An ocean in the middle of nowhere. It is as blue as everyone imagines it to be. The sun shines straight down on it and makes it even more beautiful with its yellow beams. It forms a light on the sea which is so beautiful that I just want to cry. It reminds me too much about her…
My thoughts fly away, away to something that happened many years ago although I would rather not think about the terrible, just the good. I was so young and naive, thought that my life would be a paradise of happy memories and moments. What I didn't know then was that my wish would be fulfilled, but that it also would have its downsides.
It started when I was only fifteen years old. Everything that revolved around me then was friends, school and family. It was my life, and nothing that was said right then would make me really believe that I would experience something amazing, yet so terribly tragic.
One beautiful day, or now when I think back on it, it was probably not so beautiful at all. Dark clouds piling up in the sky and threatened that, in their own little way, unleashing their wrath on us that walked down on the ground. Myself I remember that those clouds were not bothering me at all, quite the opposite. It had been really hot for several days and little rain couldn't hurt, I told myself. When I was walking home from school that day, I was one minute away from the fantastic that would be next to me for too short of a time.
I walked down the street and humming to myself. It was cold in the air, I realized that the rain would come soon but was just happy about that. At last, the air would be cleansed from all of the heat which had governed the city for several days.
I had just a few hundred meters away from my house when a sound stopped me in the middle of the road. Had I heard wrong or was it someone who had been screaming? I decided to turn around and see what it was I had heard, just in case. In an alley just a few feet away from me I heard the sound of whispering voices and sobbing. My heart started to beat faster when the adrenaline started to flow through my body.
Slowly, slowly I bent forward and peered into the alley. Before me was a scene played out that I wished I could look away from and forget, but it was impossible to look away. Before me lay a woman on her back with bared gender. Above her stood a large, powerful man and held onto her legs that were spread apart. I could see that the woman was in pain, she whimpered and tears ran down her already wet cheeks. The man seemed not to care about it, or then he didn't saw it, something I was pretty sure wasn't true.
Without any warning the woman lifted her head and looked straight at me. In her eyes I saw nothing but that I should not feel sorry for her. Leave me alone... she seemed to say to me through her eyes. What should I do? Leave her there and do what she wanted me to do, or help her?
What the hell do I do? I thought to myself where I stood and looked at the woman in front of me. Of course I must help her!
When I stepped out of the shadows her eyes were blocked up and she shook her head at me. Then I didn't understand it, but it was a warning. Instead of turning around I went straight up to the man just as he was about to open the fly in his pants. A knock on his shoulder caused him to pause in what he did and turn around towards me.
"Hi", I said in a friendly tone. "I hope you don't mind it, but it bothers me that you are trying to rape this beautiful young woman. Do you have anything in mind to let her go?"
The man stared at me as if I was crazy, which he probably thought I was. He released the woman who continued to shake her head in my direction but I didn't back off. I couldn't, not now, when I've got this far. And why should I? Did I do that I would be an accomplice to this man, something I didn't want to be.
"Go away, you little shit", I was told and the man turned once again towards the woman.
That made me angry. I pushed him away from the woman just before he could grab her again. The woman grabbed my arm and whispered: "Go away... He'll kill you otherwise." Her eyes were so pleading, but even how much I wanted to go away, I couldn't.
Not yet, I had work to do.
The man was really red in the face when he stood up. I knew it would be a fight, unless I couldn't get out of it somehow. I stood in front of the woman to protect her. "Come on, I'll wait", I said to the man who did not hesitate but ran straight at me.
What he did not know was that I was used to this, it was not the first time I fought. Rather than give way for him, I waited for him to get close enough, and when he did I clenched my fist and thrust it into his stomach as hard as I could. It got him down, he sank to the ground with a moan and I was not slow to take the woman with me away from him.
"Here, take this and put it around your waist." I gave her my jacket as she quickly tied around her bare gender while I looked away, afraid to embarrass her otherwise.
When she was finished I took her arm and led her out of from the alley toward my house. The whole time we were walking the woman was watching into the ground and we said nothing. I didn't want to force her into anything, I didn't even know what she thought or felt about what just had happened. I didn't know her, she didn't know me and what I understood she didn't want me to put me into her life.
Arriving at the front door, she looked up at me, saying "thank you", and was about to turn around to go. A voice inside me told me to not let her go so I grabbed her and forced her to stay. I looked into her eyes where tears again began to form. Without knowing what I did, I put my arms around her in an embrace, as if I wanted to show her that she was safe now, she was protected from the man who had ruined her life.
"Let me go..." she whispered, but made no attempt to try to get out of my embrace. Instead, I felt how she put her head on my chest and began to sob.
I stroked her back slowly and let her cry. A feeling that I had not felt for a long time crept up: connection. I felt a kind of connection with this woman and her life. She was alone, scared and very small. Something that I felt and had felt many times.
After a few moments that seemed like hours, she stopped crying and we could walk into the house. Once in there, I took her up to my room and gave her a couple of my old jogging pants that she took on instead of my jacket. After that she sat down on my bed and stared at the floor. None of us came up with what we should say after what had happened. What could one say so it wouldn't be too private or embarrassing? "Uh... Can I ask what happened over there, really? From what I understood it you were to be... well, raped" I managed to get out.
As if I had beaten her she snatched where she sat on my bed. Without saying anything she nodded slowly and began again to cry. Angry at myself for the fact that I had said something, I sat down beside her and stroked her shoulders. "Sorry, I did not mean to..." I began, but she interrupted me by sitting down on my lap and put her head on my shoulder where her tears went from sobbing tears to a more stronger crying.
"Shh, it's okay now. I'm here now, I'll protect you... " I whispered as I rocked her back and forth slowly in an attempt to calm her down. I didn't see it, but I could feel that she nodded against my shoulder. A smile played all of a sudden on my lips and without thinking about it, as if it was something I always did to the weeping women's who were in my arms at my room (something that has never happened before if I shall be honest), I kissed her hair tenderly. It shimmered in a black colour that was mixed with a more grayish hue when light shined on it. Her eyes were so dark that they were almost purple, which I thought was really beautiful.
No, wrong of me. Whole she was beautiful. She looked like a fallen angel who has lost her wings and was now condemned to live the rest of her life on earth that she loved to watch from above the heavens, where she had remained before her wings had been torn off because of some evil power who wanted to hurt her badly.
My thoughts were interrupted by the fact that she started talking. At first I couldn't hear what she said, but when I leaned closer to her lips I heard the first words of what would result in a story of her own life. "The man in the alley... he is my husband."
After she finished telling about how she as a little girl had to suffer hits from her father every time he came home at night with a can of beer or bottle of wine in his hand and how she later as a young teenager dropped out of school because of her horrific childhood, I sat there completely paralyzed. What a pig, was the first thing that came up in my head. How could a person who would be called a father beat his own flesh and blood? For me it was incomprehensible, and how she could survive it was something that I either didn't understand.
"There is more..." she whispered and called me once again back to my room where we sat still and had been sitting for several hours by now. "After I dropped out of my second year in high school, I met the man you met in the alley. I fell in love with him at first sight, he was so beautiful, I thought then. He was really nice and really cared about me. We got engaged after only a month and the few friends I managed to get told me to take it easy, it went too fast, according to them. I told them that they didn't have to worry about, Patrick - let's say his name is Patrick - was so kind and he really loved me, I believed anyway..."
Here she interrupted herself in the middle of the story, and I seemed to have a thought about what was to come, but I didn't want to hear but at the same time I wanted. There were two sides of me that fought about if I would be able to hear the rest or not. Sadly, it did not matter which choice I took, for she continued where she stopped before:
"After we had been engaged for five months, Patrick asked me for my hand in marriage. Stupid as I was I said yes of course, so blinded by love that I was at that time. The marriage occurred just weeks after and that day was the happiest in my life..." A little sad smile came over her before she continued. "But as everyone knows, things are not always as they seem. Soon Patrick was revealing the true side of him, the 'evil Patrick' as I soon began to call that side. He began to beat me but I didn't understood why. It could be such a simple thing as that the food was not ready in time or that I didn't want to see a movie with him. After some time he began to rape me while I slept. The first time it happened, he apologized and said it would not happen again, but it occurred again, not so long after the first incident."
She catched her breath to continue, so I took the opportunity to insert one thing I had been wondering about all the time she had been telling. "Why didn't you leave him if he treated you like shit? Excuse the language, but from what I've heard about him, I feel only hatred towards him. I'm glad I decided to beat him up over there in the alley."
She laughed. It was not a sad laugh, but an enjoyable one. It rang pleasantly in my head and made my heart beat faster. She had such a beautiful laugh that was so full of life despite all the terrible things that had befallen her through her life. She must have a really strong will to live, that's one thing that was sure.
"Thank you, that's just what I needed. Now to your question. I couldn't leave Patrick, believe me. I tried many times but each time he managed to find me and beat me nearly to death as a kind of punishment. Many times I had the urge to kill him that I almost did it while he slept, but I did not dare to in fear of what would happen then. The police, courts, the Court..." She shook her head. "But one thing I never ended up with and it was to dream. Dreaming of a better life without Patrick, a life that would blossom of love. Love to me and the person who would be my savior, you know, like that 'knight in shining armor'?"
I laughed and nodded. "I understand what you mean, but what should you do now then when Patrick is out of the picture? I don't think he would dare to get close to you now that he knows that you might have someone who protects you. Yes, that is..." I could feel that my cheeks were quite red and I couldn't get out a single word that would explain what I meant.
Instead of going out of my room and never come back believing that I was the same as Patrick because of what I have said, she smiled. "I understand what you mean and I am grateful for the help. It was really nice of you to help me out but now I can handle myself, I think..." She laughed again and patted me on the cheek.
She sat up and was just about to go out of my bedroom door when I got such a strong impulse that I had to grab her wrist. Something within me had broken down the moment her heat left me and it made me miserable. "Please... Don't go! I really mean it; I want to be your protector. I want to protect you against all the evil that have happened to you, against all evils that might happen to you. Please, let me be your... your..."
"Guardian?" She filled in for me and I nodded. Strangely enough, she smiled a warm smile at me and took my hand in her. "Okay then, I'll stay here with you then."
Then something happened that I never in my wildest dreams thought would happen. She walked up to me and put her lips over mine. They were warm and tasted sweet. It was a lovely taste; I fell in love with it from the the very start. If there was something inside me that would never disappear, that would be the feeling and taste of her lips against mine.
Never before, I thought I could be as happy as I was the short time we got to be together. Every day was like an adventure with you. You gave me joy, always made me laugh and most important of all: love, something I always wanted to really get. Even now, when I know that my time has come, I smile. It's because of you, my love. It must have been fate that put together the two of us, or our souls who found each other just when we needed each other as most.
Thank you, my love for all the time I got to experience with you, even if it was brief. Never shall I forget you, though I'm about to leave this world behind me. I will be with you always; I'll be your watchful angel who is there whenever you need someone. Never, never will I leave your side. Whenever you call me, I will be there for you, believe me. Thanks once again for all this time, even if it only lasted a few years.
Yours forever, remember that.
Your last letter to me, just before the terrible disease took you. Why must it be you? Why not me, or anyone else for that matter? If I had known before, perhaps I could have helped you, but you would not say anything even though you knew it. Why didn't you say anything about it to me? We could still have been able to live together if you would have told me about it; you know I had done everything to help you.
The last days of what would be called your life, you just lay in that horrible hospital bed as a prisoner. I tried to convince the doctors that it would be good for you to get out for a while, if only for a few minutes. They did not listen, why should they? Luckily you managed to persuade them to get out and look at the ocean one last time before it was time for you to leave us, leave me... That's where I stand now and remember all the good things that we had together. I remember so well how much you loved the ocean, just to sit on the beach and look out over it and marvel at its beauty.
I touch the water surface and imagine that you are standing next to me and do the same thing. It makes me smile while my heart defects because of the sadness that fills me at the thought of never seeing you again. But one thing that eases my pain, though so little, is what you said in the letter you wrote that I had read when you were gone: "Whenever you call me, I will be there for you, believe me."
"Yes, my love, I feel your presence. I know that you see me right now, wherever you are." A gust of wind makes me turn around and what I then see makes my heart beat harder and my eyes water. Towards me you come, but something is wrong. You are quite blurred, as if you are already fading away. The closer you get, the more you seem to disappear away from me.
"My love", you say when you reach up to me, "this is the last time we will meet. This is my final farewell to you. Do not cry, please. It makes me so sad to see. Try for me to live your life as you would have liked to have lived it with me. Forget me not, that's all I want." She strokes my cheek just like the day we first met.
"I... I want so much, but it is hard, so hard", I manage to get out of me. "Please, do not go! You must not!" As a child who does not want to be separated from his mother I hug her hard.
"I have to, you know it." She kisses me tenderly and then hugs me one last time.
Suddenly I see how wings are formed behind her back and how she begins to soar higher and higher up into the sky where I know she will watch over me. The last thing I do before she disappears is to hold her hand as long as I can until it has been too high up for me to reach it. We smile at each other one last time, and then she's gone.
The last thing I hear from her are the three words that will forever remain in my memory:
"Farewell, my love."