It was a very hot summer. We were waiting for it to end.
We were waiting for the war to end.
We walked around the old town, looking at things, and there was that souvenir shop. I never buy things in places like that.
I looked at the hanging wind chimes with an empty soul.
“Buy it, Mom!” my daughter said, and I bought it. I always listen to her.
When I hung it on the terrace at home, the little elephant looked around cheerfully, its trunk raised high.
But the three little bells did not ring. They remained silent even in the wind, while the elephant wisely held its trunk toward the sky.
The three little bells were silent.
There comes a point when you beg for your life.
When you know that one more day, one more minute, one more siege, and what has held your existence together will fall apart. The breaking point, the last drop, the very edge of what you can bear, the final point of your endurance.
When you know that what you have held together for so long, what you have protected, guarded, and kept safe, is now in mortal danger, because you will collapse if you have to withstand yet another battle.
That was when and there that I begged for it to finally end.
And in a strange turn of fate, it did.
There I lay on the battlefield. It was quiet. An unfamiliar, irritating silence. But not the kind there had been before, not that tense silence before the sieges. No. This was a different kind of silence.
A lonely, incomprehensible, final silence.
I lay there and looked at the sky. Around me, countless corpses of loss, lifeless or struggling through their final moments, dying quietly. Above me, the grey sky. Inside me, silence.
I should move. Get up. Look around.
Act!
No. I can't. The war was too fierce.
But I must. I have to go. The goal, the plan, the armor, the sword—I need them.
Onward, onward!
No.
I don't want to anymore.
I think something broke. Something cracked beyond repair. Something important, something that was the deepest part of me, something that defined me.
I can no longer want anything.
I can't fight. I can't wage war.
I can't be afraid anymore. I can't defend myself. I can't be strong. I can't raise the sword anymore.
I can't even lift my hand.
I don't want anything anymore.
I am no longer war.
I get up. I look around.
How great is the damage? How much has been destroyed in this endless battle?
It is so quiet.
Such a final, empty, death-scented silence.
My heart is heavy and my body is made of lead.
I should move, but I cannot want to.
What will happen now? How will I move, how will I figure something out, what was it I wanted? What was I protecting? Why did I fight? What remains? What is gone?
What is left of me?
Who am I now?
I am empty, full of fog, wandering through it, searching for the one solid, tangible thing. Something to orient myself by.
A direction. An intention. Anything that defines me.
My God, do you remember how many times I prayed for it to end?
I wanted there to be peace, so that I could build the new, the thing I had nurtured until now, the thing I had even been willing to go to war for.
It was more important to me than anything.
My new life.
The real one.
The one without masks.
The free one.
The happy one.
“You have to pay for freedom,” he said.
And the battle began.
Everything that was sacred was covered in mud. Everything that was whole was broken.
The price I paid was higher than anything.
I had to become willing. I had to be willing to give anything for it.
And I gave it.
Because I had no other choice. I had already stepped onto the road. I had made the decision.
There was no way back.
And now there is silence.
I begged for it.
And now I am horrified by it.
I cannot believe it.
My foggy mind keeps searching for the next danger.
I have to exist without reacting, and it is frightening and infuriating.
I can't now...
I can't think.
I can't act.
I can't find my bearings.
I can't set out.
I don't know which way to go.
Or whether there is any point in going at all.
The little bells are silent.
The wind does not sway them.
Their sound do not break the silence.
The elephant, its trunk raised, gazes into the distance.
It waits.
It is waiting for someone.
I stand on the terrace and look at it.
“Why isn't your bell ringing?” I ask.
“Do I have to push you myself? What kind of wind chime are you?”
“I am not a wind chime,” the elephant replied.
And then I saw it.
What I had thought was a wind chime was actually a doorbell.
The door.
My workshop.
The stage of my new life.
The bells, ringing as those who matter to me walk through the door...
The messenger.
My little messenger from the after...
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