4. The voyage into the unknown

A true traveler is used to being alone. I'd actually say that seeking loneliness, the quiet, tolerating and loving silence is a mandatory trait without which a true wayfarer cannot exist.

Of course company is pleasant from here to near, one delights in the company of stories and written ideas, of scenery that weaves smoothless from gaze to gaze, the excitement that fills you before reaching your destination....but this is not what I'm talking about.

I talk to the few who still carry trace memories of the grand voyages into the unknown, the long, silent nights with senses buzzing alight, months and years of solitude between destinations, I address those who know the great challenge of facing Yourself and Memories of everything that was and will never again be, so many happenings twirled into an emotional tsunami that wants to drown your being in the Long Night.

You can't afford to lose a tear for everything you lost because an entire deluge is one tear away. Neither can you forget, not when you sit alone and stand vigil in the great voyage in which only those who haven't perished remained, yours few that are left, those whom you have no clue where exactly you're taking, but whom trust you entirely to find another home.

During those long, endless, solitary nights of your journey you face everything you did, retrace your steps, rethink your decisions, disentangle the story line up to here. A captain always stays balanced, even if standing on the edge of a blade.

All that truly matters is the next step, no regrets, sigh or remorse could pull you back. If I look back I‘m lost.

N.

***

La famiglia rests and one stands vigil when they sleep, not without a trace of doubt that choosing to leave this far was the right choice. If we move away long enough we become strangers. A stranger can be anyone, until you decide to greet.

Everyone knows nothing will ever be the same, yet the moment in which they'll wake up to a new story will be dreadful. No longer having a home will be a truth that seeps down into the bones, that war is over and we lost an entire world, an unfathomable loss no sleep could conceal, no matter how long the night.

At least you who stands vigil have time to process the loss, to look towards all those distant stars and wonder which of them light a world like your own. Maybe I'm wrong and it's even worse to relive the loss with every thought of what shall NEVER be called home to me, nor anyone else.

You reach for the library console and connect to the download system. This should ease the burden of thoughts, shrink their number, yet you waver every time you're supposed to demand their cross into the Archives. Forgotten history repeats itself.

::incoming message::

How stupid to believe the lies of powers that drive you to slaughter, to feel a hero for saving thousands at the expense of other thousands killed. Truth is, in war, both sides lose. In war there are no heroes, only fools.