Amor Fati: A Pinocchio Retelling

On the edge of sweet oblivion, Adone reached the border of dreams where fairies sing their clearest songs. The rage of excitations sparking under his skin simmered in his deepest thoughts, thrusting him in a universe of untamable chaos. In the storm, images of his life flashed before his mind and crashed like lightning in his heart, shredding it to pieces. More images were revealed in the cracks caused by the wrathful memories, reflected on the broken pieces of his heart which revealed the truth of the lightning, the effervescent fury of life bursting within him. Martino’s horrific countenance and Cecilia’s painfully beautiful smile melted into one, creating a scene too cruel to be a mere nightmare. It was in fact in nightmares where reality expressed its deepest truths through obscene unreality. And this truth shaped the stage, the actors, the script, the lights and gave birth to a theatre of existential torture. 

A vast, empty space surrounded him, infested with an indomitable darkness. There was a beauty in the stillness and nothingness until light bled from the black and scattered drops of blood in the void. Each droplet was given shape by the hum of the fay, dressing it in the colors and sounds of life. Fragments of his life, his self, danced and drifted all around him. He saw himself swinging from handle to handle, wearing his harlequin costume. Such versions of him were doing a myriad of things related to the circus, dancing, acting and performing a kaleidoscope of tricks. Each one of them melted into each other as they grew and multiplied, weaving a web of his life. The ones that emerged from the harlequin were simply other parts of him in other kinds of circumstances and situations. Soon he found himself surrounded by every event in his life unfolding around him, from the tender moments of love to the brutality of torture. A turbulent ocean of memories unfolded the cruel miracle of his existence, the infinitely unique actuality of his life he received as a cure and curse. 

Everywhere he looked on the horizontal plane, he saw a kaleidoscope of lived experience bursting with new life around him. All the highs and lows, the worst and best moments of his waking life melted into one as Martino’s mangled face replaced Cecilia’s smile and every bright white tooth behind her smile turned into the laughter of the crowd. Moments of visceral and cerebral intimacy melted with the visceral screams and cerebral torment Adone himself caused to all those who had a debt to pay to Mangiafuoco. Although each and every figure passed through him, he still felt the weight of experiences push and pull him, tear and crush him. With eyes wide open and no way to shut them, he bore witness to the fact that all his actions, choices, beliefs and motives were inspired by a litany of lies, all produced to avoid a gruesome truth. Yet in each encounter with life inspired by deceit bled a truth he didn’t want to see, but now it threatened to drown him in its excess. That in all his acts, he merely followed the whims and wishes of another and ever truly his own. Yet at the same time, even in the dance of violence and lust, he found a sick pleasure there, a pleasure that stalked him like the grinning abyss in his innermost heart. 

Witnessing the expressions of his soul as a sham and a painful reality, Adone was unable to contain the thunderstorm of affect boiling inside of him, all around him. His entire universe became devoured in a raging storm, vehemently sinking its claws in the ocean of phantasmagoria. No matter the amount of lightning bolts that teared through him, it couldn’t match the effervescence of his soul-piercing howl. The theatre of his heart performed that which he despised the most, that which alienated himself from himself and the world around him. His interaction with the world was nothing more than a deeply rooted escapism from the void enshrined in his heart, only to the abyss in everything. Caught in the vicious circle of existence, his soul longed to escape from the escape, to break the eternity of its torment and infinitely expand outward instead of into itself, into its own oblivion. In the depths of his dreams, he saw his life from the highest vantage point as the circle he longed to shatter, the chain that leashed him from the liberation he desired most of all. 

By desperately desiring for transcendence, however, he nearly forgot where he had to transcend from. Allowing the groundless abyss of his soul to embrace him without any resistance showed him the fullness of his worries, the truth at its most raw and sublime. But the truth alone didn’t provide him with what he yearned for, but showed him just how hollow and empty it truly was. In defiance of fate, he found his soul between excess and emptiness, entrapped by the overabundance of illusion and the absolute nothingness of truth. There, he witnessed the circle in all its fullness and hollowness, and the urge to shatter it and be embraced by an ultimate oneness devoured his dream. Crumbs of this oneness flashed before him in the form of his thunderous anguish, revealed in the rage of the lightning as climaxes in sexual intercourse, the twisting of daggers in organs, the applause after a performance, the joy blossoming on someone after a simple compliment or good deed. In each of those moments, a oneness embraced him to give birth to a sweet little death, a sweet little release from the circle through its temporary disintegration in his being. The transition from oneness to allness was the core of his existential anguish which his dream disclosed at his most vulnerable. 

After the cacophonous chaos of his ghost, a great silence swallowed him, leaving him all alone in the void again. There was such an absence that even he too felt absent, melted into and became a part of the absence. Another little death hummed in the abyss until he found himself inhabiting his body. He carefully studied his whole body which contained no lost arm and no scars of any kind. It was pure and unblemished by life, in fact devoid of its enchanting powers. Slowly, small scars he once sustained from fights and assassinations began to grow like roses on his flesh, breathing life back into his body. When he looked down to see his bare body accumulate scars he once sustained from crude knife fights, he felt the presence of another body wrapped around his, their lips nestled deep in his neck and shoulder. Soon the imagery transformed into one of his many sexual encounters with Cecilia, both and their most vulnerable. 

In the sweet fire that blazed from their depths and united their hearts, nothing else mattered. No lies drove daggers in his conscience and no part of his conscience remembered the bloody faces of the victims he slaughtered with warped pleasure and pain that warped him. Only the heat of her soul which radiated from her expressions of desire was known to him as the only truth as her unburdened soul ebbed and flowed onto him. All the elements of their being formed a crucible of passion, an alchemy of effervescence. In the space where nothing meant anything and everything dissolved, an immaculate beauty remained. The curves of her body, the glow of her gaze, the power of her touch, the wildness of her hair; all of her radiated a revelation of the highest beauty, of ethereal geometrical perfection. Her love bore the grace of a densely layered rose and the golden liquid of a corpse black with rot, pushing him to the polar edges of life by thrusting him in the arms of death. A mixture of all his nights spent with her rushed through his dream and condensed into sheet lightning, uniting the pleasure of that little death with the pleasure from the little deaths of his most immoral acts. 

Before he could shout as hard as his imagination could allow him to, he found himself basking in the afterglow of their putrid love where rot smelled of roses. She, too, felt shame caressing her conscience, but she grew numb to its touch long ago. In fact, all she could do was find satisfaction in the excess of dissatisfaction around her, for the only true release from her hunger was the nothingness at the end of it, the silence of death. In his arms, she ensconced herself in the sweetness of nothingness as he boiled  and burned in the fires of bliss. From a realm beyond the dream, nostalgia bled from the seams of the unreality like snowfall that didn’t melt on the small bed they slept on. It danced like plumage in the wind, dissolving in the ether. One of those snowflakes which enshrined the fullness of his life landed on her cheek. As he brushed it away, he seized the opportunity to study the glow of her amber eyes, shining the image of morning sunlight kissing the rich soil. That one glimpse of safety and security sent the most profound shiver through his entire dreamscape, rippling through the marrow of his being. 

“Why do you look so sad?” 

That one question she would occasionally ask him folded into one moment, condensing the pain he received whenever asked that. Even his dream of dreams couldn’t disclose to him the origin of the hurt, but it pervaded his entire universe. What caused the most profound ache and produced the deepest scar was the silence of his soul that came after the question. It offered a reply that no words could convey in the same, honest fashion. After the war of flesh and the conquest of death, the indomitable silence answered the question as perfectly as possible. 

It was the silence that made space for the symphony of his soul and allowed it to thrive and prosper with the richness that life bestowed upon it. It was that same silence he feared the most, for it forced him into an encounter with a part of the truth he was unable to face. So instead, he gorged on its other, more addictive parts that blinded him of its fullness. And while those still caused him great pain, he was grateful to have some sense of groundedness, even if that ground was full of thorns. Every ripple of excitation in his waters was enough for him to get in touch with life through the whispers of annihilation. A poignant melancholy lived in the silence of his heart, humming as the song of life faded into dying echoes. In such moments, the burning marrow of his soul cried lamentations for the utter meaninglessness of its own being. 

“It’s fine, I’m just tired.” Adone replied, bending his head down to kiss the top of her head. The warmth and touch of her body was like a balm to his heart, soothing it of its aches. But in the cruelty of his unconsciousness, the sweat on her skin adopted the stickiness of blood, and when he looked, the palm of his hand was stained red. With kaleidoscopic fervor, a myriad of images and affect swam and crawled into his ghost like fiery snakes burying themselves in the ground of his ghost. They wove themselves through the fabric of his being, turning the foundations of his existence into an inescapable torture device. The forest of flesh and all its wild and wicked effervescence morphed into one effigy in the shape of her adorning his greatest fears. 

Face to face, his entire awareness became devoured by her sublime countenance irradiant with perfection as her expression bled with affective chaos. Yet even that whiff of disorder had a sense of order, an order that surpassed the fragile order his faculties can conceive of. The amber of her eyes and mahogany of her hair rusted into a sublime blue with echoes of purple, transfiguring her humanity towards divinity. As her body cracked into fractals like frosty glass, the softness of her hands cupping his face turned into a throne for his being, a place he can call home in the uncanny cosmos. 

“Remember me.” 

“What?” Adone hardly heard himself say that, as if he heard himself speak from another room. Yet her voice, unrecognizable but profoundly familiar, continued to grow. 

“Remember me.” 

Beams of azure light grew from her back, growing larger and larger until it dyed his entire mind in a colorful kaleidoscope of infinity. Her sky blue eyes shimmered and shone with a microcosm of that same endlessness, the same endlessness his soul’s silence owens. It was in the revelation of her ethereal grace where he discovered that the celestial silence was capable of infinite potential, that same infinite potential his soul hungered for. Witnessing the great hunger of his soul providing the possibility for great nourishment, the circle he loathed turned into the apex of Love. 

“Remember me.” 

Adone’s heart struck his ribs like lightning, igniting him into wakefulness. What immediately captured his attention was the scent of the foreign space. Its sterility quickly cut through his nostrils and into his brain as it slowly rekindled with awareness. During the first few seconds of slowly opening his dry eyes, he floated in a vacuum of cognition, adrift in the closest thing he understood to be bliss. There, he couldn’t comprehend the notion of anything, including that of a self. But the sweet abyss erupted with vitaliy and both the visceral and cerebral memories that accompanied his life. His checkered scars begged for relief as his entire body and soul screamed to be liberated of the pain it underwent. The pain was so silent, however, that Adone couldn’t even grasp it with the parts that were under its tyranny. Yet it was still there, still humming its deathly lullaby. A gaping scar unfolded in his heart, disclosing to him the hurt and the hollow of his weathered heart. Whatever it bled was only able to find articulation in the tears streaming down the corner of his eyes. 

In the first moments, he was pure breath and the fire it carried throughout his body. One of the first thoughts that fluttered through his mind was how pleasant the moisture of his tears were to his dry eyes. They nurtured and nourished plenty as they continued to escape his eyes, watering the gardens of his healing. It was in a wicked paradox that his tears increased, painfully digesting the idea that no amount of release can release him from the state of his being. But under the shadow of the dream, Adone understood how the vicious circle of his soul could be a paradise instead of a prison. Tears continued to fall at the speed of the epiphany’s fading mark. 

As his nerves reawakened with fiery pain, he perceived the strange absence of pain by his arm. An abyss of sensations slept below his elbow joint while an ethereal echo of an arm remained, unburned by pain. At first, he was unable to move his left hand, let alone lift it. Immersed in the life of his flesh, he slowly tilted his head to look at himself raising his right arm. Great red scars of wicked symmetry were wrapped around his arm and the rest of his body. In the deep crimson of the patterns, he could still hear the whispers of the green serpent that coiled around his body and soul and still felt its strength crushing the protective shell of his heart. Each shard of that shell pierced back into its tender flesh, allowing his soul to sputter pain. 

But the images dissipated as he turned his head to see the prosthetic limb on his other side. When the shock got drowned by the memories, he was able to align the sensation of his phantom limb with the prosthetic one. The spinning and turning of cogs and wheels in his arm felt like blood flowing through his veins, pulling him closer to conquering it. The calmer he became, the steadier his breath was and the easier he felt energy’s breath flow through the organic and inorganic parts of him. The lactescent surface of his prosthetic arm delicately marbleized with a sky blue seemed gray and indigo under the dim lights of Haruki’s office. Unable to recognize that it was his office, he studied the terrain until his eyes landed on the bodies of the guardsman and Pinocchio lying beside each other on the sofa, both asleep. 

They both looked as if nothing had ever happened between the two, peacefully sleeping with their wheels churning out dreams for them. A bright red spark of hatred popped in Adone’s mind at the sight of the guardsman, which grew in intensity when he saw him next to Pinocchio. The rage gave him enough energy to get on his feet, but while he turned his hips, lightning struck his cerebra, freezing him in place. The prosthetic arm, while still feeling heavy, slowly began to feel lighter as his fury clustered into it and impelled him to strike it against the seat. As the memories whipped his nerves and his hatred burned his skull until melting point, a blue glow blossomed on the guardsman’s eye. The blue fairy in his eye caught the pungent scent of Adone’s wrath, and the guardsman slowly titled his head to look at his intense glare. 

“Ah, you’re finally awake,” he said in a hushed tone that emphasized his rusty voice. Adone’s eye twitched at the sound of gentle voice, for it couldn't hide the history of his soul to him. 

“How are you feeling?”

Adone slowly turned his head to look around the room, finding only one window which bled white light. All the little glass bottles of all shapes and sizes containing a myriad of different things sparkled in the eccentric moonlight, wrapping his mind in confusion and mystery. 

“Where am I?” Adone asked, dodging the question. The sharpness of his words made their mark on the guardsman, causing him to let out a rattling sigh. 

“Do you remember Haruki? He’s been taking care of you for a few days now until you’ve recovered sufficiently.” 

Upon hearing his name, more memories trickled into his awareness with more clarity. In a wild haze, he remembered Haruki carrying him to his caravan, changing the interior and treating his wounds while the pain tore his mind from his body and his body from his mind. He thanked the fact that that living nightmare was now a numb memory to him. 

“Yes, yes I know. He carried me here.” 

As Adone sat still, digesting the information he still tried to understand, the guardsman’s gaze was glued to the prosthetic arm. From pure observation, he noticed how Adone still hadn’t gotten a hold of it yet and struggled to continuously supply it with attention. The yellow metal joints of the fingers and knuckles were loose until Adone redirected all his attention to it, lifting his left arm and slowly moving each finger, turning his wrist to study the soft marbleized pattern. 

“Do you like it? I got it made just for you while you were asleep.” 

Knowing that it was him who gave it to him aroused an intense wave of repulsion in him, viewing it as a parasite of warped sentiment attached to him. He admired the smooth functionality of it and leaned into that to avoid any deeper message. And yet, he couldn't help but drown in the mystery of meaning. 

“Why did you give me this? There must be a reason.” 

The guardsman gently helped Pinocchio lean on a pillow instead of on him and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. A profound wave of guilt flowed from him which Adone was unable to read as such. And when he did try to perceive it as guilt, it only increased his confusion. The way he folded his fingers and fixed his gaze to the floor before lifting it to him all seemed to bleed with an honesty he couldn’t accept in the moment. 

“I… I know how much you hate me and I hate myself tenfold for all that I have done to you and the others. My actions cannot be justified as good, no matter what, and I accept that wholeheartedly, even if it hurts. No, especially because it hurts, because I know that the fire burning my conscience doesn’t compare to the pain I supplied to others under Mangaifuoco’s tyranny. We have all been victims of him, but I have only helped increase the amount of his victims.” 

“That didn’t answer my question,” said Adone coldly. He could feel the tension coiling around the guardsman heart which Adone assumed he never had until this moment. But now, he saw it bleed every color he could imagine, showing him the familiar primeval grounds of vulnerability. 

“Because I want to do what I couldn’t do before.” 

“Bullshit.” 

The guardsman's blue eye flickered as it reached his cold countenance, completely defenceless before the indomitable wall of Adone’s hate. He didn’t show any sign of retaliation, but only allowed the coldness of Adone to sting him further, opening himself to the pain of his transgressions. 

“You always had a choice.” 

As soon as Adone said that, nausea blossomed in his guts, growing like ivy until it ensnared his entire self with that disgusting feeling. If I also had a choice, Adone thought, then I could have saved their lives instead of kill and torture them. Before he dove further down the abyss of his depravity, the guardsman replied to him. 

“Yes, I know. We all had a choice and we all did what we wished we didn’t do. Although I had a choice, I just couldn’t see that, so I did what I thought was the only thing I could do in that situation. And I’m sorry for what I did. That’s why I want to help out as much as I can with what is in my power. Me giving you that arm was the least I could do, and even though I know that I can’t fix all, I would be grateful to fix whatever I can fix. So if there’s anything else I can do for you, just let me know.” 

Sighing, Adone tried to move out of his bed, only to encounter a painful internal injury. An animal hum jumped out of his throat. 

“Why don’t you fix me a meal, hm?” He said, lips pursed from the sharp pain of his organs. 

“Of course. Let me give you a glass of water before anything else happens.” 

As the guardsman tried to give it to his hand, he noticed how his fingers trembled as if ice ran through his veins and electricity hummed through his nerves. When he lifted it to his mouth, Adone quickly jerked his head away. 

“Leave it on the desk near me.” 

The guardsman bowed, blowing a rattly sigh as he walked back and walked near the door. 

“To my surprise, not all members of the circus troupe disbanded, so I hope that the chef’s are one of those who stayed. I’ll also try to find Haruki so that I can notify him of your condition.” 

His rusty chuckle slowly faded away like the whisper of autumn leaves in the wind. The door shut, and the silence tore his patience to pieces. 

The skin where his tears ran across itched from dryness, and the sorrow of the silence nearly rejuvenated those trails. Again, in that moment, when he was confronted with the fragility of life and the mortality of his excessive soul, he wished that the abyss from which his excess was born would swallow him whole. That the vibrant spark of pain of his flesh, a mere echo of the full orchestra of anguish playing in the marrow of his soul, would ravage him and dissolve him into oblivion. Yet, whispers from that blue being came to him again, calling out from the pain of his ruptured body. Her voice even split the layers of his psyche, going far beyond the flesh and far beyond any feeling to reveal to him the formless body buried within him. A body with infinite limbs and organs, sculpted in an infinite amount of different configurations. What her grace illuminated was something that transcended individuation, something so distinct yet indistinguishable from everything else. Something raw, something real, more real than he had ever tasted in his life. The entire universe danced on his tongue with the flavor of blood.

It was a flavor he recognized far too well and tasted far too many times. All the diverse flavors of the world his soul’s tongue was able to taste all melted into one palette of violence. A violence that erupted from his soul’s abyss as a byproduct of its excessive emptiness. A violence he also saw in every corner of the world around him, devouring itself incessantly with an eternally fruitful and ultimately fruitless goal. Torn by the extremes of existence, Adone glimpsed the grin of the azure crescent moon in his soul’s lands, coming closer to the third immaculate element of existence. That same azure moonlight twinkled in Pinocchio’s bleary eyes as they slowly opened to the sight of Adone doing his best to grab hold of a cup of water. 

“Adone!” 

Absolutely zero grogginess from his sleep befell him as his limbs bursted with energy to get to him. Careful not to knock down any vials or bottles or anything easily breakable, Pinocchio meandered his way around the cabinet and made his way to Adone to see him up close. Not particularly a fan of children, Adone thought that he’d grow uncomfortable at the wooden boy’s innocent enthusiasm. But the rush of ease that surged through him made him capable of drinking without dropping the glass and to put it back without knocking anything over. In that moment, the wooden boy breathed rejuvenation into him by his mere presence alone. With his hand of flesh, he rubbed the doll’s white hair like a dog, smiling without a worry in the world. 

“Hey little guy, how are things?” 

Just when he was about to pull his hand away, Pinocchio snatched it and cradled his hand in his arms as if trying to absorb his life’s warmth into his cold wood and metal body. He was careful not to reopen the checkered scars on Adone’s arms with his slightly rough wooden face and hands, sliding his cheek on the back of his hand. The soft whispery sound of his rage-rough knuckles and Pinocchio’s face sent rhythmic ripples through the waters of Adone’s tender soul, composing a symphony of gentle euphoria. Such care and love was unimaginable for him to receive from others and especially from himself. The expression of it too was something not even nature could replicate with its sunlit dewdrops or blazing dawns. Grace dyed Adone’s black heart with veins of gold, forever in flux and fixed. 

The excess of care overflowing from the wooden boy’s raw vulnerability reminded Adone of the excessive lack of it within himself, gutted out by life’s wicked games. The melody of love bleeding from Pinocchio’s boundless heart swam through Adone’s fields of gold, decorating them with shimmering life and delicate death. Infused with more life than ever, Adone twisted Pinocchio’s body towards his, nestling the back of his head in the crook of his shoulder and chest. He wrapped his arm across the doll’s torso and pulled him in, leaning his head gently on top of Pinocchio’s. The doll caressed Adone’s arm, tracing the diamond shaped scars with his rough fingers. Yet the strength he used to go over them was so gentle that it felt smooth to Adone, who simply breathed in and out, not feeling a spark of pain in his damaged body. 

“A good few days have passed since you passed out. I was worried that you…” 

His heart struck his ribs with immense force, reigniting a thunderclap of pain. He simply brought him closer to himself and buried his scarred lips in his hair. 

“Death won’t allow me to die so easily. It won’t embrace me unless I embrace life first.” 

Adone made a bit of distance between them, still holding him close just as Pinocchio held him close, cradling life’s cruelty written in crimson mortality on Adone’s arms and body. The indomitable fires of life danced in the shadows of death staining Adone’s physique, weaving an ever changing tapestry of one unbreakable truth, always shattering but always whole, always breaking but never broken. 

“And have you?” Pinocchio asked, tilting his head up to see his face.

A smile blossomed on Adone’s lips when he saw his turquoise eyes shine in the white light, sheltering a sun-drenched forest. He shifted his body to a more comfortable position and faced forward, thrust deep into thought. 

“I’m trying to. As you can see, it has shown me a lot of afflictive affection. I simply do my best to  follow the equilibrium it upholds amidst its own excesses and try to embrace all of it. Only by embracing its excesses can I follow its golden balance.” 

One sigh and Adone’s body decompressed, releasing himself of the tension plaguing his muscles. In the moment, all he cared about was the serenity of having Pinocchio by his side, knowing that he is okay and that he himself is still alive to bask in his beauty and the beauty he illuminates. He illuminated the groundlessness of his soul and ignited his drive to create his own ground with his own flesh, blood, sweat and tears. He illuminated the ground that was always there which he avoided, overrun with blazing thorns only grace can extinguish, which he avoided as feverishly as that which nurtured that cruel field. But the emerald and azure, the verdure and virtue swimming in Pinocchio’s soul revealed to him the means to which those disgusting elements can be cleansed from him in the illumination of the jewel-tears life shed in self-grief, crystalized and twinkling with immaculate grace. 

“Is it really necessary to entertain those excesses you always talk about? They just seem like obstacles, so I don’t know why you should acknowledge them.” 

“Obstacles are the most important things to acknowledge.” Adone replied, bringing him closer. A sudden wave of protectiveness ebbed onto his mind at the realization that Pinocchio, with all his innocence rich with wisdom, was still naive and unaware of the horrors that could befall the human heart. 

“And people like us are exposed to such excesses, with or without our consent. That’s what makes us so sensitive, so vulnerable. And to me at least, there is no way to escape this condition of ours. Which is why I personally will take that approach, seeing as it is the most logical one to me in all the irrationality plaguing my psyche.” 

As the wooden boy ensconced himself in the symphony of sensorium, he couldn’t help but submerge himself in the waking dream. In his ethereal eyes, the shards of life shattered in just the right way to sculpt the current scene, giving Pinocchio the impression that there was such a thing as fate. And in the chaos of everything, there was a sublime perfection in there, like a celestial kaleidoscope. He immersed himself in the wild serenity of what was, observing the way his soul quivered, flickered, sparkled, breathed. With Adone by his side and nothing else to obscure his heart, he observed the way one observed a forest in motion, bathing himself in the verdure within himself. Through observing the freedom to which his kaleidoscopic soul danced to, a stain of a question continued to ensnare his attention. But Adone unearthed it from his psyche before he himself did. 

“So what do you plan to do now that we are no longer slaves? Now that the world is open to you.” 

In all his innocent naivety, even he knew that that was not true. 

“I will always be a doll; the world can only open up to me on the condition of my condition.” 

Adone let out a breath like the hum of a hearth which Pinocchio heard like honey to his heart. 

“That’s true, but now you have the opportunity to express yourself beyond that of the circus’ regime.” 

He let him sit with the question, allowing the silence to let his words simmer in the doll’s wooden heart. Within the warmth of the silence, the honey lacquered over Pinocchio’s ghost crystalized, capturing the light of his fervent soul in all the colors of life. Through the play of life, he could only find one answer that could satisfy him.  

“There's a lot more out there, but what I want the most is to explore all of that with you. I don’t know why, but you show me that life is more than just a performance. The way you bleed with light illuminates the beauty and terror buried in the shadow, and I want to witness all of it with you and nobody else, because only you can give what the shadow hides the meaning it deserves.”

Stung with affect, a tear nearly escaped his eye not of pain, but profundity. Unable to express his heart, he pulled Pinocchio closer and planted a kiss on his head, drinking the fire of his soul through the simple act. He rested his lips there for a long moment, savoring the taste of the doll’s heart. 

“You do the same for me.” he said with a low, rough voice that smoldered and crackled with sincerity. He created a humble space between them once again, but made sure to hold him near. 

“I am most certainly not perfect, nor am I an example to follow, but I will honor your wish and do my best to show you the miracles of life that both of us wish to witness.” 

“I never asked for perfection,” Pinocchio gently corrected. “All I need is truth, honesty. And I can hear your heart screaming with truth and choking on the light that burns and braces you.” 

Pinocchio leaned his head onto Adone’s chest with an overflowing joy. With subtle motions, he discovered that Adone was slowly catching the rhythm of life once again. He closed his eyes and listened to the melody with a warm smile on his lips, listening with the same grace as one who tries to immerse themselves in complex flavors of scents. As he intoxicated himself in the vehemence of his viscera, his eyes wandered around, searching for something his mind couldn’t remember. In a flash, it came to him, and he walked to the edge of the room to grab a small crate and open it, presenting Adone a white shirt and black pants with a belt. 

“If you have enough strength, you can get your clothes here.” 

Just as Adone patiently put his pants on, the door opened. The scent of broth perfumed the air, drawing out an intense growl from Adone’s stomach. It was in that moment when the guardsman’s rusty giggle found its charm, its sparkle, its little flame of goodness that extinguished the decades of malice for a brief period in Adone’s ears. 

“Ah, you seem to be in good spirits. This will do you good. Actually… Why don’t we eat this in another caravan? There’s one with a table enough for us three that I can open.” 

A dark shadow cut through his countenance, sharpening his features into a more familiar expression. 

“So you had access to all the caravans this whole time?” 

The guardsman’s blue eye flickered as his whole body was still, frozen still by the icy wind of truth. 

“Yes, of course. Mangiafuoco never allowed anyone freedom, let alone dignity.” 

The shadow in the shape of his cruelty grew darker, drowning his heart until the light it tried to kindle so fervently nearly faded. Naturally, it remained, as it always had, reminding him of the impregnable hope buried in the marrow of his heart like a primeval parasite. As the silhouette of his scars gained vigor and voice, the guardsman noticed that his presence would only cause him more harm than healing. As he made his way closer to him, the blue fairy in his eye nearly erupted like a dandelion from the gravity of Adone’s heart. 

“Here, I’ll leave you with this. Pinocchio knows where the caravan is, so you two can be on your way in peace. This music box has a limited amount of money, but has more than enough for generations to live off of. Spend it wisely, and may your journey be rich with truth.” 

He placed a small music box on a cabin near Adone, slowly turning around. It seemed as though the rust of his body ensnared his motion, choking his expression while also releasing it in the most natural way. Finally, Adone thought, his vile heart cried in the voice of his body. 

“I hope that if we ever meet again, we can see each other the way we always deserved to be seen. Not as pawns, but as people.”