I know it very well – the old cobbled road which leads to the ancient castle. The castle is no longer nothing like it has been at the times of its Renaissance glory. It no longer breaks the advancement of the enemy troops, but opens its gates to the floods of tourists. Its dungeons no longer serve a place of torture for the enemy captives, but a quiet place where a young man can steal a kiss from his date's lips if fallen a bit behind the tourist group. But it has always served me as a place which I enter having left all problems and troubles on the threshold. Today is the first time in three years when I am doing it alone.
The old cobbled road breathes in the burning sun of June by the darkish pores between the cobbles. Step by step, it takes me up to the familiar – beloved – gates. I feel the pain – the pain which I thought I would not be able to face. I hated the thought of going alone to this old town and this old castle, but I hated more the thought of never going there at all. And here I am, measuring the old cobbled road up to the Renaissance castle by my loose vacation steps, like once in a while when I feel that I need to escape from everything, but this is the first time in three years when I am doing it alone.
The old cobbled road ends by the castle's gates like a river ends by the sea. I come to the gates and look up overwhelmed to see the castle being one the verge of falling upon me and hiding me under its ruins. I got this feeling every time I came here and stood in awe before those ancient gates. It has has been a ridiculous ritual of ours – one of our many ridiculous rituals – to stop before the gates and gaze at the pointed center of the arch until some less sentimental and imaginative tourist pushes us when trying to get to the attractions of the inner castle. This time, for the first time in three years, I am standing before the gates alone, but I do not betray the ridiculous ritual.
I enter the yard of the castle, go up the stairs and find my favorite gun hole in the wall. It is nothing like a window, but I peep through it at the fields drowning in the summer sunshine. I am getting carried away by the perfection of the landscape and the power of my imagination. But this time, there is an aftertaste of memories.
I do not know why I came here today. I knew that now that we are no longer a couple, I should probably look for another place to escape, invent other rituals, attach to other symbols, but never come back here in order not to rekindle the old flame in my heart. But I came anyway, even though I knew that I would be able to escape all, but one thing – the one I was, ironically, dying to escape right now. I am seeing someone else. I want to be happy. Although the three years we spent together seem to be the best time of my life, I want to believe that even better times are awaiting me. Yet, I am here, on the spot where he said that he felt like he wanted to spent his whole life with me.
I am brutally awakened from my daydreaming by the urging sense that someone is watching me. But for some reason, I am reluctant to turn my head. Actually, I know the reason, maybe I know it well enough to be afraid to acknowledge it. I know that I want to turn my head and to see him. At this moment, the person standing behind me resembles the Schrodinger's cat: it is not utterly impossible, that it is him looking at the nape of my head, but I dread turning around and seeing some playful tourist trying to pick me up. I stand still and ignore the gnawing feeling of being watched, until I hear a dear familiar voice: “Honey!”.
This is not the voice I was dying to hear a moment ago.
- Come on. I knew I would find you here.
I smiled and poked my nose in the chest of the man I am currently dating.
This is it. The last resort, the last sacred memory I held of our relationship was defamed and devastated. It was the last sanctuary which was untouched by my present-day life, by the changes that came when he went away. It was the last memory bubble where I could hide, and it was blown up.
Comment
Some time after I had broken up with my long-time boyfriend, I was having a recurring dream which was more or less like a hybrid memory of our travels. The dreams did not feature specific destinations, but every time they occurred they involved a hotel room very similar to that we had once booked at a hotel in an old historic town that we had chosen to be our destination the first time we were preparing to travel together. In the dreams, the interior of the room was blurry because we had never actually been there, but seen it on the pictures. I do not know why my subconsciousness chose evoke that particular room, but it reminded me of the town we never went to. This is the reason why I decided to use the old castle as the setting for my story. In the dreams, there were just two characters – me and my ex-boyfriend, but in the short story I have taken away the ex-boyfriend and invented a current boyfriend to lead the narrator out from her nostalgia into the world still full of bright colors. The narrator of my story is drawn to the place which she and her ex-boyfriend used to visit once in a while because it is the only place which is still untouched. However, the presence of the current boyfriend there brings her back to reality and reminds that there is no way back, even in memories. Eventually she gives in and her broken heart starts healing, However, what is real for the narrator of my story, was just a trick of my imagination when I found myself brokenhearted after the break-up.
