Dissipating Love

Paris, is very well known for a city that has romance. As a little girl growing up, she often wondered what was 'love' as people described her city; she never seemed to get any definition of love that anyone described to her.

"Love is when you steal my bag of chocolate every morning to school but I put it in the same place every day," Her older brother explained.

After she understood love and what the concept finally meant, she thought of it as 'family' or 'affection', but she never thought of the dangers of love. All of her love thinking changed when her family suddenly disappeared.

Lila, the little girl, experienced her first shaking of the Earth. She was playing with her older brother Tialy when the apartment started to shake. The rumbling intensified...sections of the tall and enormous building started to fall off; Lila and her family rushed towards the stairs to get far away from the building. As they opened the door, she saw only a few of stairs and the rest started crumbling and falling off. Lila gasped,

"Where are the stairs??" She exclaimed in a shocked way.

Then, the father of her family glanced in the opposite direction, seeing the elevator with people inside getting down, the last hope of survival in this intense shake. The elevator was almost full, and Lila's family of four got rejected as they were coming towards the direction of the elevator.

"It's already full, we can't take that much people orelse it won't go down!" A stranger explained.

"Please, take the kids," Lila's father said in a hopeless tone as he pushed Lila and Tialy in the elevator just when it was gradually closing.

"Wait!" Lila shouted to her parents, "come with us!!!"

"We'll meet you down there, we promise!" Her mother shouted back in response. As the elevator was closing, the image of her parents got smaller, and smaller, as if hope was getting less and less.

Lila and Tialy rushed out of the elevator when they finally arrived at the bottom floor of the huge apartment building; they didn't see their parents as they had promised. Nine year old Lila and thirteen year old Tialy waited for as long as an hour for their parents, but nothing showed up.

Tialy felt like grieving but he couldn't let it out; his heart was frozen in the same place. He looked past his shoulder to Lila, who seemed to be experiencing the same thing, only that she was so quiet and just a shadow.

Lila wanted to cry and sob until the sun rose, but she just thought that her heart was weeping blood instead of tears, and when the moment came, Lila sobbed her heart out; she finally understood what love meant: It is when someone or something cares for you so much, and in this case, it was their parents, but love to Lila, was such as terrible thing, she hated this man so called 'love,' and didn't understand why it was so wonderful.

Five years have passed and Lila is now fourteen years old, making Tialy eighteen years old. At school, Lila learned about her city, Paris; learning that it has the historical figure of the Eiffel Tower and a city of romance and love. When the word 'love' was mentioned, Lila thought back to the moment five years ago where her parents died; it was a terrible thought about love, and living in a city full of it was dreadful. She told every feeling to Tialy since he was her closest friend and family that she had, when she confessed about what she felt today, Tialy understood and also thought back to the moment as well, how their parents promised them that they would meet the two siblings at the entrance of the apartments.

"I never trusted this so called subject of 'promises' ever since," Lila admitted, sighing with disappointment, "it pains me to think about it."

When Tialy was going to college since he graduated high school, he told Lila he would have to leave her to attend college in another country, and this made Lila's heart burst out tears. Why did it have to be another family member to leave her in pain for eternity, twenty minutes in loneliness was already too much for Lila to handle since she didn't have any close teachers, friends, or anyone she could talk to, and the thought of Tialy going to college made her uneasy.

"I'm truly sorry," Tialy said, "it's for the best, once I graduate, I'll have a job and we'll be together again."

Lila hated the man love, she wish she can rip it apart and she would never be happy again when thinking about love, it made her struggle of what she is going to do everyday without Tialy. The next morning where he was going to leave, Lila embraced Tialy and said affectionately and in despair,

"I don't know where to go, or what steps to take once you're gone big brother, I hate love and I hate it even more everyday as it pains me to say it. Ever since our parents left us, I was confused, confused of where life would take me and where I would go next. Now you leave me too, and four years is too much time for me to be in despair or loneliness. I only seem like a shadow that isn't real; everyone seems to like 'love' and this city is full of it, I would never commit and dedicate myself to it after the incident Tialy. But still, where shall I go and where shall my feet, dirty of pain and mistakes, take me on the journey of life now?"

"You can go wherever you wish, my dear Lila, life doesn't make choices for you, it is yourself that can go and take steps to the future. Whatever you do, keep in mind that I'm always here to protect, help, dedicate, and help you. Farewell and goodbye for now Lila, and remember what I said." Then, Tialy hugged and embraced Lila for a final time before entering the taxi that was waiting, and appeared out of sight. Lila thought of what Tialy said to her, each and every word, and still standing by the street, his voice echoed through her mind.."remember what I said... remember what I said... life doesn't make choices for you...keep in mind that I'm always here to protect...help...dedicate...and help..."

"Why is love like this..." Lila said to herself before collapsing.