Will thought about what the woman had said for a long time. He thought he understood what she meant, something inside him identified completely with those words, however another part of him denied all that. If in fact there was something greater conspiring out of reach and sight of man Will blamed it, whatever it was, for all the evil that had befallen him.
He was born with the strange gift of pure empathy, which inevitably pushed him away from people. How can you deal with both your angsts and those of others? After his childhood he remembered being constantly alone, afraid to be spoken to or even seen, afraid of his own nature. Later he learned how to teach, in large lecture halls, where there was no need for real interaction, he shared his knowledge with his students that always thought him to be too strange to speak to him. After came Jack searching for him, and from there it was like if he had plunged into deep darkness. His job of entering the minds of the most dangerous psychopaths altered his perception of reality and for a long time he couldn't tell apart reality from imagination. He was caught in the dark nets of the human mind and such left scars that were still to be healed.
He blamed himself, blamed Hannibal, blamed all the world and all the people for the hell he had to live in. For being arrested, for almost losing his mind, for not being able to sleep, afraid that the ghosts of his head would wake up and roam next to him once again.
He asked himself how that woman could speak of love and happiness so lightly, when for him such things were nothing more than blurred images on the depths of his memories. Again he felt like crying.
"I think you might like this book, it tells the story of a shepherd who's looking for a treasure." Said the woman, interrupting him from his thoughts, she was still sitting next to him, now holding a small book. "Come on, you don't need to buy it, I'll lend it to you. If you like it keep it, if not return it to me."
Will took the book and got up from his chair, it was time to get out of there, he had entered the darkest part of his mind and now needed to be alone.
"I still don't know your name. Can you tell me what it is? I'm tired of thinking about you as the man with the sad eyes!" She said smiling. All that felt strange to Will and extremely invasive.
"William, but everyone calls me Will."
"Well my name is Julia, it was a pleasure William, see you next time!"
Will spent the rest of the day at home, he was feeling depressed and didn't want to see the sun because it made him feel dissonant. He prepared his class for the next week and cleaned the few furniture of his house and then let himself be in silence in the darkness of his room.
As the night approached his spirit got more troubled. He had to occupy his head with something and, as sleeping was out of the question, he decided to start reading the book he had brought from the bookstore that morning.
It was a simple story that read quickly and there didn't seem to be any complicated metaphors. It told the story of a simple shepherd who had a dream, and departed in search of a hidden treasure. "What an idiot!" Will thought. But the pastor was a sympathetic character and Will wanted to know the fate of the poor creature.
It was already dawn when he finished the book, when he closed it he felt sleep take over his eyes. He fell in a deep sleep, and dreamed that he was trying to find a treasure himself, at the small bookstore, he had a shovel in his hand and dug right at the center of the shop. He dug until he was quite dirty and exhausted and suddenly felt the shovel it something hard. It was a big old trunk that he opened immediately. But inside there was the remains of a mutilated body and on the top stood Hannibal's head that had been cut from the neck. Will turned away in horror, his hands shanking. Then the bloody head opened his eyes fixing them on Will's, his lips started moving to speak but Will covered his hears with his hands violently.
He woke up screaming and soaking wet. He sat on the bed breathless as the morning already entered the room.
The rest of the day unfolded quietly, but Will couldn't shake the dream off his head. He asked himself what Hannibal would have said if he had given him the chance. Probably that "It still isn't over." But that Will already knew, just not what it meant exactly.
When he finished his class he was still very upset, and without knowing why he found himself walking to the bookstore. The afternoon was almost over and a warm breeze ran on the streets. When he got to the alley he saw the shop's door closed, the chairs and tables weren't outside and there was no light on the inside. Will felt immensely desolated, he didn't know why but in that moment he really needed to hear Julia's strange words. He just needed.
That night he couldn't sleep. He laid in bed for hours contemplating the dark, afraid to fall asleep.