Memories of a Broken Heart

He felt something. Edward thought that he must run to his son's bedroom, but could not move on time. His heart was extremely broken. It was too late.

Edward sailed on a journey with no return to the most uninhabited pieces of land knownt to mankind; it was a very colorful place, so much, that you could get lost into its hues if caught off guard. He could barely recognize where he was, but a glance at the past was enough to reveal what just happened… What were the odds?

He could remember everything, every single little thing: It was seven in the morning that day. The sky full of clouds, the streets without crowds; it was the perfect day for a haunted soul to feel lonely… Nothing as haunting as the Death, but there she was, standing still, looking into his eyes, his only company.

He entered the store of his older brother, Fernando, an incredibly busy man that gave him a farewell to roam through the city the very moment he came in; Edward didn’t know why he was there. The floor was immaculate, so white and clean that he was able to see his own reflex. The people going in and out the room every minute could have been a little annoying, but the place remained so silent that the beating of his heart served him as a way to measure time. Raindrops fell like teardrops on the window, the silence was enough to pierce his heart. ¿What would his kids be doing? Ed. Jr, the oldest of them, was probably staring at the ceiling, struggling to sleep a wink; exactly what Edward was doing in a place that wasn’t his home.

The sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore, a distant shore that laid in calm, yet it felt so stormy to him; he knew that the tempest was about to come. Leaving his children behind was very difficult, but he got used to it somehow. He got accustomed to the loneliness, to the sorrow, to wander through those lands all by his own, and that shadow suited him well. His heart was a door that would remain sealed until nothing is no more, for no one will have the chance to open it again. All these thoughts coming to his mind were unnerving, distracting. He was lost in his own head trying to battle with the worst part of himself, but all of a sudden, something brought him back to reality.

Striking, painful, deafening; a beam of light that quickly turned to a bullet. Edward had received the coup de grace that will prevent him of going on a journey to the lands that no other man has ever seen before; his eyes were made of glass, and they fell into pieces. He didn’t feel the ground when he hit it, neither did he hear the shouts of the people surrounding him. The only thing he could see, were the lights turning off, the entire world

fading away. What were the odds again? Not a single soul could have told that would happen there wasn’t anyone to blame. He wished he could go back in time to revive every

moment he did not appreciate, to hold on to those he didn’t love strong enough.

Everything was so quiet, there was no hospital to spend his last days with the few people he loved, no time to say goodbye; there was no one to care.

Ed. Jr didn’t even take a glance on him during his wake, not for the reasons you would think but because he couldn't stand to see his father die in that way; he just fell on the ground crying in weeping agony. The scene was devastating to witness.

— He was fresh as a Daisy when I left the store in the morning, and tonight I will be burying him — thought Fernando to himself while the dirt was being poured onto the coffin of his brother.

Edward was brokenhearted. He couldn’t even imagine that such a thing would ever happen to him. He wished that all of those who care could see through his eyes now, he wanted everyone to see that quiet place in which he was, so their tears could stop falling and they would be able to turn the page. He just wanted everyone to move on. To believe.

He could witness with audacity how that singular young man was pouring hail from his blue eyes, with the palms of his wet hands on his pale and greasy face. His father had died, so early, so soon, that he could never be able to say goodbye.

Edward knew it: he could see from a parallel dimension unknown to human science as living beings continued their journeys, always in fear of sudden death. On a prosperous tomorrow would people be able to see it? Some questions were unanswered despite being something that came out of that created cube, that box that society sometimes refuses to open.

Reluctant to ever see his father again, who lay meters underground probably eaten by worms, completely rotten, Ed. Jr gave up. He assumed that the feeling would be there forever, in his soul, and that it would progressively disappear.

Two hearts meet in a grave without either part realizing it. It is a pact where the strength is in the one who lives, and the hope in the one who left. For Ed. Jr it would only be enough to be together with his father again, even if both of them were only left stranded in an empty world.

Death is part of life itself. Hiding in escape only makes our experiences become that rigid line between the irrelevant and the unforgettable. All prevailed, leaving a small trace of what Edward left and could not specify. Without knowing it, he was calm, in peace, observing them without judgment, in an unknown but beautiful place, where they would meet again once the cycle of life ended.