what we cannot trust to be understood. What creates division in a world, in any social realm? It must be that fear is in place of not acceptance, but adaption.

Alessio has done so, for all memories suppressed.

Adaption holds onto him, like joy has never startled him enough to say the words, "I will hold hands with what I've seen."

Not understood, and never accepted, and these memories become further buried down.

What a mind, stuffed with memories, like a child with a toy animal. How so that Alessio had thought of something, to turn it away like a lover at nighttime, only to simply go to read the newspaper?

Why does something as this take place for him?

Love had, as we said, been somewhere in that memory. Whatever pained his mind, giving it a sharp pang, was full to the brim of that love.

A face, a singular countenance, that indeed resembles one of a woman’s. One woman, who very much resembles him, but of an older appearance, who now stares at Alessio from a painted portrait.

In the same kitchen, where he sits, is indeed a painted portrait of a woman. Her eyes hold a luster, even as her visage has merely been stroked onto the canvas. That eyeful gleam runs over Alessio’s capturing of this capture to her eyes. To this capturing of her eyes, she captures him.

And, very much alike, in appearance, to Alessio, she must be someone immensely important. For that pang of pain returns to his head, upon when he looks closer into her gaze.