Dear Rhea,

My fate,

My curse,

What have you been up to?

How are you feeling?

Are you well?

I know what you said back then when I left, not to write and not to call you, but I'm entertaining myself still. Please allow me some guilty pleasure, it's not like I'm going to send this letter anyway. Why should I do it? To reveal your location to the Military Police when they check the content of this letter and cause even more trouble for Erwin? He's got enough on his hands as it is...

Besides, you broke the rules first.

You called me, a while ago, remember?. You didn't say a thing, but I'm certain about it like I'm certain that I love you still.

Naughty brat, why did you do it?

You only caused me sorrow. What you fail to realize, dear, is the more time I spend away from you, the easier it is for me to...exist. I can't call it living. But I get by, somehow. I listen to Erwin's commands, teach some children, grade papers and you reside in my head peacefully.

I haven't forgotten anything, if that's what you're fearing. I remember what we did, what we said to each other. Each piece of 'you and me' has a dedicated spot inside my brain:

Every kiss,

Every grab,

Every touch,

The sound of your voice,

The smell of your neck,

Or how wonderful your cunt tastes.

I let those memories live rent-free in my head, even if they constantly torment me like any chronic pain does. They give me a certainty that you once loved me. And that's it. You. Once. Loved. Me. Past tense. Past. You're in the past. I'm in the present and day by day that thought becomes more bearable.

But then you call and remind me that you're out there, breathing, living, without me, and it's not that we're doomed not to be together…

We're forced to. And it sucks big time.

But you did it. Congratulations, baby. You did something to me that day. I started writing again, something else beside the political manifestos Erwin wants me to write for the Survey Corps. Something good.

At the moment I barely leave the typing machine alone because I found out, I have important things to write about.

I'm not going to pretend they're not about you. They are.

Everything that I have worth telling to this world is about you one way or another.

How life was with you. How life is without you. How much purpose you gave me. How much you loved me. How I dared to live by your side. How I'm slowly killing myself now because you told me to.

Speaking of...

Do you still tilt your head when someone kisses your neck? Does your mouth taste like the sea, as it did the last time I kissed you? I need to make sure some things are in order.

There are a thousand things I want need to ask you, yet all those questions come out superficial, edgy, forced in a way, like I'm young, clumsy and pretending to be something I'm not.

The only difference is that I'm not young anymore. I'm a month away from my thirties.

What a bastard you chose to fall in love with all those summers ago. It has never been easy for you either. I haven't been the most tentative boyfriend, you know me, I can go on and on when I'm writing, but in real life, I'm a man of few words. Most of which are not very kind.

And you've had your own share of my small, cruel talks. They play in my head on repeat all the time.

Erwin lectures me that having regrets is foolish, that it's better to put your trust in the road ahead than dwell on how things might turn out. And because I can't fight both the Titans and their enemy at the same time, I shove all the regrets deep down and pretend they don't exist, that I don't have any.

But eventually they come out one way or another.

I want to punch myself in the face for some things I've said to you. You didn't deserve neither my silence nor my bites. If I knew our days were numbered, Rhea, I would've never shut up about how amazing you are, about how grateful I am that you've barged your way into my life like a hot blizzard of kindness.

Do you remember when you came to my room the following day after we met? I acted like such an immature bitch and I'm sorry for it.

There, I've said it. I regret it and Erwin can kiss my ass.

But in my defense, I was very hangover.

~10 years ago, in a better place~

By some unknown will of gods I managed to find my way back from the beach that morning. I didn't remember how I got to my room, but I had a vague memory of not walking straight and holding onto fences for dear life.

I sighed and turned my body to the other side. The springs creaked and a sedated sleep almost claimed me again.

Trust the guy that had trouble sleeping, the best naps always happened during midday. The warmth of the room, the outside noise of people working while I got to rest, the weight of the blankets, I wouldn't trade it even for a night at Hilton.

Not that I knew what a night at Hilton was supposed to be like. I'd heard some rumors here and there, like everybody else, about a big chain of luxury hotels in the West where Moet and Dom Perignon are only a room service away. It wasn't like Paradis would benefit from such opulence anytime soon.

„ fuckin' foreign investors!" the Government would exclaim. "They want to make money on our land and then take the profits back to their country and spend it on depravation and cocaine! We will never allow our hard-working citizens to be downgraded by exploiters! Our flourishing country has the resources to do better than those pigs anyway."

So no Dom Perignon for us.

But then again, even if I had the money to afford it, I wouldn't be spending it on some fancy ass hotel shit.

I'd rather buy some German books for my collection. Rilke must've been feeling kinda lonely on the shelf. I'd heard they brought some stolen Herman Hesse at The Fool, it was worth checking out.

Or maybe I could buy another vinyl. I really wanted to listen to something else other than Simon and Garfunkel.

But then again, a brand new typewriter sounded divine. The current one I had was thrifted and missed two letters. Not that I deserved it. Brand new typewriters were meant for people who could actually write something original, had some talent or read bookshelf after bookshelf until their influenced opinion was something entirely fresh and different from everything before, whereas I was just an imposter with an above average vocabulary.

Don't believe me? Let's prove a point then.

I rolled onto my back and extended my arm over the bed. On the floor lied scattered papers on various subjects, which had been written in the dampness of my college dorm room over the last year. They ended up all over the place when I emptied my bag in a hurry last night.

Let's see… I grabbed one at random and brought it closer for reading. But lo and behold, opening my eyes was for sure a great mistake. A distasteful groan erupted from my throat as I shut them down the next second. Why was everything so fucking bright?

Oh, yes, and the pain. How could I forget the pain? Suave and unforgiving, this sensation that had shaped mankind for millenias was now alive and pounding in my head. Flashbacks from last night where I was downing shot after shot resurfaced.

Congratulations, dumb fuck, you've poisoned yourself on rakija.

The next time I tried to look over the paper, my eyes slowly adjusted and the letters became clear. Following row after row, my attempts at writing were so pitiful, I swore never to let another human being see them.

I found a fragment that was copied word for word from Marcus Aurelius 'Meditations'.

Oh, there's another one, where I rearranged the words but even a high schooler could tell the idea was stolen from John Locke.

I crumpled the sheet and threw it in the trash bin across the room, obviously missing. There was no other fate for what I wrote anyway.

You'll never make it as a writer. I knew Farlan was only teasing when he said those words last summer, but still a little mean voice in the back of my head never ceased to shut up about it.

Maybe he had a point, after all great writers had something to show to the world: their never-seen-before writing style, or maybe versatility, some had unbounded imagination whereas others were able to write what you'd been wanting to say your whole life but didn't have the words to. They didn't waste ink and try to cover up their lack of imagination with big, fancy words. Faulkner, Thomas Mann, Sartre, all those people used to lock themselves up for days, no touch with the real world, their mind self-sufficient, their struggle bearable, and works that changed the world were created.

On the other end of the spectrum, there were the so-called authors that lead such interesting lives that their masterpiece was their own biography. Those metaphysical prophets didn't sit well with me. I spend countless evenings watching from afar, in silence, especially here, people who were so busy living that they didn't have to write down anything. With a wisdom just as broad and as open as their afore mentioned brothers, plenty of individuals knew how to talk, what to say in the right context, their dialogue so wonderfully woven, a complex series of theories, metaphors and life lessons I was certain they never had a brain fart once in their lives.

And then there was the existence of your favorite short, gloomy bastard, unfolding right in the middle. Leaning in no direction, neither painstakingly skillful on paper nor extroverted enough to be the center of attention in person, I was living on the thin edge between real and hypothetical, with no hope to grab anyone's interest.

What did I have to offer to my audience anyway? Good organization, perfect grammar and some logic tying things up together, or in other words, nothing, or worse, the predictable. Either I was in constant state of self-hatred for my idiocy or, once in a while, a brand new, interesting thought or a never seen before idea popped up in my head, only to find out after some research there were about 30 other people who had written about that before me, some of which had won the Nobel prize for it. With a groan and a fist pulling on my hair to numb the pain, I picked up another paper from the floor, roaming over it.

A quote from Huxley here, a concept from John Rawls there, and all over the place there was no sign of originality. As expected. Nothing was ever new under the sun and there was nothing left to talk about.

Scoffing loudly, like a merciful god, I sentenced another sheet to death like its predecessors. Now they could lay down together forever, happy ever after, right where they belonged. In the trash. What a beautiful love story.

Now where did I put that goddamn water? I craved that shit more than a lily left in the desert.

A loud banging against the glass of my door made me want to set myself on fire.

"Mister philosopher!" Rose, the owner of this summer house, called from the other side like she was a horseman of the apocalypse who had come for my soul. I pushed the covers over my head, shielding like an animal in pain from the world outside, wishing the noise would drown and this lady would go back to day drinking and watering her daffodils or whatever she did in her spare time.

"Mister philosopher!" But her howling went on and on, rough, grotesque and more insistent each time. I made a mental note to try some occult ritual later in the night and summon a demon. Maybe he'll take pity of me and agree to give me permanent silence in exchange for my soul.

"What?" I grumbled from beneath the sheets, not daring to open my eyes. Light would probably kill me yet again.

"Someone's looking for you! Says it's urgent!" The old, fat hag announced me, bothered and confused.

"Who is it? If it's Doth Pixis, tell him I've died!" I shouted from my cocoon of warm blankets.

" No, no. She says she's a good omen." Rose yelled back.

I did not sign up for this shit. Rolling out of bed seemed such a chore, my eyes protested and begged for some rest, but on the other hand, I managed to pick up my jeans on the first try from a completely cluttered floor, and if that wasn't a sign, I didn't knew what was.

Shoving down one leg, then the other, I put on my pants before yelling back to the landlady:

"Well then, tell her to come in if she's such good omen!"

But I barely finished pulling up the zipper when the door slammed open and someone floated inside. Panting and bend over from exhaustion, the girl from last night popped into my life once more, uninvited, crossing my threshold because of the inertia from her roller skates. One of my eyebrows rose up and I crossed my arms out of habit. Who in their fucking right mind skated across a beach resort in the middle of July? She wasn't even wearing a helmet, that irresponsible naïve bitch. I bet she was one sunray away form a heatstroke.

"Do you have any idea how hard was it to find you? "She whined, very much annoyed. "I looked all over the place for you and the worst part is that I couldn't even remember your name so I had to go all around the place asking if they've seen a pissed off man clad in black from head to toe!"

When she was done scolding me as if it were my fault she didn't ask where I stayed, this girl took a deep breath and waltzed all over the papers scattered on the floor, crinkling some and ripping others apart, the wheels of her skates pulling bits and pieces for my work. I almost chuckled, as the executioner butchered one sheet after the other. And I had no problem with it. I meant, what greater reminder that you ain't shit than a bad dressed sweaty girl walking all over your papers?

She put one arm forward and pressed it on my exposed torso, right on my sternum, to stop herself from clashing into me. The touch of her hot, wet palm and the chaperoning rings against my cold skin made me way more uncomfortable that it should have been. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't some kind of shy virgin, but memories from last night came to surface and they got me all kinds of embarrassed.

I remembered her sweet tantalizing eyes charming me,

Her voice almost curing all my sorrows,

Some songs with complicated words making me think life was worth living,

And how I saw her dancing on the table, as if she were some other worldly being...

"What would you play in the opening credits of the greatest love story ever told?" I said to her this morning, the words pounding in my head, in synch with the hangover.

What the hell was wrong with me? Who was this cringey, dreamy lost soul? I looked down at Rhea, at her glistening skin, beige short skirt, (who in their right mind wore a tight mini skirt when roller skating?) deep blue liner running down her cheeks because of the heat, and wondered how bad she held back a laugh when hearing those embarrassing lines.

A shameful shiver crawled up my spine. Last night I put on those tiny shoulders the weight of some issues I should've dealt with eons ago, instead of pretending some girl with no respect for boundaries would, at some point, pop up and magically fix all the open wounds.

"You really suck at walking on roller skates." I said, encircling her wrist with my hand and pulling it away from my chest. "What are you doing here, Rhea?"

Her whole face switched from a determined pout to a slight blush.

"Oh, you remember my name. That's embarrassing, seeing as I forgot yours." She muttered, eyes on the floor while one hand rubbed at that mess of a hair, tangled up from the wind.

"Whatever. It's Levi. You didn't answer my question." And the words came out cold and bothered, but that was just to cover some old classic shame. I constructed, in my mind, paragraph after paragraph about her and she couldn't even remember my name. What a pitiful situation…

"So I was over at that diner on the main street when I saw those Garrison pigs distributing the latest issue of the Survey Corps magazine. I grabbed one and there was this one article published that got me all sorts of confused." Rhea jumped straight to the subject. "I must've read it five times or more yet I can't figure out what it's trying to say…and I don't like it. So there I was sitting, existential dilemma and all, when I thought 'do you know who wouldn't have the slightest problem with the meaning of this article? Mr. Philosopher from last night.' So I picked up my things and went on my way to find my smart cute stranger. And now here I am." She said in one breath, not giving me the slightest chance to interrupt.

Wait a second…

…

Did this mushroom just had the audacity to call me 'cute'?

Hell no. That was the cue for her to go.

"Sorry to disappoint, but you got some things wrong, girlie. Contrary to what you may think, I am not, in fact, the local know-it-all at your personal service. Seek yourself out and go look for your Garrison slaves, I've got my own problems to take care of, don't have time for your wannabe-smartass tantrums."

See? I was not cute. I was an asshole who wanted to be left alone to broil in self-pity.

"I thought you might say this!" She replied with inadequate smirk, and took off her shoulders a small baby blue fake leather backpack. " That's why I brought you the biggest, greasiest sandwich complete with fries and some ayran. Perfect for a hangover. Now you can't say no to that."

"How did you know I had a hangover?"

"Please, who wouldn't after that amount of alcohol?" She explained, holding up in both hands sandwiches wrapped in paper. With a sigh and a craving for some disgusting calories, I grabbed my wallet from my desk and handed her some cash.

"For your efforts then. Don't spend money on strangers. Now would you kindly leave the sandwiches on the table and go torment someone else, please?" To which she leaned towards me, giving me some naughty grin that would put the Cheshire cat to shame.

"Oh, don't bother. I didn't spend a penny on you. The lad from the diner gave them to me for free because I apparently have 'pretty eyes'…"

She did tho. Rhea had very pretty eyes, lips, hair, mind and the list could go on. But that did not gave her the right to assume I am on call for whatever selfish desire she might have.

"…So the only form of payment I accept is your unbiased attention."

"No."
"I won't leave otherwise."

"You know I could just grab you by the hair and throw you out."

"Ohhh, kinky. But you won't do it, 'cause in the back of your head…" she then skated closer and clashed against my chest, not brutally, but with enough force that I had to steady myself not to let her push me over. "…you're curious in what I have to show you. I'm not some dumb girl and you know it, and I can see it in your eyes…" She had her head tilted upwards, her unforgiving gaze showing me no mercy, and the scorching heat of her breasts pressed against my body was melting me by the second.

"…you're wondering why some girl you just met last night spend her entire day looking for your depressed ass. Certainly what she has to show you must be incredibly interesting."

Why, why did she have to be so soft?

"Fine. Fine. I surrender. Sit the fuck down. I'm gonna go brush my teeth." I grunted, turned around defeated and went to the bathroom, feeling her stare dig into my bare back.

Now, you might be thinking I gave up way too easily. That may be the case, because usually I was as stubborn as a mule and put up the most aggressive fight the second things did not go my way. But what you have failed to consider is that…

She was right. I was, despite a pounding headache and an apathetic disposition, in the mood for what she had to show me.

If she had stayed against me like that any longer, I would have gone completely insane and I still had a lot of business to do and places to see before they locked me up in an asylum.

So I diligently relieved my tortured bladder, brushed my teeth and drank water straight from the tap even though it wasn't the wisest decision, then returned to find Rhea perched up on my desk, with her legs crossed and the latest issues of the Survey Corps laid out on her lap.

I grabbed two glasses from the cupboard and some cold water from the fridge and sat down on the chair by her side. After pouring each of us a drink, I began to scarf down one of those fat, juicy sandwiches, gesturing towards her that she may begin.

"Alright so, you know the content these guys usually publish. Political manifestos, written complaints about the regime, how they plan to throw the government over and rebuild the society, foreign examples of leaderships blah blah blah…." And I hummed in agreement. Rhea placed a strand of her hair behind her ear a continued, excited like a child who discovered how mirrors work or something.

"Well, in this issue, they write about the story of some political prisoner, which is obviously made up, but still…"

"How do you know it's made up?" I asked with my mouth full, alternating between a bite and a deep gulp from my glass.

"Because it ends well."

"okay, so it's definitely made up. So what? Those guys are kinda shady anyway. It doesn't seem beneath them to fabricate a story just so that they gain more readers. I bet they are attention whores in real life too."

"Would you let me fucking finish?" She exclaimed and kicked my knee with her roller skate-clad foot. Which hurt like a motherfucker, but still.

"As I was saying…check out how this story goes. It says that many years ago, just after the Titans come to power, a young inmate by the name of Eren Kruger is rotting away in a prison cell because of his political beliefs and background. He has to carry out a life sentence, and his guards do their job so well, he is fairly convinced he will die in that cursed place.

But then, one night he hears some faint knockings coming from one of the walls. He places his ear against it and they become more audible: clear, definitely intelligent, some patterns repeating after regular periods of time.

At first, he's obviously startled, thinking he's just hallucinating to cope with the fact he's done for. But then the next day, at exactly the same time, he hears the series of knocks again, and then the day after and the day after and so on.

Soon, he has learned the patter by hand and starts to write down whatever he's hearing on the side of the cell hidden by his bed. Every once in a while, the patterns alternate and become more complex, as if his neighbor on the other side keeps introducing new words in the code every day. It takes the prisoner months before he senses the first connections in the secret rhythm, and then it takes him years to master this new, complicated language. Over time, they start to have a dialogue and the prisoner finds out his neighbor is trying to tell him an incredibly simple, yet breathtakingly daring escape plan. One night, following to a t the clear instructions of his partner, he manages to get out of the prison and becomes a free man.

Years pass, and the man returns, now rich and with a fake ID, to that place where his youth lays buried, asking for permission to visit his old cell, in hope that he can return the favor and save the man whom he owns everything to. A guard leads him to the cell, and the rich man asks him about the prisoner next door. Who are they? Are they still alive? Do they have a death sentence too?

But he finds out, to his utter stupefaction, that on the other side of the wall there is nothing more but the sky and the sea. The wall faces the outside, and he never had any neighbors. All along, what the prisoner was hearing were only the waves clashing against his cell."

Rhea finished the story, eyebrows furrowed and legs waggling, and I put the food aside and took out a cigarette from the abandoned pack on my desk.

"My, my, what a story!" and the smoke rose up in the air. "Completely made up, but interesting, I gotta admit it." My partner in crime helped herself with a cigarette too and lit it up in haste.

"Yeah, but…is that all you think about it?" She asked me, her hopes crashing down. I leaned back in the chair and took a long drag.

"Oh sorry." I spat with irony. "Was I supposed to unveil some great truth from a B-list article just because I've read some books about meaning? Excuse you, I say."

"No, of course not…it's just…" But she swallowed her words and looked out the window, turning her head to the side.

Her profile enticed me, I noticed she had a freckle right on her jawline, and that sweet neck…dear god… it looked so fragile, out there in the open, she wouldn't stand a chance if I were to wrap my fingers around it and.

Just

.press.

down.

really.

hard. Slow. With no mercy. I bet her eyes would roll into the back of her head and the tip of her tongue would peak out of her mouth and…

Fucking shit. What the hell was wrong with me?

I had to tear my eyes away from Rhea before the caveman in me would start drooling or something. This was so out of character for me and I did not like it at all. Back to business was it then. We were talking about the article. Anyway…

"How does this story make you feel?" I asked, breaking the heavy silence. She just shrugged.

"Confused. Out of place. Stupid that I can't figure it out. That's why I came to you, maybe there's something here you see that I don't. I feel that there's a deeper meaning to all of it but no matter how much I scramble my brain for an answer, it keeps slipping between my fingers."

"Bingo. That's it. You've figured out the message of the story. Now would you kindly leave me the fuck alone please?"

"Wait a second! What do you mean? There is no message, is that what you mean?"

"No, not at all. The story is trying to make you feel confused. Terrified even." I began to explain, stopping once in a while to take a drag out of my cigarette.

" That all around us, there's a way of escaping this nightmare. Something out there sends you codes, rhythms and secret languages…" I felt way too late her calf was rubbing deliberately along my outer thigh at a slow, languorously pace. I froze in my spot and forgot how to move, my eyes narrowed and fixed her own, not daring to look down. Her touch was so foreign, out of place and incredibly arousing in its simplicity.

Princess, are you flirting with me in the middle of a discussion about human helplessness?

"… and the way out, out from your inner prison, from your torment, from this fucked up country and from your self-hatred is so simple, yet so out of reach."

Yes I am. Her eyes seemed to answer. Do you like it?

" …There has always been a way and signs have shown up all along. But your senses were too weak to pick them up, too fragile. The prisoner needed a life sentence and nothing to lose to understand the message, whereas we are always too busy and never notice anything until it's too late."

Very much so. Please don't stop.

"…Like a cat that licks and nibbles on its master's finger instead of looking in the direction it's pointing at." I finished in an aggravated tone, tearing my eyes away from her scorching ones.

"woah." Rhea moaned in awe, stopping her movements when the spell broke. "You really have your way with words."

"I wouldn't say so. You just got me into a talkative mood." I answered with a big fat lie, knowing full well I never was in a talkative mood.

"No way!" Rhea said, sipping on her water. "Look at all those manuscripts lying around!" And she gestured to the plethora of scattered papers. "You clearly have some awesome subjects to tell the world! Like Homer!"

"Not really. I limit myself to anti-titanical statements of beliefs. All you see here is just boring political complaints."

"Nu-uh" She disapproved. "It sounds similar to the usual articles published in the Survey Corps."

"Yeah, except those are actually well written." I huffed sarcastically.

"I'll see about that" Rhea smirked and ripped one of my papers that got stuck inside her wheels. A deep sense of shame engulfed me when she began looking over it. Faster than lighting that paper was snatched from her hands, crumpled and tossed in the trash.

"Don't even bother. There's a long way to go before i can even call myself a mediocre writer."

"Lies!I bet you write amazing and you're just shy." She winked at me and hopped off the desk. In the warm afternoon light, her hair seemed to float the slightest, never in tandem with her movements, like the previous night when she danced on the table and made it seem like I was living a fairytale.

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" I asked, feigning bitterness, my way of saying 'I want to talk to you more because it's the first time a person captivated me this much, but in the same time I don't want to pressure you because I'm aware I'm not the most pleasant companion.'

"Lucky for you, I don't."

"What do you mean 'lucky for me'?"

"Dunno. You just look like you could use some company."

"Because we have some common subjects to talk about?"

"Because you seem so sad it pains me."

I scoffed. "Listen lady, you might have some savior complex in that fucked up little head of yours, but you don't know anything about me and even if you did, I certainly don't need your pity." Or deserve it.

"Calm your tits please." She laughed and leaned to grab her back pack left on the floor. "Levi, you think like any wounded men out here, that their saving is some ditz girl with a will to live, when in reality, what they really need…" Unzipping it, Rhea pulled out a vinyl record with David Bowie's face on it, you know, the famous one with the red hair and lighting across his face.

"…is a decent taste in music. Now why don't you give me something to play this on?"

I had to bite my lip so hard to stop myself from showing this girl a warm, genuine smile. Tossing the machine to her, I sat down on the chair backwards, resting my chin and my extended arms on the backseat. The first lyrics of the album started playing, and I stared at this girl lolling her head from side to side, thinking that she was so different from my usual taste in women, with her tenderness and submissive nature, so unlike the things I usually craved,

So unfit for me, that things might just get interesting between us.

~..~

I have pondered a lot over my actions from that day, and I have to say this …

Thank you.

Thank you, Rhea, from the bottom of my stone-cold heart.

You had no reason to stay. I acted rudely even though you didn't do anything wrong, I threatened to kick you out and chased you away because I'm an insecure asshole who hides behind his cruelty.

And yet you didn't left. You stayed.

Do you have any idea how much that meant? Of course you don't, since all you've known is the land beyond the walls, but let me explain.

This world I live in, the government, the people around me, they never fail to remind you that you're disposable. That you can be replaced as soon as you take the wrong step. . Friendships, love, jobs, they are tossed to the gutter at the first lack of dedication.

Nobody prefers your company if you're not desirable.

Nobody but you. You liked me when I had nothing to offer. And when all you've experienced is conditional love, this type of shit crushes you from the inside.

Why did you do it? Why didn't you leave me to rot in that room?

You weren't aware of your words, but back then was the first time someone said I had a chance at being a genuine writer. All the others…

My uncle…

The Literature high school teacher…

The Professor from college…

Even my best friend, Farlan….

They all thought that it was just a transient phase, the type people have for a year or two when they're young and hopeful before they settle down and never dwell on those time-wasting things again.

'Do you like starvation?'

'A great writer is born only once in a generation!'

'Your lack of imagination is hilarious.'

'Cut the crap out, you sappy idealist, you'll never make it as a writer, heh.'

All those words, meant to demolish me, born out of their own impotence, hang on one side.

And on the other side…there are yours

' I bet you write amazing and you're just shy.'

They don't even stand a chance.

Do you know what I've been up to, Rhea?

I work undercover for the Survey Corps, writing the redeemed political pamphlets I used to gawk over with you. Two out of five publications each issue come straight out from my typewriter.

Teaching high school children during the day, tearing down the oppressive regime at night. You could bet your ass I'm the new Batman.

Huh.

I'm still sad, though. Just like you assumed that day. I have always been so fucking sad, my life has been nothing but a continuous string of misery which you have managed to completely obliterate for a short period of time. But you're gone now, so the demons have claimed their old domain and never let me breathe.

Don't worry your sweet ass, I've almost learned to live with it. Some days are bearable,

Then there are days when I can almost feel you in my arms. I hate those the most.

And at last there are the days when compulsory administrative meetings happen. Now those are some real shit horroshow...

~ Some flavorless present~

Erwin has summoned the whole teaching staff today for another boring, horrible meeting. We've gathered all, young and old, dumb and dumber, in the dilapidated classroom next to the teachers' lounge.

I take the first seat by the window, right in front of darling Mr. Undercover Commander, like the diligent and obedient lapdog I apparently am now. I stare out the window, my real self wandering elsewhere, far away, wandering on and on invisibly and having nothing to do with my life. Eld Gin, a geography teacher, sits by my side, nagging me with some stupid yet exhilarating jokes. I tolerate him; he's a nice guy, so in return he gets half of my attention span.

A weird, moronic joy, probably caused by those horrible late-November rains, makes my colleagues nervous and agitated, especially the ladies who never cease to shut up.

"Can you believe the nerve some people on the council have? They banned me from dissecting frogs in class! Yes, yes, I tell you, that's what they did! I tried to do everything in my power, but the next generations will never know the true joy of live vivisections!" Hanji wails a few rows in the back, her loud voice making my ears itch. I glance at her from time to time; she doesn't seem to care whether someone listens to her or not, and neither does she notice the sour eye rolls of the other teachers. I admire her a little. I would probably be a wreck if people were not interested in what I have to say, especially since I rarely engage in conversations (and I'm a cute, squishy, sensitive soul when you peel down my layers), but this woman seems to be doing just fine with her rhetoric. Hanji just sits in her spot, dressed in an inappropriate, way too colorful shirt and trousers, her long, scrawny arms almost hitting the unwilling audience.

A little puff rushes from my nose. She's out of place and ridiculous as per usual, like an exotic butterfly among common moths.

If only she were a few inches shorter, played the accordion and enjoyed Greek mythology…

If only… but let's not dwell on it.

Rhea's not coming back and I know it. Neither as herself nor as crumbs of her traits in other women enough to satisfy me.

I am doomed to forever be a parched man.

But it's still better than to take part in those conversations that lull in the background. Diseases, children and grandchildren, late night soap operas and dentist appointment; my colleagues don't have many topics to talk about in the teacher's lounge or before a staff meeting starts.

Furthermore, each one perceives themselves as a ruling master over their individual "specialization". They have split the world's wisdom into chunks and are thankful for the tiny piece inside their pockets:

The music teacher, Miss Nanaba, is delicate and ornamental like a way too polished statue. She's also quiet as one, but you should see her sharply coming to life like a kitch Galatea every time we mention Mozart or Ceaikowski: her eyes become wet, round earrings chink, and details pour out of the closet, about concerts, uvertures, symphonies, or maybe just spicy details about musician's lives; useless and pedantic nonsense, just like her existence itself. She has never formulated an opinion, not even a dumb one, about music her entire life.

At the slightest mention I or Petra make about Dostoyevsky, the Russian language teacher jumps. Flagon is a truly dedicated servant to the regime's values, at least during daytime, and reports dutifully our (to be read mostly as mine) bad behavior to Erwin, as any worker of the state should.

The kids rightfully perceive him as a demon since not only once he has slapped their hands with a ruler, but this ain't the west, some petty violence is the last of our problems. Besides, I know my children. They are strong, alive and much smarter than my fellow comrades, it's gonna take more than a beating or two for them to give up.

"Yes, yes, Dostoyevsky…" he usually interrupts the conversation. " Feodor Mikhail Dostoyevsky, yes yes. He was a great Russian writer who showed loved and compassion to the working class. But he had his ideological limits as well…"

I usually turn my head the other way around when he speaks, fighting a basic instinct to not spit him in the face, thinking if this little bitch even knows what he is talking about or did he recite the definition to 'ideology' while jacking off until it got stuck inside his head because of the serotonin?.

" Comrade Ackerman, no matter what you say, he cannot be compared to the great Tolstoy, whose writing grasps the whole mankind…" and then Tolstoy up and Tolstoy down, Tolstoy here and Tolstoy there, Flagon's mouth is a broken record each time he sees me so much that I've ended up preferring the company of whorish teenagers over his.

And then there's Mrs. Ilse Langhar, our run down high school's doctor docent honoris causa in history. You could minding your own business, mentioning Alexander the Great (even if you're talking about the street named after him) and then she perches up automatically: " 356-323 BC". Telling someone that you're later visiting your parents on the Great Union avenue? The same impersonal voice of a robot adds " 23rd may 1956". Besides dates and facts, ( every pointless ascensions and descents of our small nation's kings during the Middle Ages) Mrs. Ilse is also an expert in what she calls 'causes and reasons'. Why did the Napoleonic wars break out? Why did Hannibal use elephants? Why did we invent the steam engine? Why solar eclipses happen? Why do people fall in love? Why do we have butt hair?

With a smirk that radiates utmost superiority, this woman has an answer that can match even your deepest questions about the universe.

Wanna hear it?

Of course you do…

She takes a deep breath and says, time after time, slowly and surely: " it's because of human exploitation." And I tense. Mrs. Ilse continues:

" Mr. Ackerman, or do you prefer Socrates?" she asks with such irony, like it's shameful to get close to your students so much that they give you a nickname. "If you dig up a little, the same things are buried under each of your philosophical ideas, 'idealisms' and 'metaphysics': social disputes, class privilege, protecting the interests of the rich from us, the poor, unlucky masses."

You know, I've always hated violence against women, but this specimen right here can definitely benefit from a 'metaphysical' bitch slap. But since I can't do that, I told her once 'you forgot to add stupid.' And a complaint addressed to me came faster than you could say "cheated my way through college diploma and master's degree".

For decades my comrades have been repeating the same laws, theorems, data, equations, poems, quotes; what they consider to be "the greatest things ever written by the human kind", and they whoop the asses of students who are not able to repeat their teachings, word after word, by the time next class comes.

Even if it has nothing to do with their lives and they force themselves to forget everything as soon as school is over.

I imagine how every kid in this school must have in the depth of their pure mind a completely ruined scenery; like the world they live in, like this moldy school or the unpaved, muddy road that leads to it.

The centuries of knowledge that manage to get jammed in their skulls are scraps, broken bricks and debris, rusty pipes to the outside world, splinters of education that I sometimes scare myself thinking about what a crumbling tower of Babel others must have created inside their head.

I wish I could do more for them, I wish I'd save them like some lambs from the slaughter.

Erwin takes his usual spot at the teacher's desk. On the podium, dear comrade Zeke joins him, representing both the will of the Titan Party and the Math department by some peculiar twist of fate because his mush brain doesn't seem to cooperate in anything other than annoying me.

Slowly, the chit-chat dies and soon the only sound you can hear are the needles because Miss Nanaba and her gang are crocheting during meetings.

This gatherings start in hopeless boredom, and it goes on as the same circus with Zeke mumbling Party Instructions, quoting the Colossal Titan, topped with some bullshit truism about teaching, ethics and etiquette in our perfect society. And all of this lasts a whole hour during which I want to crawl on the walls so much that I consider joining the crocheting club in the back.

I don't get why Erwin lets me be tortured like this…Why do I deserve this? Have I not done everything he had asked me to?

Isn't our world a terrible place anyway? Don't I settle for speck of dust in the grand scheme of being? Don't all of us go mad in the flesh and bones prisons of our bodies?

Don't I have to face either way the fact that I grow old, that our teeth fall, that I'll get nightmarish infirmities and horrible illnesses no matter what I do, that I am doomed to be stuck in agony and then disappear, never to make sense of this world again?

Do I need this tyranny too? And some imbeciles preaching it to my face every day, not understanding a word of what they're saying, like they don't understand neither classic poems, nor physics laws, nor atoms, nor gods, nor the class fight, the same people that would preach anything in the same monotonous voice as long as they can get their afternoon naptime, their only god and friend?

By the time the meeting is over, a wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, this high school, perhaps, or the walls, or maybe myself.

~..~

Do you want to smash things too, Rhea?

I'm thinking about the kids in my homeroom class, about Eren and his goody-two-shoes-yet-totally-falling-apart sister. They're at that age when they like smashing and setting on fire everything standing in their way. You'd definitely like them and they would fall in love with you in an instant, I'm sure of it. They would definitely learn from us everything we have to offer, and then, when we're too tired, we could just sit back and watch how they save this world using everything we'd taught them. I say this to you like an excited child, still...

I wish you'd meet them.

I wish you'd…

Call me anytime,

Come over whenever you want, uninvited

Visit me in my dreams,

Love me in another lifetime,

Make sense out of my life once more,

Please,

Save me.

Yours truly, to the grave

Levi.