"I guess I'll spend another lifetime
Searching for a new hope"
Broken Iris - A New Hope
***
When did life begin for him? When he was born or when he learned about pain? "When?" the man thought, but he couldn't find the answer.
Sitting on one of the benches in the circus area of the city, he stared at the kitten sleeping on his shoe. He wanted to smile or pet the sweet creature, but he couldn't move his body. He continued to watch the kitten, squinting his brows and brown eyes.
When the kitten finally woke up and yawned away from him, he got up from the bench and started walking around the circus area. On his way to the fight field, he passed a sword-swallowing juggler and a magician pulling pigeons out of his hat. None of them surprised him, after all, everything in this life was an illusion, even his own life.
When he entered the tent with the big and dangerous people at the end of the circus area, those who saw him averted their eyes from him. He was used to these looks. No one who knew him would look at him for more than 3 seconds.
When he reached the dimly lit preparation area at the very end of the tent, he looked carefully at the full-length mirror in front of him. He raised his large, calloused hand to touch his short-cut dark hair. When he was little, his mother said he looked like a raven with his black hair, but as he got older he realized he looked more like a criminal than a raven. He smiled crookedly, missing his mother, but she was far away now. "Ravens are beautiful creatures," he said, still looking in the mirror. "You were wrong, mother. Everyone is afraid of your son."
He sat on the small stool next to the mirror and wrapped the bandages he had brought with him around his hands. He pressed his face into his palms, stifling his breath. He had already let go of the chaos inside him. He had had enough of the chaos around him. He remembered his peaceful little home away from the chaos. A memory flashed before his eyes.
Sunny sky, floating pieces of land, a lush green plain, small houses on the plain with considerable distances, and a small child admiring the house he lives in. He wanted to go back to that moment, realizing that he had forgotten his mother's voice calling out to him smiling through the kitchen window. There was a movement in his heart, it was a small thing. Still, it didn't hurt.
He stood up slowly when he heard his name from the fighting ring inside the tent. When he started to walk confidently towards the ring, the people who saw him made a great noise. He wiped his nose to the side, very angry. For him, the only way to control his anger, hate and earn money at the same time was to fight. He had to fight, he would fight as long as the people of this city were slaves of chaos and violence. He was going to use his power because it was the only way for him not to think.
The fight has begun. And again, he won.
After getting his fight money and putting on new clothes, he rushed out of the tent to go to the flower-filled area in the forest, where he usually goes to clear his head. He didn't look anyone in the face until he left the circus area, his eyes focused only on the forward. He thought of the forest and the silence, where no one could disturb him. There were no violent people in the forest, he could breathe a sigh of relief.
When he arrived at the place where he always went to rest, he froze in place without taking a new step. A woman was lying on the ground. The wind blew hard, the flowers and grass moved, and a raven passed over her, but she continued to sleep.
He believed that this fearless and worry-free woman should be awakened from the middle of the forest. The closer he got to the woman, the more confused he was, because the person sleeping on the floor was none other than the writer. It was the first time he had seen the writer up close. Her dark brown hair, spread over the grass and flowers, was beautiful, and he was sure that he had never seen a woman as beautiful as her at this time of his life. The woman looked like an angel. Her black eyelashes were so long that he hesitated and reached his fingers to her eyes, he wanted to touch the beauty he had never seen before, but he froze just as his fingers touched her eyelashes. "What do you think you're doing?" he said to himself. "You have no right to touch her."
"Hey! Wake up." When she opened her eyes with a startle, she stood up in fear because of the man she saw in front of her and looked around. It was dark. Seeing that she was frightened, the man stepped back and sat on the grass, tilting his head to the side and grinning. "Don't worry. I haven't even touched you."
"Who are you?" said the writer, leaning against the tree behind her.
So she didn't know that some of the characters she created had become conscious and that she fell into the fiction she had created. This was what the man was thinking, but the burning truth was completely different from what had been imagined.
"I'm not like everyone else." said the man, looking into her light brown eyes. "I am a novel character." She froze at the unexpected answer and studied the man.
"I have to go," said the writer as she gathered her things. The man calmly watched her pack her things and stand up.
"Goodbye, writer," he said, looking beyond the forest. She froze.
"Goodbye, novel character." The man squinted his eyes as he stared into the forest, smiling.
When the writer disappeared, the man sat down where she slept and leaned back against the tree. He was sure it belonged to her when a soft wind blew and brought a heavenly scent to his nostrils. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and turned his face to the dark sky, smiling. "Yes…" he said to himself. "You'll regret not believing me."