Caught

The ever higher walls prevented Dariana from seeing the outside world. For years her only mission was to isolate herself from everyone and everything.

Every day a new row of heavy bricks was placed to raise a little higher the walls that kept her away from pain but also from happiness. She was determined not to suffer without understanding that suffering is also part of being alive.

Alive? Was she really alive? There was no proof that it was, so and if that was living she definitely did not want to do it.

How could life be this endless ordeal of losses that filled her life with total darkness? Who would want to go on living like that. Wouldn't it be better to protect herself as she did?

Locked in the four walls that her mind had created for her, she felt safe and maybe she was not "happy " as everyone wanted her to be. But what was happiness?

What if that's what happiness was for her?

Why couldn't anyone understand it?

She tried futilely to remember the last time a sincere smile came from her lips. Her whole life had become a complete farce full of fake smiles and affections that came and went as they pleased.

Dariana could not understand the stupid need of human beings to be happy and much less understand how in search of that supposed "happiness " they threw themselves into the most incredible crusades.

How they could somehow justify launching themselves into the adventure of finding it even knowing that the end could be devastating.

"Is it really worthwhile to venture into her hunt armed only with hope, faith, illusion and a whole arsenal of feelings that will eventually be part of her inevitable destruction?"

The most obvious answer to her was, that nothing was valuable enough to risk being hurt.

She had tried it a few times before and the result ended up being everything she had imagined.... A complete disaster!

Whole days of crying, feeling stupid for having tried it once again when she knew perfectly well what the outcome of such a foolish experiment would be.

To go outside her walls? It was something totally unthinkable to her.

To what end would she do such a thing if the few times she decided to do it she came crawling back licking her wounds? The world is a very cruel place, very difficult for a person like her to handle.

How many times did she have to be hurt for everyone around her to stop pushing. Didn't they understand that she no longer cared about being happy? She only wanted peace and that peace was there. In her four walls... in her world.

The one she dedicated herself to creating for herself, surrounded by people who could not hurt her, by friends, siblings and affections that although they were not real, they were much more so than those that moved around her.

Why on earth would she want to get out of there? How hard it was to understand that she was not made for that. Hadn't they noticed that already?

Life as others lived it was simply something she couldn't and wouldn't handle.

Within her dark walls a recurring question wandered through the corners of her mind over and over again ...

"Why should I still be here "? Giving an answer to that question confronted her with her reality.

She was definitely not the reason for her own existence. If it were up to her she would have put an end to such suffering long ago. But once again she was not thinking of her.

He did not want to cause pain with her departure.

But how long his frail body and weakened mental health could stand to exist in such a way.

Maybe it was easier to end it all. Wasn't it enough torture for her loved ones to see her succumb so thunderously to life?

What was the pain she wanted to spare them?

Didn't they see her wasting away every day locked within her dark walls?

Wouldn't it be better to give up at once than to live in that eternal agony?

Time passed inevitably and even though sometimes a ray of sunshine appeared, Dariana preferred to avoid it. She did not want to be hurt by its heat. After all, her skin was not used to it.

"I won't risk it. It wouldn't be the first time a deceptive sunbeam made me poke my head out and then pierce my heart like a fiery arrow that sweeps everything inside me"

Try?

How many more times would she have to do it?

Dariana was really exhausted. Living that way was absolutely exhausting. What was normal for others represented a superhuman effort for her.

Her strength was scarce and although the wall was higher every day, every now and then a ray of light managed to break through it as a cruel reminder of how beautiful life could be if only she wasn't who she was.

"When will enough be enough?"

"How much more do I have to carry? "

"If only they could let go of me and understand that I am not like the others"

"Someday I'll have the strength to stop fighting and accept the inevitable reality?"

"If only they could let go of me and understand that I am not like the others"

"Someday I'll have the strength to stop fighting and accept the inevitable reality?"

Sooner or later it will come...