Chapter 4 Birthday

"Yes, mom, I know. I thank you so much. And I love you infinitely too..... no matter what the future holds."

"I see. I'm glad you do. So, let's go now."

Ivyne didn't know why, but at that moment she missed her mother, missed her more than she had ever missed her during all her absences in the past. Painful times, thankfully gone, when too often she was away from her and asked her as lovingly as possible to wait for her quietly. One day, the child that she was even got lost and called out her name over and over again. Or at least that's what she remembered. Again, she refused to even consider that this name she called with every fiber of her body was another person's. Something invincible and cold prevented her from assuming it at this point.

But tonight was something else. The mark of an end! Ivyne had already guessed, in spite of herself, that all this would no longer be true! That the words spoken would take with them what their life was before tonight. Desperate, the girl tried to find everywhere around her, in her beloved city, the refutation of her feelings, even if she was already certain that it was already too late! Too late for a long time.

"As if it were possible to hold back time or rebuild it," she murmured wryly, "suffering was a terrible thing we hated. And while many people have been inspired by it in their work, their art, and even in their lives, we all desperately wish that this unspeakable thing never existed."

Ivyne frowned. She had a vague conviction that someone had said the same words to her before. She had forgotten who and under what circumstances. This person had hurt her more than anyone had ever hurt her, but he had felt he had to do it so that she, a sublime doll with a troubled heart, would no longer be constantly blinded by fear. Fear of seeing and hurting others. In the end, for her, no matter what path she chose, there was only one way to do it right. To be forever tormented by that huge, invincible shadow that held her whole.

But Ivyne had never accepted them. She refused to listen to those pathetic and futile lessons that might have disturbed her and had even excluded from her life all things that were of no interest to her. She did not know that these words affirmed in the past had, in spite of everything, insinuated themselves in her and were patiently waiting for their moment.

While Mama negotiated the price of a hat ring, Ivyne watched the scene of her daily life with a kind of slight tenderness. The peasants sat among old friends over a drink, the smell of that horrible drink they were particularly fond of, oozing out by force, which amused the girl greatly. The children were playing the games of the ancients "the ancestral games" which they also called "the games of the poor". Seeing what was so familiar to her, how could she have thought that these simple moments of happiness would be the last. And she, instead of appreciating the simple beauty of it, was distracted by imagining the many gifts that her relatives and friends would not fail to give her. So she forgot the wonderful clarity of her surroundings, the naturalness of her life. But perhaps Ivyne didn't want to realize that everything that made up her existence could one day fade away. It is true that it was very difficult to see a whole period of happiness come to an end, to witness this end, to be unable to stop it, to refuse what was foreign to us, when there was no choice. It was cruelty at its most genuine.

Ivyne also realized that her heart was like crystal, so fragile and so clear that the slightest pain would be able to break it. So a pain as terrible as the end of her humanity was impossible to consider. And she later realized that it was already done but she just had to realize it.

"Ivyne, are you listening to me?" Her mother asked as she handed her the heart-shaped ring.

"Yes, I'm listening to you, Mom. And you're right. Or almost," she added teasingly, admiring her gift and reflecting it in the intense brightness of a streetlight.

"All right, all right. So, despite my words, you need to know and understand right away that Mom is not ready to let you out at night yet. Even for strong, mean adults, it's dangerous, so for a girl as fragile and beautiful as you, it's totally fatal."

"Okay, Mom!" Ivyne nodded, amused. "But I find your total lack of confidence in me rather disturbing. But at least I can go clubbing now, right!".

"If by being able to assert yourself as an adult you mean spending every night in a nightclub, then the answer is a huge, definitive 'NO'."

"But you yourself stated that I can now...."

"Yes, I did say that. And even though I repeat that you're of age now or almost, so you're allowed to do a lot of things. But you're not going out at night again, honey! I don't trust you enough to let you run free in the streets and sin to land I don't know where, and in the arms of the first person who comes along."

Ivyne laughed heartily.

"You're exaggerating as always. I have to start sometime, after all."

Suddenly her mother turned to Ivyne, looked at her intently, then reached out to tenderly stroke her daughter's long silken hair, as white and soft as the purest sunny morning.

"My baby, you look beautiful."

"Thank you, Mama," the girl replied, blinking slightly, sensing that something painful was about to happen, and she was right.

"And yet, we've never talked about love."

Immediately, something in Ivyne tensed, so hard so painfully that it turned her blood to ice.

"What are you talking about, Mom?" she again pretended to joke. But her mother was not fooled by her false levity.

"You know that very well. You're a teenager today, an adult in a few hours. You're beautiful, young, smart, talented and passionate. You have everything it takes to attract people and inspire great, inevitable, immortal passion. Besides, you have absolutely no idea what men look like as they walk by you, admiring your looks and beauty like birds of prey."

"Mom, please..." tried to say Ivyne in order to stop her, feeling the taste of ashes intensify in her mouth.

"And yet, darling, you continued to ignore them as if they didn't exist, as if nothing did, you didn't even once think to discover the feeling."

"I am still......"

"You are precisely in the period of life when the discovery of love is the most intense and beautiful, my treasure. You have the right to discover it as you wish, even if it must harm you."

Tense, Ivyne tried again to joke anyway.

"But Mom, I thought you preferred to keep me to yourself. You even just said so!"

"It was a figure of speech, dear. Of course, making big mistakes would be something I'd rather you didn't do, I admit, but you have a right to do what you want and the way you want. And seeing you happy will always be the thing I want most."

Ivyne, whose taste of ash was now spreading throughout her being, was beginning to lose her breath, tried again to stop her mother.

"But Mom, I'm only eighteen. I'm only at the threshold of my life. I'll still have plenty of time to live it."

Her mother looked at her for a moment, then sighed, overwhelmed.

"Yes, and you're still so young, but it feels like so long ago."

She shook her head as if to regain her composure.

"Anyway, honey, I've seen how you treat others, especially boys who are interested in you. You're awful."

"Mama I......"

"I know, I know," her mother stopped her, holding up both hands. "And it's your life, honey, and as I just said you have to live it the way you want to. I myself have indulged in some youthful nonsense that you will never know the details of. But above all, I want you to know that despite the probable words of some people, love is the most beautiful thing that can exist. Life is worth nothing without it."

"Yes, I'm sure it is, but...."

"You'll see. Even in unspeakable and endless suffering, when you experience true love, you will never be able to live without it again, until your eyes close for eternal rest."

At these last words, Ivyne gasped and thought that her heart would tear into a thousand pieces and that she would soon succumb to a strange and unbearable pain. At that moment, she was reliving something, a precise moment trapped in time. Once again, she saw herself, beautiful and fragile as her mother described, standing alone under a blue sky, reddened by the glow of dusk, and sad, inexpressibly sad, kneeling next to a body more beautiful than anything one could imagine, sinking into that eternal sleep from which he could never come out. She tried to wake up this dear one by all possible means, but in the end, nothing was enough. Also, crushed by an incurable sorrow, her heart was getting cold, as cold as the body of this stranger gone for a long journey and that she seemed to love more than anything, before dying out and stopping, stopping with her heart everything that could be.

"No, I do not want to see, I do not want to relive this moment, it hurts too much, no... a cry of absolute desolation went up in her. Immediately, a huge trail of fire suddenly appeared in the alley where the two women were standing.