Page 3 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

I am nothing like the kids at school and even my sisters. Whereas most kids my age, including my siblings, are dreamers I’ve always had my feet firmly planted on the ground.

Some would call me a pessimist but I know better. I’m a realist in a world of dreamers. At least that is what my mom says while others just think of me as a snob because I don’t care to pretend that I am someone other than myself. Whether it is at school or at home, I am always true to myself and some people can’t fathom the idea of being comfortable in their own skin. I am. I’ll always be even if it’s tattered, broken, and bruised.

It’s my skin and it is who I am.

Most people confuse confidence with arrogance and so they don’t care to understand me.

The only person I can relate to, even if it’s just a little bit, is Valentino Nicolasi, but he too, has a dreamer’s heart, even if he doesn’t think so himself. He dreams while awake in the same nightmare we’re all part of. The nightmare that is our life.

Aside from him, I always spend my days by myself. That is why when no one is looking, I leave the confines of my prison at home and wander the cemetery that is located near the Parisi mansion.

I don’t get to do it often, only when our father is away on business and Mom is on one of her benders being a slave to her addictions. Those days are the best because my sisters and I become invisible to my father’s men and we get to roam outside our rooms and escape their abuse. No one cares to torment us if our father is not there to praise the bastards.

Well, all but one.

The boogeyman as Mila likes to call him.

I know better.

He’s no boogeyman but he is cruel and very dangerous.

Al.

My father’s right-hand man and the Parisi family’s enforcer.

He comes for me even when Gabriele is away. He loves the chase, that is why I stopped running. Surprisingly, this time he hasn’t been around to unleash his wrath on me and my older sister, disguised as soldier duty.

Picking my usual spot right in front of an old, abandoned tombstone, I sit on the wet ground, putting my things, which I always take with me, down next to me. “Hello, Amadeo,” I whisper, greeting the Purple Heart hero who fought in the Vietnam War like I do every time I invade his resting place. I have zero ties to the man but somehow his burial plot is the one that called out to me the first time I ever found solace in the dark and depressing cemetery. I used to hide under the bed when I was younger, but the monster always found me, but not here. Here, I’m surrounded by the forgotten. The dead and surprisingly is where I feel most alive and less alone.

Perhaps this is why people think of me as strange.

Oh, well.

Picking up my favorite book, I lean back on the grass and start to read even when the sky splits in two and turns a dark gray.

I’ve read it three times and I know it by heart now.

The Iliad by Homer.

The type of literature I like differs greatly from my sisters. While Arianna enjoys politics and Mila is obsessed with fairytale books, I find comfort in a poem divided into twenty-four books about the wrath of the Greek hero Achilles and the Trojan War.

Since I can remember I’ve been fascinated by wars because war is a complex and multifaceted topic. There are many reasons why it’s a topic I’m very passionate about. It’s not just the political side of it and more about the impact war leaves on not just humans but entire nations. I think of war as a test of human strength, endurance, and resilience. There are wars we fight internally and those are just as dangerous as the ones that wreak on the world.

A rush of cold wind blows my straight hair in every direction but as always the cold doesn’t faze me. I’m always cold even when I’m surrounded by the warmest person I will ever know, my baby sister, Mila. Thoughts of my sister both sadden and anger me. Another reason why I came to this place is because when I feel the darkness inside wanting to break free like today, I don’t want her to be anywhere near it. She’s too good and pure for this ugly world. She’s too good for me.

Both my sisters are but I love them anyway when I hate everyone and everything else. They’re the only beautiful aspect of my life. The only magic I will ever know.

Putting the book down, I take out my tea set my Nonna gifted me one Christmas from inside my ratty old backpack and set it up in front of me. I don’t find beauty in many things like Mila and Arianna do but this tea set is one of the rare things I do. Not only because it was given to me by my Nonna who was the only person that ever showed me tenderness aside from Mom and my sisters, but because the set is vintage and unique. The ceramic cups and plates have an intricate design of golden swirls and vintage lettering that makes me think it was made a long time ago. As in perhaps after the eighteen fifties.

It’s truly beautiful and perfect except it is no longer perfect, is it? One of the small ceramic plates is chipped from when my father threw my bag on the floor in a fit of rage and it consequently broke a few of the things I carried with me including one of the plates.

Not wanting to sour the mood by giving my father another thought, I instead carried on placing the set on the ground. One teacup for me and the other… well for no one exactly. It’s just there. Just in case.

I don’t know why I even bother since I’m always alone. No one cares about tea parties, especially ones in the middle of a cemetery.

Taking a sip of the yellow liquid, I look up at the cloudy sky just in time to watch three crows fly above me. Nothing new since the blackbirds are no strangers to these grounds. What is new is the one crow that stops on top of Amadeo’s tombstone, and turns its beady eyes to me, seeming as if it could see through me. I wonder what it sees. Can he see the darkness inside me? The scars that I hide. The ones no one sees or even cares to see.

Three heartbeats later, the bird takes flight leaving me alone once again.

---