Way back in Lithuania, it has always thrilled me when I hunted birds, especially those in flight. There is a certain poetry in shooting a flying bird. Each time I aim the muzzle at it, I make sure its wings are spread out wide and its feathers are fluttering against the wind. I make sure to behold the bird in its full majesty before pulling the trigger and making it fall. Chiyoh used to say I have bad aim when shooting birds mid-flight because they fall onto the ground still struggling for life. She eventually realized it was not the case. I injure them enough to make them fall just so I can see them wounded on the ground with their plumage soaked in blood.
When my father asked me the question about the wounded bird, I knew right away how to answer him. A wounded bird is the metaphor of my being—lost from its flock, fallen and broken. I wounded all those birds to make myself feel less alone. When I looked at them on the ground, I always asked myself if the bird should live or die. Most of the time, I kill them in mercy. I only came to realize now that mercy is not what drove me to end those birds' lives—it was guilt. I was guilty that they existed that way, the same way I am guilty of my own existence.
As the bird dies, I ask it with unspoken words, "Now, what do you see?" I used to wonder what those birds see while they were dying. Does life leave them to the darkness? Or does death lead them to the light? I used to wonder if it is the same for human beings. When I killed those boys, I saw a cloud pass over their eyes and it seemed to me they were lost in nothingness. Looking back now, I only saw my own reflection on their lifeless eyes. Perhaps it signifies that I was doomed to nothingness.
I used to dance as a teenager. I began when the memory of killing those bullies became unbearable. Dancing used to rid my mind of all thought that attempts to consume me. When I was eighteen, the dance company I belonged to performed Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with the genders of the characters switched. I landed the role of the male White Swan. The prospect of dancing the Dying Swan had an allure on me then. I had hoped that it would make me understand death in all its grace. I had hoped I would feel how it is to lose flight and drift away from the world. However, ballet brings a great degree of glamour to anything it portrays. I had performed the Dying Swan to a deafening sea of applause and congratulations. That performance made me think there could be beauty in death, but I realize now that it is not the case. There is only a gaping void, a null abyss, that comes after life.
I spiraled into nothingness when I succumbed to the pain brought by the gunshots. It was neither dark nor light, it was only empty, and it was very, very cold. It felt like the same kind of cold and emptiness in the halls of Castle Lecter. As I recalled so, I heard the patter of little feet. There was the huffing sound of a child running. It was me, and I was running in the void. It was the little boy with pallid cheeks and shuffled curls whose face looked too melancholic for a child his age. It was the same abandoned boy devoid of warmth. How miserable I felt looking at that child. He can neither weep nor laugh because his being was already too numb to feel anything. As I looked at the child, I understood my godmother—I wanted to crush him. I wanted to free him of his suffering like how I freed those birds, but I was not in the power to do so.
The boy's running slowed into brisk pacing as he turned to an adolescent. Melancholy still prevailed in his visage, but there was also bitterness. I saw the rage that was running cold in his veins. As that boy looked around in the null, his eyes spouted disgust. He has grown to loathe the nothingness of his own existence. There was a low, gurgling sound and it rose to resemble the noise of a shallow brook echoing in the void. The boy bent down and dipped his hands into the nothingness around us. A faint red hue flowed out of his fingertips. I followed with my gaze as it circled around us, and came to realize it was the blood I had washed from my shoes ten years ago. I followed that bit of crimson all the way back to that boy who is now a young man.
The young man was right in front of me, his steel-blue eyes looking directly into mine. "Abiel," he said, "where have you gone off to?"
"Here," I replied.
"I do not see you," he said although he was looking at me.
"I'm right here," and my voice grew faint as I said so.
"I can see nothing." He said. "You are fading into the nothingness."
I was filled with conflicting emotions as I looked at that young man who stood still in front of me. I wanted to tell him that I was not fading into nothingness, but at the same time I also wanted to just fade away into it.
"Where will you go now?" As the young man said so, his voice was suddenly split into two other voices that sounded so familiar.
"Home," I replied. The nothingness felt like home.
"Where is home?" The young man's face contorted as if there was a sudden burst of static on it. There was another static burst and my fathers were standing side by side in front of me in place of that young man. "Where is home, Abiel?" They asked. They were both smiling those smiles that made me feel warm when I first saw them. It was only then that I understood how those smiles were. Their smiles were not just brought by mere fondness; they were asking me for forgiveness and also offering me love.
I have forgotten the last time I wept, but I felt like shedding tears in that cold void. Warmth dripped from my eyes and trickled down my cheeks as I raised my hands to reach out to my parents. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to forgive them and accept their love.
A warm sensation held my hand. It was the same warmth that had wrapped that very hand before I drifted off.
"Abiel?" A voice called.
I opened my eyes, and tears were rolling from them. I blinked at a white ceiling before I turned my head to look at the person holding my hand.
"Oh thank goodness," Will Graham's voice broke as he said so. He was holding my right hand in both of his and he pressed my knuckles to his cheek.
"Dad," I managed to say with a weak smile.
Dad smiled back. "I'm glad you're awake."
With my right hand, I feebly clutched his and replied, "me too."
"Papa's so worried about you, son, we just sat there and cried," he said.
"Papa?" I asked.
"I visited him yesterday." Dad replied. "After more than twenty years."
His words brought me some kind of gladness and I could only smile at him.
"We love you, Abiel," he withdrew a hand to place on my head and caress the locks that were so much like his. "Our thoughts of death have been replaced by those of your life ever since you were born. Losing you would make us more insane that we already are." He chuckled.
I have been watching him fight back tears as he spoke, until he broke into a sob.
"I'm sorry, Abiel. I'm so sorry." He said, tears flowing from his eyes. "I'm sorry for everything. I don't know how we could make it up to you. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you can forgive us."
I sighed. "I want to, Dad." I replied. "I used to think I could never forgive you, but I'm exhausted now." I raised a finger to wipe a tear from my father's eye. "I'm so exhausted of being driven by my hatred towards my parents. I'm so exhausted of being broken because I cannot accept my parents. I want to take this chance to try and be happy for a change."
"That makes me so happy then." Dad smiled. He stood up and pressed his lips upon my forehead.
What I felt then was extremely alien to me, but not unwelcome. That was the first time in my twenty-two years of living that I felt I was truly cherished.
I insisted on seeing Papa that day. The doctor was reluctant to let me go, but I was resolute. I wanted to be with both my parents, and that was the only thought I ever had since I woke up. Arriving at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, I pleaded with Dr. Bloom to allow physical contact with Hannibal Lecter for that visit. "Just this once," I told her. "I want to hold my father." She tentatively responded to the affirmative, but she has to personally monitor the visit.
When we entered the room, Hannibal Lecter was clasping his hands behind him. "Abiel," he said, but it sounded more like a sigh of relief.
I smiled and walked up to him. "Papa," was all I could say as I wrapped my arms around him.
"You're alive," he said as he embraced me too, with one hand holding the back of my head.
We stayed like that for a few moments until he withdrew his hand from the back of my head.
Turning, I saw Hannibal Lecter reach out to Will Graham who was smiling at us a few meters away.
The first step Dad took towards us was reluctant, but he immediately rushed to us, and the next thing I knew, the three of us were enveloped in a warm, comforting hug. I sighed happily. There has always been something frozen inside me, and I felt it thaw at that very moment. My entire life up to that point was like the cold, dark, empty and abandoned Castle Lecter. I was so convinced that dismal place was all I could ever call home. That one moment I spent in my fathers' arms, though, felt like I have returned to a place I left when I was too young to remember. I never thought I would come to know that kind of happiness in my life.
"Will, do you remember the first time you brought Abiel here?" Papa asked as he held us tight.
"Yes," Dad replied. "That was the happiest moment I shared with you."
"I never thought I could hold him like this." Papa said as he buried his hand into my hair. "This is the happiest moment I shared with you."
I sighed. To me, that was the only truly happy moment in my twenty-two years of existence.
Author's Note:
My indecisiveness is showing in that I don't know whether I should end it here or not. There are still loose ends to this story, not to mention there is a certain ending that I want to accomplish; a happily ever after. I don't want to write a separate story just for that. I'll just mark the story as 'completed' for the time being, but there's going to be a chapter after this, and I promise the mood will be a tad lighter.
About Abiel being a dancer, I have been thinking about it ever since I created his character in my mind. I just did not know how or where I should mention it, so I took his state of wavering between life and death to do so.
I changed the cover to a man who's pose is reminiscent of the Dying Swan. You should watch it if you haven't, especially Maya Plisetskaya's performance of it and Leigh Alderson's too.
My gratitude is yours for reading up to this point. Please leave a review/fav/follow!