Angelo, Annabelle and Lillian.

She was the lily of his eye, the flower of darkness, and would continue to be. Her blonde hair reminded him of golden sun. Somehow, he’d come to realise that he was never quite the morning person. The sun rose with admiring beauty, but it did not mean he necessarily always admired her. Sometimes, he did. Those times he’d lean back on that sturdy, old chair just to look at her face come evening. Her flush was rosy. Her ruddy flush a representation of lovely circulation and good health, her blonde locks falling like waterfalls over her shoulder. She was a stunning maiden of a valley that wasn’t from here, somewhere where church bells rung far too often for his liking.

In cold October weather, he watched her body move. Her fingers were eloquently entwining, entrapping thin handles of an ancient ceramic mug. He’d come to know the stories of that mug, just like he’d come to know the stories of most of the things she’d owned. He’d come to realise what her rings meant, as each one of them held a story. His favourite was the story of the silver ring with the small rare, pink diamond. She never quite wore her rings, but it didn’t matter to him as much anymore, even if he wished to see that engagement ring he’d bought her so proudly on that slender, nimble finger.

In the background, the ancient black music box played. A figure of a ballerina twisted, turned, twirled, and she bought marvellous music with movement. All good stories came with good music; his Father would bellow out on their morning strolls sometimes. Strangely, he’d bought the music box a bit after that conversation. Maybe if they had good music, they’d be a good story. Maybe even wonderful story…an extravagant one, perhaps!  

He watched her like he always did, with a gratified smile on his lips. He repeated the same statement he had for a five years, and will continue to repeat it for a lifetime more, “I love you.”

“I know,” was the statement that fell from that delicate divinity of delightful pink they called lips.

Robert Angelo rose from that very old chair, only to move towards that angelic woman. His eyes found the sun in her hair first, and then found the sky in her eyes. He leaned down to kiss her. She stood on her toes.

They sealed the lie with a kiss.

He knew it just as well as she did that he may admire the sun, but in the end, he would rather stare at the moon.

Robert Angelo was not a man of his words. He often lied, but it did not mean that he was an immoral man. Immoral men were those of dark intent, but his intentions had always been well. Lillian was a girl alike any other unique ones of her kind. She had a way of looking at the universe that was entirely her own. Once had he seen her look at a dying flower, only to hear her say in a whisper, Robert, isn’t it beautiful? He observed the flower’s tattered; torn, tortured condition quite well; only to conclude that this decaying bud had lost its days of blossom.

It is a dying flower, he’d retorted that day.

She seemed to shake her head and her eyes seemed to become bluer by the dawn. If I told you I had a flower, you would think it beautiful. My Mother had always said that her favourite flower was a lily. She often reminded me of how beautiful they were. It was what my Father used to bring her all the time when he was alive. She loved them so much she named me after the dreaded flower. As I got older, I’ve come to realise that she’d always told me of how beautiful they were, yet she’d never quite specifically mentioned the state of the blossom, whether it be yellow or purple, big or small, dead or alive. Because of this, I began to purely understand that all lilies were beautiful. Just because a flower dies does not make it any less beautiful than it was alive.

When others saw death in that flower, she saw beauty. Maybe it was her slight strangeness that made others not fully understand her mannerisms. He remembered the first time he’d thought her odd. They were setting dinner. The silverware was clean, and the night was gentle. It just slipped out of her tongue. I do not believe in death.

He’d looked up at her with his signature facial expression. It was that of an arched eyebrow and his upper lip slightly pulled upward. It was a face of confusion he was told, as he was often a confused man. Then, what else can one believe in if not death?

Lillian laughed. Death sounds far too disheartening. Death sounds permanent, but I do not believe in permanent settings. When one sleeps, he is temporarily dead. We are all temporarily dead until we are revived, by God. We do not die, we only transfer mediums.

Angelo had never quite argued with her, as he did not know what he believed in. He sometimes believed that above everything else, love was essentially a religion and its God was written in collective gazes between two lovers and exchanges of mind, body and soul through kiss, caress, touch, and talk. Other times, he believed in angels, because he saw one in Lillian every day.

However, he’d then realise that wherever angels existed, so did demons.   

He trudged through icy roads to arrive at the bakery he worked at. It was a very small one. Most of its customers were afternoon ones. He’d hardly ever get anyone in the morning, even though the town rustled to work at such early hours. More often than not, the town fancied a slice of warm, doughy bread after their working hours were done. It was a slight way of treating themselves, Angelo supposed. As he stepped inside the small shop, he did his normal routines. He had looked outside the window to see the town awakening. He was always one of the earliest to rise, as Lillian tended to rise at dawn most days. She’d always woken him up as well. He was still trying to rub sleep from his eyes by the time that he was standing behind the counter. He brought out creations that were still deemed fresh, and had gone to work on throwing out things that had gone far too stale for others to buy.

As it was October, bread and muffins were his main concern at this current moment. He slaved over heat to create loaves of bread. He would spend the next few hours only in the process of assorting and assembling, mixing and making, sorting and shaping. It would all worth it when that delightful smell would linger in the air. It was warm with the heat, warm enough that he can take off his mittens without the cold constricting his blood vessels. He’d always loved the warmth far too much. It reminded him of his Mother. He had put the bread to bake, when he heard the tinkle of the bell. This signalled him that he’d had a customer. He thought he would see a regular at most, because it was still early for most to come by.

In that cold October morning, he had the pleasure of seeing her.

He’d only felt this way the first time he’d looked at Lillian. He’d felt his palms tickle sweat, and his pupils dilate. Her eyes were blue, the kind of blue that allowed a broken man to believe in love again. Breathless, bewildered, befuddled from beauty, he seemed to find something enthralling in that gaze. There was truly nothing better than believing in such a lovely thing like love again. If a God existed then surely, he wanted him to indulge in this mistress that had somehow wandered into his bakery at the wee hours of the morning?

“Annabelle!” a boy had called out – had that been her name? It sounded like it was meant to roll off Angelo’s tongue, reserved only for his lips. “Before I tend to my work, I would have you know that I will not be home until after dark, yet I wish to have a proper dinner on the table tonight. It has been days since you’ve prepared a good dinner. I would like something to look forward to tonight.”

“Isn’t seeing me tonight something to look forward too, Joshua?” Annabelle had answered, but her eyes were only looking into Angelo’s, almost as if searching through his soul to find something that she had been trying to find for far too long.

Joshua simply shook his head. His eyes were frantic and his hair was messy. He was a man that was running by the clock. Angelo knew of these men, the men that always had the same routine every singular day. These men often did not like what they did, but needed the pay. He can tell from the inexpensive watch Joshua wore. It was not bought for how well it looked, or its quality, but only bought for its purpose of informing him of the current time. “Oh no, darling Annabelle, you seem to make my life a living Hell. I actually am not looking forward to seeing you, but if you make dinner, I may take back every single word I’ve said.”

“Yet you wonder why no woman would take your hand?” she arched an eyebrow. Her eyebrow was perfect, neither too thin nor too thick. It shaped her face so flawlessly.

Joshua rolled his eyes. “Well, of course!” he bellowed out, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I am a perfect man. Sister, I take you to shops. I work. I wake you up in mornings. I am the very reason you’re alive at this very moment. Otherwise, you’d be lying in bed all day with nothing to do but stare at the wall. You do have a tendency of needing me to accompany you to most places. The day would have slipped by if you were to live alone.”

“And what is wrong if the day slips by? Not all animals live in the morning. The owl is nocturnal.” She gave an example, as she pursed pink lips together.

Joshua snorted. “I’ve never realised you were so inclined to be the owl, but I suppose it fits. Those eyes are large, and filled with so much judgment. So, I will leave you in this dreaded bakery so I can go to my job, as you see – some of us need to work. Some of us bring pay back home, and hope for a satisfying dinner. Cold stew is not an example of such.”

With that, Joshua left. He seemed to be a nice boy, but he had little expectations as far as Angelo can see. Angelo’s eyes finally met with Annabelle’s own, to see the blue sky look back at him. He was seduced by those eyes, and his throat was constricted, caught with a flame. It was painful to swallow, and when it did, it left a slight tenderness to his throat.

“Have you come for dinner?” Angelo joked. He had not joked in a very long time. “I may be a baker, but unfortunately, I’m not a cook. Besides, I think we need to wait quite a few hours for dinner.”

“Oh no,” she seemed to smile in a way that told him that she appreciated his meagre efforts at the small swoon. “I’ve actually come to see some bread. What is the freshest you have?”

He had rubbed the back of his neck, and had simply excused himself. He had pulled out a set of loaves that were just finished. If heaven was composed of bread, would it smell as wonderful as this freshly batch of leavened breads? He somehow wondered how she would eat this bread. As a child, he would often have it before a meal, buttered, warm and lovely. The lightness of the butter contrasting with the stiffness of the bread, yet the bread will be soft enough to chew with no struggle. Lillian had always bought the butter home. Her gardens and farms were a source for a mass of the ingredients he used when he baked.  

How lovely were those days? Now, his dinners were filled with breadless dishes because of a disease.  

He had gone by towards the counter and placed his creations. They were temples of temptation for him. They made his mouth water. His stomach was more than ready to digest them. “Are you interested in their names?”

Annabelle shook her head. “Only texture. Names do not change the eating process,” she explained.

He shook his head. “What if you were to want the bread you were to buy? If you do not know its name, how are you going to buy it again?”

Annabelle rolled her eyes, just like she had with her brother. Had they already settled on routine? Her body lacked tension and she spoke like she’d known him for years. Perhaps, that was why his heart was thudding so quickly.

“I have a horrid memory,” he loved the way she said her m’s, with such a slight uncertain slur. “I won’t remember even if you tell me.”

“If you insist,” Angelo pointed to the first batch he had up on the counter. “This one is somewhat sweet, soft yet luscious.”

His attention then diverted to the other batch, which he gestured to with his hands. “This one is dryer, and requires more to chew, but not dry enough that chewing becomes a horrendous task.”

She seemed to eye both sets of freshly cut bread, and her lips curved into a smile that was more precious than gold itself. Her lips slightly stretched in a way that made her lower lip somewhat plumper. Her cheeks were rosier now. Her curls were copper-coloured and her lashes were long.

“I despise bread,” she finally confessed. “I like the information. Tell me, sir, have you always dreamed of owning a bakery? I do not mean to be rude, but you seem to be a smart man. I’m simply trying to understand the world.”

Should he feel the slightest bit of offence at that statement? Perhaps, but right now, he’d been staring at her for far too long. How could eyes harbour a blue that was far more radiant than the sky itself? How could her lips make him want to partake in sins of the flesh? How could such a quick meeting turn him into a state of emotion? He’d come to notice how moist her lower lip was, inviting to indulgences of corruption.

Angelo’s lips twitched into a smile. “I’m interested in how you presume that people’s dreams are always linked to profession.”

“What else could it be other than profession then, sir?” She was bristling with an interest that he’d never quite known before. He remembered the last time he’d felt this way was when his Mother assured him that the universe was his own if he chose it to be. She’d told him that everything was at the palm of his hand, but like sand, it can slip away far too quickly. Right now, Angelo was very aware of how he grasped the world in his hands, like a small hand clutching a hard ball. He was so very aware. “Enlighten me.”

There was nothing more he loved than the word ‘enlighten’, as people seemed to understand the impact of that word. People seemed to misunderstand the impact of words in general, but who was he to speak? Had it not only been this morning had he whispered a senseless I love you into Lillian’s ear? Home bore no real love, but it carried the air of deception. Breakfast was coffee and a reassurance of love before Angelo left. Dinner was a wave of mutters about each other’s days, with a few casual kisses. The rest of the night was a routine of tediousness and dishonesty. Love had become, but a chore.

“A dream can be anything at all,” Angelo responded. “I assure you, anything. Sometimes, they can be premonitions – for which, they happen without warning and are part of subconscious action, really. A dream is a vague word. People always assume it’s a profession, or something that is completely realistic. People always assume that all of us are dreamers. Well, some of us are not dreamers. Some of us are doers.”

“Are you a doer then?” her voice made his being melt, mutate, morph into misshaped bodily tissues at the very soles of his boots.

“I am neither,” Angelo tried to recover from the sound of her voice – slightly high pitched but inclusively mature. “I’ve always believed dreams were a way of our minds reminding us of what we truly want, because we want to have everything. We want to become everything. Somewhere in a fit of confusion, we know what we truly want. We know how things will end. I believe that there is truth to every overstretched nightmare, and every lucid dream. I believe that truth is either desire, or warning, but others argue. I do not care about what others argue it to be, as I will live my life according to my own perceptions of it. This is how I perceive the dream.”

“How do you see it then, sir?” Annabelle questioned him again, like a child that was trying to understand the world herself.

“Bleak,” Angelo whispered in all honestly. He thought of repetitive days in his household. He thought of his Lillian, bathed in sweet sunlight. They spoke the language of love without understanding the meaning of their words. “It’s not entirely my fault I suppose. I need to be enlightened myself; so thus, I give you permission to enlighten me.”

Her copper-curled goddess flirted with a mere smile. “Annabelle Rochette.”

He responded with his signature arched eyebrow, and a slightly pulled upper lip. “Robert Angelo.”

And that was how it began. 

Mornings came with promises of seeing her. He’d come accustomed to her hair, to her eyes, to her skin – yet he wondered why she still looked like an angel. He supposed that the more he saw something, the more he’d become adapted to seeing her, yet he was still breathless when his eyes visually grouped together the woman that was Annabelle Rochette.

On a particular morning, he was counting the minutes until he saw her again. He would not tell her how his heart had swollen up when the door clicked open, only for the goddess to walk in again.

Joshua had left her in the bakery again with a promise of coming home later on in the day, mumbling statements about the dinner that was served to him last night.

“I have precisely asked you not to make any more cold strew, yet you do exactly the opposite. I’ve never seen more unappealing potatoes in my life. If I die from creatures developing from spontaneous generation, then it is your fault. You do remember that heat burns all of the things that are growing so adamantly in our precious food.”

“You do remember that you can’t be too selective,” Annabelle murmured. “Appreciate what God has given you.”

“God has given me a stove for the stew,” Joshua logically explained. “I hope one day He gives you the smallest amount of energy to walk to the stove.”

She waved at Joshua as he left.  It was then when Angelo had noticed her small hands. Her thick veins were protuberant against her pallor. The significance of breathing somehow evaded his mind, breathless by her flawlessness. Today, he had fallen in the oceans of her eyes again, and he’d long forgotten how to swim. “How are you today then, Mr Angelo?”

It was the way that she said his name that caused his skin to flush. He’d never heard a tongue utter his surname so eloquently. He’d never thought he would ever come to love his surname until then. He had not spoken for the first few seconds, mouth slightly open, eyes filled with astonishment.  

“I’m well,” he had finally answered.

Annabelle’s petite lips gave a gentle nearly reassuring smile. “Do not lie to me, Angelo. I’m the queen of deceit.” She insisted. How observant her eyes were. He wondered how a supposedly normal human being could house so many brilliance, skill and beauty all at once. It seemed as if the goodness of the universe seemed to have a physical representation.

“Oh?” Angelo teased her. “Well then, dear queen of deceit, tell me why you grace us with that corset this evening.”

He’d noticed the corset when she’d first walked in. It was tightened across her lean waist, making her appear scrawnier than usual. Angelo had raised an eyebrow. He’d come from a poor family, where thinness was the standard. Plump women and strong men were the ideals of the poor. If the woman was portly, she was wealthy and more important, she could bear a child. If a man was strong, he could get jobs lifting heavy objects and mining. They would be well off. He’d heard the rich aimed to do the opposite, to appear thinner because they believed it was far more appealing to seem as if they showed no greed with anything, not even something as simple as food itself.

“Is it not obvious?” Annabelle mumbled, eyes shining bright as daylight. “I want to look slender.”

Angelo seemed shocked by this. “You are already quite thin. You do not need to appear smaller. I do not understand why you choose to go against female nature. A female is made to store fat, especially around her hips. It is necessarily to bear children, Annabelle.”

“I can bear children,” she explained, voice definite. “I find it more appealing to seem thinner. I do not know why you would want to purposefully gain weight. Plumpness makes a woman unattractive.”

“Darwin had explained not,” Angelo wondered if Darwinism can be seen as religion. To him, it was factual. It made perfect sense to why Darwin had concluded the things he had. It seemed like evolution was part of knowledge rather than a meagre belief. “Women are made to bear children; therefore portly women must be attractive. Attraction is predetermined historically, you see. We mate not because we feel attractions towards each other, and attractions are based on physical traits that benefit to the society. If we lived in a society where striving for thinness was the ideal, then over time, women would just get thinner and thinner. The new normal would be abnormalities. It is going against what the female body was designed to do. It will end in extinction of the human race, because when a woman is far too thin, she will not be able to bear children.”

“You are hypocritical then,” Annabelle concluded, causing Angelo to arch his eyebrow and pull his lip inward in his signature look of confusion. “If portliness was attractive, then why do you appear undernourished? You work at a bakery. You would have sufficient food to feed yourself with, yet you look like you have not seen bread in weeks, rather than someone who spends his days making it.”

“An architect does not live in the houses he makes. He simply builds them. A baker does not eat the bread he makes. He must sell them. If I ate even a loaf, I would have less money to pay my house, and feed my fiancée with,” Angelo effortlessly explained. His facial expression melted into one of self-satisfaction.

Annabelle shook her head in disbelief. “Oh, Mr Angelo, then tell me how would the world evolve if we put others in front of ourselves? Selfishness keeps the human race alive as well. If we were in a peril and you would tell me to run, I will run and not even think of helping you. If we both die for each other, then it proves nothing other than the fact that we are fools. If you always put your wife in front of you, then it is no way for you to live.”

“Are you calling me a hypocrite?” Angelo raised an eyebrow.

“Quite,” she gave him a nearly flirtatious smile. “I will go now, Mr Angelo, but not before I buy a loaf of bread. That’s what I came for, of course.”

Angelo arched his eyebrow again in confusion, pulling his lower lip inward almost instinctively. “I thought you despised bread.”

“I never said I was the one eating it,” Annabelle explained. Maybe today, she will feed Joshua a decent dinner after the talk they’d had. She’d bought herself quite a fresh, hard roll. She smiled, as she paid. Before she left, she placed the package on the counter. She had a smirk on her face.

“Have a good day, Mr Angelo!” she lastly called, turning to leave.

“Annabelle, you seemed to have forgotten your—“

“No, Mr Angelo,” she huffed. “I never said I was the one eating it. I bought it purely for the sake of feeding you, as you don’t seem to want to do it yourself.”

Angelo seemed stunned to speak for moment. Had she not been the one to find thinness appealing, yet she wanted him to gain weight? Angelo had smirked. “Hypocrite.”

Just as she’d left, he heard her call out one response before shutting the door of his bakery. “Quite!”

The roll that Annabelle had bought Angelo was sold to a French female in the following two hours.

That night, he dreamed of eating roll after roll of hard bread, until his throat constricted from the feeling of hot bread. He supposed he’d died in his dream, as he’d woken up before the actual death. It was far too implied. He can feel death creeping on his vulnerable physique, prying it with its murderous claws. He could not bake bread that day, as the sight of those loaves he’d loved so much had caused him to spiral deep into the repulsion and revolt. His dislike for bread rose with the hour. He was close to giving away the remains of yesterday’s bread out for free. He made cakes but did not quite feel the passions of his baking today. Perhaps, tomorrow? Perhaps. He had never quite felt like this before. Baking had been this skilful art that he’d needed to feel like he had a quality that others did not, the ability to decorate cakes like he was creating something special, the frostings, the cream, the cherries…all of them were reminiscences of recurring events that had happened in his house. Had it been routine that he’d wake up in the morn only to bolt downstairs to help his Mother with her cunning creations?

Annabelle was wearing quite a dress today and looked more radiant than usual. So, it was possible to defeat the impossible. He thought that she couldn’t look any more beautiful, yet she’d always managed to make him think otherwise.

“What a sight for sore eyes,” Angelo murmured, as she smiled at him, flattered. “Where is your brother then?”

“He is sick today,” Annabelle explained, looking down at the impeccable ground. “And what makes your eyes so sore?” she raised an eyebrow, confused.

“I’ve had a nightmare,” Angelo murmured, and shook his head. He could relive those moments in that dream with just a quick recall of the events. Whenever he thought of the bread, he can feel it in his throat, pungent, powerful, painful—constricting him from breathing. “About bread, actually. It was horrific. It had managed to be vivid enough to make me despise looking at bread today, as if it was just—inedible. Revolting in its own small load. It holds far too much. I can feel my stomach contracting with sickness like in my vivid dream, where I’d died from eating far too many rolls. It’s strange. I’ve never had a dream quite that intense. I’ve never been triggered to such a phobia. Lillian just calls me insane.”

“Is that her name then?” Annabelle mumbled, as her eyes quickly glanced at an assortment of muffins on the counter, appeasing to her critical eyes. It was as if she can see the hardship the man had put into every gram of carbohydrate he’d ever made in his life. “Lillian?”

His eyes wandered towards her physique yet again. He eyed the tight, emerald-coloured corset that was around her waist. Her dress was Persian green, and lined with golden satin. The olive-coloured ribbon on the back of her dress was tightly coiled into peculiar design. Angelo had never really paid attention to how the green contrasted with her vibrantly red hair, making her seem more youthful with every extravagant smile she had decided to grace him with.

“Yes,” he answered, giving her a thoughtful smile. “Do you want to know about her?”

“Well, I am an inquirer,” she prided herself in her nature. “What colour is her hair?”

“As gold as an engagement ring,” he explained, though arched an eyebrow at the odd question. He could see small flickers of gold in her red hair. How can hair be so alive, as they curled against her narrow shoulders? He would never know the question to his inquiry, yet maybe he was never meant to. Maybe things were much more beautiful when he did not exactly know what they were about, like a painting. It may be vague with colour, easy to compress and mould into something that meant much to Angelo. He thought that was the beauty of art; the fact that it was pliable, malleable, ductile as soft metal. For a woman that wanted marriage, it would be a ring. For the strong man, it would be moulded into a crowbar.

“An engagement ring can be silver,” she eyed the band that rested on his ring finger. “My Mother’s was silver.”

“Was it?” he raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” Annabelle confirmed, as she walked, pacing to look at the rest of the small, quaint bakery. “She hated the colour gold. She thought it was far too common, and asked specifically for a silver ring. My Father’s family ring that had been passed on from generation to generation was gold, yet he had to throw it away for her need for silver. The rest of my family would not speak to my Father after he so foolishly threw away the family heirloom. It was a very small gold ring that had the largest of diamonds. It was worth far too much, but in my Mother’s eyes, it was simply too common.”

He took in this story with interest in his eyes. “I’d given Lillian a silver ring. My Mother was a very simple woman and my Father can only afford silver. Funny how much blood, sweat and tears I’d shed only to buy what was presumably the cheapest of rings in the market. My Mother is in Germany and had taken her ring with her. I had no choice by to by Lillian her own…” his eyes lowered to his ground, as he spoke of his Mother. He can hear her laughter in his mind, burning holes of nostalgia in the pits of his stomach. It grew with every breath he took, and every beat of his heart.

She shifted slightly because of how uncomfortable she’d felt with the corset constricting her ribcage. He thought that corset may just be fair punishment for making him breathless all of the time.

“Is that cake?” she asked, eyes on a dessert that sat beside her, fresh, and smelled soft, delicate even. He wondered if that was possible, that feeling and touch had its own scent. Perhaps, the mind really was an interesting thing, because most times, he swore that the name Lillian tasted like pink frosting.

“Oh, yes!” Angelo walked towards his creation. He had taken the very smallest dip of his fingertip in the sugary white icing, and brought it to Annabelle’s lips. The girl was hesitant, before wrapping her velvety lips around his long, thin finger. Her tongue so gently brushed against the salty flesh in a caress. He can see her eyes bursting with approval. When her lips left, she seemed to flush. Her rosy skin reddened by the second, matching the tones of her curly hair. She flicked her sharp tongue at her upper lip, which had remains of icing, licking them off with a wipe, and moistening her lips. He swore they gleamed under the light, inviting him to sin.

It stayed silent for a few moments. “You have very little customers,” she chose to state instead. How observant she was! Her smile told him that she was conservative, and her eyes told him her secrets. There was innocence behind his eyes as well as dark mischief. He can see her writhing underneath him, succumbing to his dominance, submitting as he worshipped her body.

“In the morning?” Angelo arched an eyebrow, as she nodded her head. “Well, of course. You would think that I’d have a small boy collecting bread for his family every morning? Not quite, but I do have a teenage boy collecting cake every night for his sisters. It’s lovely how much you can truly deduce from anyone that regularly comes here. A person’s clothing and conditions of health can say quite a bit, as well as the people they mention here and there. I’d like to think that I have a superb memory.” 

She looked away from his eyes only for a second. “Do you really? Do you remember what I wore yesterday?”

Almost instinctively had his lips formed a smirk. “Not a corset.”

In response, she rolled her eyes. His eyes went back down to that ribbon, perfected nearly, but yet still gaudy and unnecessary. It seemed as most of her clothing was. It made her look like an over-exaggerated angel, yet was that not what he was doing in his mind constantly? Making her beauty seem as flawless as possible, because that was what she seemed to be in his eyes. Her green bonnet had swept her curls away from her shoulders, wrapping them in flamboyant representation. It was as if her curls were a gift to the universe and the bonnet their wrapper. “Is everything made from raw ingredient or do you use others’ products when you make them?”

Angelo simply shook his head, as he moved towards her. He stared back at his creation, the cake that was right in front of her, with a self-satisfied smirk. “This one in particular is a flourless cake. I’ve made it with sugar, cream of tartar, salt, almond extract, and a dozen or so egg whites. The berries it’s topped with are but the wild raspberry. It’s also topped with this generous portion of whipping cream. Lillian owns quite a few farms after all and several gardens, so I know that the particular ingredients used to make this cake can be fully trusted.”

Her eyes were bluer today in their own little way. “So, I believe you trust your fiancée?”

“I trust her judgment,” he simply quipped back. “I trust that she’s in love with me, and I trust her decisions. I don’t know what else is left, but in those other unknown manners, I do not trust her with.”

“There’s so much you don’t trust her in then, Mr Angelo,” Annabelle concluded with a keen eye.

Angelo looked down at his hands, as his lower lip quivered. “I fancy you, Annabelle,” he confessed, as he stared down at the counter. The next few moments were of silence. He watched as her eyes spoke of confusion. He could not meet her eye after the initial glance and settled for looking down at his flourless cake, which was starting to make him sick. He could feel something curl up into his stomach, something formed of acid, nausea and warmth.

He met her eyes after some time. She, still flabbergasted by his confession.

In that same moment, had the bakery doorway been opened by a sunny-haired far too happy girl – oh no, not a girl tonight, a woman – as she ran towards Angelo. Annabelle’s eyes had drifted to the girl’s finger, where that silver ring that was talked of only moments ago laid on her finger. Angelo knew she never quite wore the band anywhere, but now, it was standing on her finger, proudly glowing, glittering, glistening so obnoxiously in the light. The smile on Lillian’s lips was oblivious. She smelled of garden roses and misconception today. Her eyes were far too blue in this light, but not the kind of blue that Robert Angelo could ever love.

She moved towards him, exerting a pensive sigh. She then embraced him far too tighty for his liking, to the point where his sensitive nose was buried into a sea of gold.  In that moment, she blurted out the source of her urgency.

“Angelo, a child!”

She was unaware of the confession that had taken place moments ago. He felt his skin pale, and his mind jumbling. He could feel every grain of his being duplicate, making him bigger with every second that she hugged him. It disgusted him that he had to be a man right now, when he was simply a small boy in his mind, wandering aimlessly in forests to bring water from the well. He would have no responsibility for what the water was used for – perhaps, to make some stew for supper tonight, or be used in other appliances. All he knew was that he was to get this small bucket of water. He had no say in what it was to do, and did not care for one. He simply walked to revel in the air. It was always colder at night in the valley. He swore he can see France sometimes if he looked hard enough, even though knew it would be quite impossible.

He remembered being a small child again, simply listening to his Father tell him grand stories of France. Some said it was extraordinary, others claimed it to be dull, and some said it was just the same as living here in this valley. They lived south of France, east of Italy and west of Spain. The island was small, and the valley was even smaller. The island was called Ferdaus, which meant ‘Heaven’ or ‘Paradise’ in Arabic. What paradise was this? Being constrained from the universe. They spoke of things like technology and advancement out there in The Modern. They spoke of worlds that were modern. He had heard from his Father that now, there were faster things of doing things that people mass bought raw ingredients imported – imported not in months, but in days. Not with ship, but with a contraption called an airplane. He said they were the future. It made Angelo angry, because he did not want to know about how they were living, in their technology-consumed universes that relied on machinery. Was it not machinery that made people unemployed in The Modern?

Angelo heard that The Modern would have thought that he had a problem. He heard of medicine based by machinery. He heard of advances. He learned that insanity did not have to be cured by lobotomy. That word perplexed him. If one was insane, then wouldn’t the best option be cutting their source of their insanity? Medicine should only be used for the physical health the way Angelo had seen it. He wondered what medicine would ail his nauseous mind right now, as he took in the words that had rolled off Lillian’s tongue.

“We will have a child,” she repeated, nearly as if the words weren’t repeating themselves in his head already. Her mouth was wide open and the pearls of her necklace sparkling. The sparkles of the jewels couldn’t outshine the sparkles in her eyes. She looked like she was in love again, but with the idea of this child – not with him. It was never quite him, was it?

Annabelle had smiled at him. He could not quite read the colour of her eyes or her expression. Angelo hesitantly found himself glancing at Annabelle and then turning only to give an uncertain smile to Lillian, divulging in his fictional romance with her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, suddenly aware of her weight. He was aware of everyone’s shape right now, everything about them – observant eyes made out skin, skin, skin and he noted body structures. He noticed thinness and fatness, but everything seemed hazy. Everything made him feel like far too much of him existed in space, as if he was not supposed to exist at all. The world seemed like a beautiful painting yet he simply looked like he was not a part of it, a mere observer to things that occurred in it.

He felt like there was far too much of him for someone that was an observer. He simply wanted to not exist, physically, maybe spiritually still there. He wondered why Annabelle made him feel like this, feel the need to assess everything in his life, his physical essence, make him want to break down bit by bit from his frame until nothing quite existed. Maybe it was just because the universe did not really need a baker like him. He would bring sorrow in his path, just like he’d bring sorrow to Lillian when she’d realise that his true devotion was to Annabelle. Annabelle, he’d only known her for such a short time yet his heart can only sing: Annabelle.

“We must get married very soon!” Lillian exclaimed, her eyes glittering blue with flicks of fluttering green. “I refuse to have an illegitimate child, of course…”

Annabelle had left, leaving his heart in a wave of panic.

“It will not be a grand wedding, of course, as we don’t have quite that much to cover in such a short while. I may not get the wedding I’ve always wanted but this is outstanding, Robert! A child! A child of our own!” Lillian’s eyes filled with pure joy and delight.

Angelo felt nauseous again, as if Lillian herself was a roll of bread. His throat was just as constricted as he felt like in the binge sequencing of his dream, yet he simply shook his head.

“Yes, a child of our own,” he muttered. “Something to bind us together forever.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Lillian repeated, oblivious to the bitterness and resentment his voice harboured in his statement. “Eternal love at its best, I suppose! I’ll make you  whatever you want for dinner tonight, as a form of celebration.”

His stomach twisted. He could feel curls of acid coiling in his throat.

“I feel quite sick tonight,” he explained in a quiet voice. “I will retire to my chambers the moment I come home,” he whispered words of distorted control.

He smiled at her as softly as possible. Behind that smile, were hidden secret. She nodded her head sullenly, but then perked up once more when she had to stand on her toes to give a gentle kiss on his cheek. She left. Annabelle had left a long time ago as well.

Angelo looked down at his flourless cake, the whisper of temptation. He could see Annabelle’s critical eye, her inspection, and binned his creation in that very instant.

Sick, sick, sick, his mind repeated as he lay in bed next to Lillian. Love is potent. It comes with obsession with the person, with appetite loss, with anxiety, happiness – you cannot be in love with Annabelle, Angelo. They hear of this, and you will be doomed, Angelo. You will be in peril. You cannot despise bread simply because Annabelle does not like bread. You cannot throw away things you’ve created only because she was critiquing them with her eyes. You work with pastry. She may not like pastry. She may want to be thinner, but you cannot be influenced by her. She may think that thinness is ideal, but you cannot throw away your body for her. You are your own person. Do not lie to Lillian. Do not lie to Lillian. Do not lie—

“You seem distraught,” he heard her murmur, as she pressed her head against his skin. He was self-conscious of his existence again. “Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing at all. Sleep, love. Rest assure. I simply cannot sleep,” and after swearing not to, Robert Angelo lied for the fifth time that night.

Angelo met Lillian on a warm spring afternoon. He was with his Father when he first saw her. At that moment, his Father had asked him what was his favourite flower and almost, as if by fate, his eyes had landed on Lillian’s face. He had engrossed himself into the soft gentle blue of her eyes. Almost as if he knew her name, he said in the softest voice, “Lilies.”

Fate had reason to believe that they were supposed to be wed. Lillian was just a tragedy just wanting to live a romance, just like him. He was a boy that wanted to be an engineer and she was just a girl, waiting to be loved. She liked to call him by his last name sometimes, and more often than not, so did quite a lot of people. Her fingers were the best part of her. She had very long, thin fingers. The minute she told him that she hated her hand; he’d taken it only to plant the gentlest of kisses just below her second knuckle. He remembered because he’d memorised her hand at that time. It was then he realised he wanted to be an artist. It led him to believe that he just wanted to create things. He was content with anything that involved creation, so he created.

He could recall the first time she’d cried. She came to him with dishevelled blonde locks, tear tracks down her face, sobs escaping her body, and he’d made her sit on one of the chairs at the living room table. It was the only table in that room, the only thing that wasn’t the walls or the floorboards. It was a very small room. The table was always dusty. Angelo had stopped trying to clean it all the time because dust will recollect, as there was a window behind him, beaming sunlight and inviting dust from the garden outside. His Father had owned a garden that grew the simplest of vegetables. It was what kept them alive most days.

When she sat, she just pressed her head against his shoulder. The table only had three chairs, and he’d fixed the position of the chairs so that he was sitting only centimetres away from his beloved. She laid her head on his shoulder. Her eyes still glistened with tears. “What is this about then?”

Lillian simply shook her head. “Nothing of interest to you,” she sounded far more cynical than usual.

He had chuckled in that moment at her cold nature. “And what brought upon that misconception?”

He can see her eyes melt into a colour that resembled clear water. “I do not know,” she lied, laughing lightly. “I suppose it might be your slightly judgmental nature. I fear that it will be the death of you one day, when you see someone that is far more brilliant and beautiful than I am – you will simply forget all about me.”

“Such a thing exists?” Angelo bellowed out a hearty laugh. “I do not believe that anything can be more extraordinary than you,” and he never had at that time.

Lillian looked down at her lap, folding her hands, and singing to herself for some time. He had left then to make her something to comfort her. His form of comfort was a hot chocolate, whipped with fresh cream. It smelled of sharp chocolate and sprinkles of cinnamon. He watched her as she took the ceramic mug, sipping, supping; swallow warm liquid down her throat. She’d restored the colours of her cheeks halfway through her drinking. She seemed like a decaying flower that had revived itself in its own funeral.

“How are you now?” Angelo had asked, watching her skin pale a little at realisations and debates.

She looked back down at the consoling liquid, and then slowly nodded her head. He could tell it was an uncertain nod. She then pursed her lips together. “My Mother’s dead.”

He noted the way she had to take a few breaths afterwards to steady herself, and the furrowing of her ash-blonde eyebrows. He could see her eyes start to fill, but no tears truly fell. They simply formed. Her pupils reddened. It seemed like all of the blood flow of her body was simply to her eyes, because her skin was paling again. She had no family anymore, this young girl that was built on church grounds and whispers of what was right or wrong. She looked away, and he leaned towards her. He cupped her cold cheek, and gave her a gentle smile. She simply looked back at him, and then she broke into a fit of uncontrollable sobs. The mug clenched tightly until her knuckles were a ghostly white. Her lips trembled and her hands slightly shook, enough to stir the hot chocolate in the mug but not enough to spill it.

“Shhh, Lillian, drink your cup now…you’ll feel better. I promise,” he whispered so softly as to not break what was left of her fragile psych. “Remember the music box I bought you? If the ballerina still dances every time you open the box, then it’s alright. If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright.”

She brought the cup and drained it in minutes. He simply smiled and made her another one. By the second cup, she had quieted down significantly and there seemed to be the beginnings of a smile forming on those lovely lips. She giggled after a while, mostly out of humiliation and then just shook her head, looking down at her lap. After that day, his fascinations with food simply seemed to grow. He’d read Pavlov’s studies, whom said that the crucial connection between humans and the stimuli would be brought upon by certain chemical substances related to food connections. It was human biological response to salivate whenever staring at something that was appeasing. To Robert Angelo, anything that changed that was simply abnormal. He wondered what the other world – the outside world, The Modern – would say if they heard of his mind’s thought processes right now, because all that Robert knew was that he was fascinated by food. He was fascinated by how he can manipulate emotion by just making the proper dish.

Everything else seemed to melt away when he’d given Lillian that mug of hot chocolate. He wondered what his mind was like, because all he’d ever wanted was food, but at the same time, he didn’t. He knew that spending hours on a slice of cake made him feel as if he’d ingested it just by the scent. His appetite dispersed very quickly. He wanted everything, and at the same time, he simply wanted nothing. Ideas of greed but complications of self-starvation. He knew his mind was strange. He did not want to eat quite a bit. All he wanted to do was avoid food, not be around food, fearing that he’d have to ingest food, but at the same time, all he wanted to do was shove every bit of everything down his throat, until it disintegrated and digested into his body, making him more. Angelo did not want to be more. He wanted to be less – less and less until he did not have to exist any longer. He could tell that Lillian knew it would be a problem, that he was sick – that he had to be lobotomised if any of this came out. Most times, they just pretended it never truly existed. This dangerous, dangerous fascination.

He wondered how his mind could want two different things at once. It exhausted him to constantly debate within himself. He was his own demons, he supposed. All he’d ever wanted was to avoid food yet he was facing it twenty-four seven, staring at the cream, custards and cakes far too much. He was honest when he’d said that he found plumpness attractive and thinness not, but he did not want to be attractive at all. The thought of being attractive made him sick. He simply wanted to die most days. Dying by slowly becoming nothing, as each unit of him disappeared. He did not crave thinness for beauty. He craved thinness because it promised death and decay. It was only once that Lillian had confronted him about it.

You are sick, Robert. They will lobotomise you if they find out that you want to be so much gaunter until you simply die.

His response was automatic. I thought that the flower was beautiful if it was dead or if it was alive. In that small statement, he’d shattered her world. He knew that was when she’d stopped loving him. He stopped loving himself as well. He was no longer Robert Angelo, but carried Robert’s name and face. Certainly not his body. His body was a mass of flimsy flesh and bone. What would his Mother do if she can see what she’d done? He’d always loved his Mother, and she was like this as well. Sick, like this.

His Mother had always cooked for him when she was upset, or when he was upset. It was their secret language, the food. The days where he missed his Father, she made him chocolate from scratch. It was the best chocolate he’d had in his life. This small square would do you good, she’d said.

He tried to cajole her to eat one small square but she refused. Mother, you are far too thin for my liking. Please have a small square? He begged, with big eyes, hoping that his Mother would take the smallest of squares from the large chocolate bars he’d produced.

Oh no, I’ve been a bad Mother. Only good people have chocolate now. I’ve not taken you to the park. Perhaps, on a day when I do. She’d never taken him to the park, so she never allowed herself to have one. Sometimes, he felt like she wanted to take him out into the sunlight, but wouldn’t because she’d have to keep her promise of eating a square. He thought that she was simply afraid of chocolate, but it became apparent to him that she was afraid of food itself. Everything about it. He wondered why she was around it so much then, and what in food was she was afraid of. Now, he knew. She was afraid of the revolt and remorse she’d feel every the smallest of morsels that would pass her lips. She feared that food made her feel like she was existing, weighing her down from the clouds where promises of death and whispers of Heaven resided in grandiose amounts. There was a certain weightlessness and invincibility when he chose not to eat, and then there was the heaviness, shame and guilt when he did.

When he was a child, he helped her in the kitchen quite a bit, and he’d only see her eat scraps of food sometimes and other times, he’d find her sitting on the porch, with a very large cake on her lap. She would eat it very quickly, frosting dripping down her chin, and devoured the cake as it would be her last. Those days, he wondered if she would eat herself to an early grave, as so swiftly would cabinets be emptied of any form of food, raw or cooked, delightful or sickening. After that, she would often withdraw herself from her son’s eye in humiliation. Sometimes, she would even bawl her eyes out, whispering words that a small boy shouldn’t ever hear in his life. Mother, you are sick, he’d said after a while.

Sick, all she can do was look at a picture of his Father. And he promised that in sickness and in health. He’d never understood what she’d meant by it.

After the times of helping her in the kitchen, they’d become accustomed to pattern. They did not speak to each other sometimes, but they always knew. One day, she’d watched him come home with love-sick eyes. I’m in love, Mother.

She stared at him with darkness in his eyes. Love? But love is a curse.

Her bitterness could not destroy his youthful happiness. That day, he’d also made gourmet chocolate on his own with the recipe he loved so much. It was the chocolate his Mother always made him when he was down, and also the chocolate that he’d so much as a child. This small square will do you good, he’d told Lillian that night, just as his Mother always told him.

When asked about his dream now, it was not a profession just as he’d told Annabelle. It would be to visit his Mother again, whom lived in Germany in The Modern, surrounded by these people that did not think that her sickness needed lobotomy. He could not visit her, as those that fled the valley were not allowed to legally return and disrupt the system by bringing in ideals of technology. Some of them snuck back in, and told their stories to those who swore to keep them secret. She communicated through letters to him, and slowly, their connection disappeared when the valley refused to take in letters from the outside any longer, becoming even more restrictive with their beliefs and system. Angelo had always feared getting married without her. He’d also always feared having to live without her.

When she’d left, he had nobody but his Father and Lillian for a while. His Father’s ideas of comfort was steering him away from the kitchen and taking him out on long walks, teaching him life lessons. He gave him advice when Angelo needed it. Angelo had no other relatives now. It seemed that everyone Angelo had known at some point seemed to disappear or die off. They died in the most peculiar ways, and his Mother had always looked guilty, as if she was a part of their deaths.

The hardest part of not having the letters as a connection was that he knew nothing of her condition, or needs. He did not know how it was like to dream, but she did. She’d always wanted to own a bakery, so that was why he opened up the small shop. He didn’t care for profession. He simply wanted his Mother, and she was here, in the things he made, between the ganache and the cream cheese. Somehow, she lived in everything he made. Everything smelled a lot like home in that little charming bakery down the street. When she’d left, all he can do was drown in memories of her. She’d always wanted a bakery in a way that he never wanted, but no, he was living her dream and his as well. With everything he baked, he can hear her laugh and see her twirl in her little dress. She wore dresses that used to fit her years ago because of her small stature, the dresses that little girls wore of her age. He could smell her in the cakes he made, and swore he can feel her standing over him as he waited for the bread to bake in that grand oven. Her presence was everlasting from when he began baking to the end product.

Most of all, she was in his most popular item – which was the small chocolate squares he’d come accustomed to making every day since she’d left.

Annabelle had once stared at those, eyes bristling with soft blue. She then asked, what are these made of then?

What pretty girls are made of, of course, Angelo replied to her that day.

When at Germany, he knew his Mother found her true lover, a man named Francois. Angelo knew nothing of him. His Father had been angry at first upon knowing this, but the anger disappeared, just like the hope and love he’d harboured for her. Our love was planned, Angelo. An arranged marriage is not a place for love. Please, do not marry someone you don’t love, because love cannot grow in a drought. Angelo had been so sure he’d loved this flower called Lillian this girl of honest eyes and golden hair that came from a broken home just like he did.

Angelo had lived in a house where fate was questionable and the ideals of God were always to be probed. His Father refused to believe in faith, but also believed in the ideals of love even though the man had never loved a woman. I’ve loved a boy, and that boy is my son. I know quite a lot about love then, the man would always say. His understanding nature allowed his Mother to run into the arms of another man, because he did love her enough to wish her pure happiness even if she was sick. I still wish your Mother would love me back, Robert.

How history repeated itself, because here Angelo was, lying beside his beautiful Lillian whom had devoted her live to God. She clung to her faith, something that Angelo did not truly understand, because he never questioned her love for him. He constantly questioned his love for her. Love was like a disease, striking people when they didn’t ask for it. Angelo loved Annabelle and could potentially even fall in love with her. She captivated him with ideas and questions, and he didn’t quite understand why. He rubbed a sleeping Lillian’s stomach, thinking of their soon-to-be new born babe. Almost immediately afterwards, his thoughts spun to copper curls and rosy flesh. He always thought of her right now, as she became a part of his thoughts, a simple fixation in his mind.

His mind repeated that day that she smiled at him as Lillian said the news of their child, and upon hearing that, left. She was aware of what she did to him, and didn’t quite regret captivating him into her schemes and spells. He wished she can see him now, a victim of love. Oh, how could something as pure as love paint such a disordered chaos? How can the colours contrast within themselves? He wondered time and time again, and somehow, his fingers found Lillian’s hair. He did not sleep that night because of the spiteful knife of hunger, carving hollowness because of persistent emptiness.

He stared at Lillian’s face. She seemed content with her life, as she rested. It was only when she woke and he had to look into her eyes, that he can see the beast of obsession slowly rise, a demon in the eyes of an angel.

The seasons were shifting, playing with temperatures to surprise the valley with weather. Sometimes, it was not quite the best of surprise – especially today on this cold February morning. February marked the fourth month that Lillian carried their child in. Angelo was tugging at his dark grey cashmere scarf, as well as fixing the hem of his morbidly coloured sweater every five or so minutes. The cold weather left a chill on his bones, or perhaps, it was the starvation. His feeding schedule was not the best, and his skin was not at its thickest. To combat the cold, he wore many layers and drank hot soup that held no cream or salt.

His Father had raised an eyebrow, eyes on the multiple thick layers of clothing that his son was wearing. “When I stare at you dressed in that state, boy, the whole valley drops down 20 degrees. Tell me now, it isn’t quite that cold to you, is it?” he seemed sceptic, almost as if he was noticing a change.

“You are not one to ask,” Angelo sardonically stated, with an arched eyebrow, as he examined his Father’s light layers. Insomnia weighed heavily on this boy, and left him petulant.

His Father bellowed out a laugh that was as warm as stew. He shook his head. “Says the boy that wears the flesh of a corpse.”

Angelo had rolled his eyes, and stared at his pale skin. His skin paled due to restricted blood flow and lack of nutrients. He had doubted he was as pale as his Father saw him though. His bloodshot eyes scanned the world quickly, as they strolled aimlessly. This man had long lost his excitement for the world, confined to the cages of his mind. He stared back at his Father for the longest of times, and then said, in the softest of voices, “I don’t know if I’m in love with Lillian anymore.”

Seven months and thirteen days ago, he was charmed by Annabelle. Four months and three days ago, he was graced by the news of Lillian’s pregnancy. She prayed even more now, for the safety of her child and a successful marriage. He was to wed her in three months. Time was slipping by too quickly, and his only thought so far was running away, never returning, going to Germany and hiding away as far as he could. He could not take care of a child. He was a sick man, and his child would be sick too. His Mother was sick, and now, Angelo was sick too. He did not know how an ailment of the mind can be contagious, or if it was simply just an obscure coincidence. Angelo did not believe in coincidences. He did not believe in anything anymore and hadn’t for quite a long time now.

His Father stared at him for the longest of times. “I hardly know why you miss your Mother,” he murmured. “You are exactly like her.”

It was the best compliment Angelo had ever had in his life, yet also the largest insult at the same given time. He shook his head, as his lower lip trembled. “And like her, I will have a child that I’ve never planned, or wanted, but inclined to love.”

“Hush now,” his Father’s voice was louder now. Angelo’s lower lip did not stop its small tremble. He wondered if it was from the pain, or from the cold. Angelo honestly could not tell anymore. “Your Mother loved you. You are her child, and a Mother never truly regrets having her child. You have always been ours. If anything good came from this horrendous marriage is that I have you as my child.”

Angelo didn’t look at him anymore, and he shut his eyes. “It’s cold today,” he noted.

His Father stared at him for some time. “You’ve lost insulation. This is not a good sign. Has Lillian been feeding you well? I would not love a woman that doesn’t feed me either if it aids your decisions.”

Angelo didn’t look back, which caused his Father to stop in his tracks, gripping Angelo by his shoulder. “Listen to me, boy. Are you sick?” Angelo knew what his Father meant when he said sick. “This is not good, Robert. Do not become your Mother. When I said that you are exactly like her, I didn’t account on her condition to strike you as well. I did not expect that your charming attitude is due to your self-starvation.” 

Angelo looked down at his feet, and then shifted slightly. “Why would you not stop her then? She is very light. I was a child. I didn’t know any better, Father. I didn’t know what to do. I was so frightened and…she was very light.”

“Robert,” his Father called out in a soft  voice. “She wouldn’t listen to me. She was very sick…is she still sick?”

Angelo looked away and then shrugged his shoulder. “I’ve no word of her condition,” he confessed gravely. “I do not know how to live on not knowing how she fares at this moment. It’s quite a living Hell.”

“Robert.” His Father said his name again. “Do not do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That’s not so hard to do,” Angelo muttered. “Seeing as you’ve done nothing for me. My Mother was suffering, Father. I was a child.”

“You are being a child right now,” the disappointment in his Father’s voice was clear.

And with that, Angelo felt a very weak smile fall on his lips. His head was pounding and his skin was numb from the coldness. He didn’t know how to feel about that statement, but he knew what to say. “No, Father, I’m having a child,” his voice was wavering off slightly.

He repeated in a softer voice, “I’m having a child.”

With that, Angelo’s eyes rimmed red, as he shook his head. “What can I do with a child?”

“Teach him,” his Father’s voice was strong. “Feed him. Comfort him. Love him.”

Angelo’s body trembled. He did not know if this was from the emotion, or the cold either. His body shuddered under the weight of his emotions and the everlasting cold. “What if my love for him kills him?”

“It is better to die with love, then to live loveless.” His Father placed a hand on Angelo’s shoulder. “Just look at you. You are a product of that. Loveless to your body, in your pits of self-loathing, I can barely recognise you, Robert. You are a shell of a man that  you used to be—quite literally.”

Angelo snorted, looking away, and then with a soft voice, he finally said. “I’m quite the man then, because I still have the hopes of a boy.”

“You seem tired,” was Lillian’s first comment on a warm March morning.

Five months carrying his child had torn them apart instead of bringing them together. She eyed him for the longest of times, as he had prepared himself a cup of rich, black coffee. The coffee tasted bitter on his tongue, yet it made him tolerate her all the more. His lover had somehow become the cause of his nuisance. Everything frustrated him. He only felt defeat these days, lacking in love. Instead of revelling in those gold locks and that silvery ring, he felt himself grow nauseous at the sight of both. His anxiety, phobias, revolt and self-loathing somehow had created a monster from a once moral man, making him displeased at everything he had once known.

“The damned thermostat—what did you do to it?” Angelo asked, shutting his eyes. “I refuse to wear extra padding in my own household. It’s so cold my fingers are tinged blue, Lillian. The circulation of my blood is suffering from your need to have this household at an incessantly cold temperature.” 

Her face purely plastered in surprise and shock for the first few moments, as she saw him take a generous sip from the cup. Insomnia still weighed heavy on his eyelids – or maybe, it was the fact that he’d see Annabelle today. The sudden anxiety upon seeing the red-haired maiden condensed in his stomach. He was truly beginning to resent all women, but he loved the both of them all the same, just not right now. He was too sick to love.

Lillian shut her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. Her blood boiled, but her voice was soft. “What’s her name?”

He now looked at her. He expected rage, but her eyes only bore innocent and purity, that of what he’d fallen in love with. He could only see her beauty at this moment, which perplexed him even more. He loved Annabelle in a way that he could never love Lillian, but he also loved Lillian in a way that he couldn’t love Annabelle.

“Annabelle Rochette.”

Lillian’s lower lip trembled. “You’re sick,” she whispered. “Robert, you are sick. I’ve never seen skin so pale, nor a body so thin. I’ve never seen a boy so lost, or a flower so dead. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life, but your beauty is that of a corpse lying six feet under. It is the beauty that destroys itself and contradicts itself. Most of all, it isn’t the beauty I fell in love with. I fell in love with a boy whose beauty was his passion of food, but his passion has become his greatest enemy.”

“My hate has spun from love,” Angelo murmured, and then moved towards her. “I’ve been sick before.”

“Never this bad,” Lillian murmured, placing a hand on his shoulder.

It was then that he snapped, eyes darkening by the second. “And I fell in love with a woman, but all I see is a scared little girl that is reverting back to God because she simply has no parents to lean back on. Isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted, Lillian? Your Father’s approval? The one that abandoned you and left you for dead in a place of faith? Yet you still sing of faith as if it existed then and it exists now. How can this—“

Her eyes widened and she looked close to tears. It was then that Angelo stopped talking for a moment.

“I’m sorry.” Angelo realised the impact of his words by the broken hues in those beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Lillian bit her inner cheek, and looked down at her feet, or rather, his. “I know,” she simply nodded her head, frightened little girl in a big, horrible world. “I only turn to God because I had nobody else to turn to. I have nobody else to tear to. I’m a scared little girl, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t also a scared little boy that is searching for his Mother and wishing she’d hold his hand again.”

Angelo looked down, because he cannot deny the truth of her words. All he had been waiting for was his Mother’s comfort, her words, her embraces, and her cake. He made her recipes over and over again just to keep the memory of her alive. In the end, they both knew she did not live in the frosting on his cake, and her presence was not in the cherry he topped it with. She was in Germany, possibly dead, and possibly suffering, or worse, she might be happy and had forgotten about him, vowing to never to return to him.

“Robert.”

“Please,” Angelo shook his head. “Don’t say another word. It is senseless to open old wounds with words.”

Lillian pursed her lips together. “Do you want some milk in your coffee? And are you coming by for lunch this afternoon with me and your Father, or are you busy confining yourself in your bakery for a woman that will never quite love you?”

“You know nothing about her,” Angelo simply stated fact. There was no envy in her eyes, but he can read her eyes quite well. They were ones of fear. She feared for him because she still loved him. She feared for what Annabelle would do to his lingering sanity. Love was such a beautiful thing, but in the wrong hands, it could spell the darkest of dangers. He can feel it in his rattling, shaking bones that no good will come of Annabelle Rochette, yet when he saw her, the rest of him simply melted and he’d forgotten how it was like to love anyone else, especially himself. At the same time, he had never despised the power something had over him ever in his life, confining him to brilliant blue eyes and whispers of delightfully dark dreams.

Lillian stood on her toes, placing a hand on his cheek. “What are you accomplishing by this self-starvation, Robert? You will die soon if you keep this up, or you will be found out and lobotomised.”

Angelo shook his head. “Lillian, I’ll be alive. I’m alive now, aren’t I?”

It was Lillian’s turn to snort. “Robert, you’ve been dead for quite some time now.”

Annabelle still came to his shop every morning. Sometimes, with Joshua accompanying here and other times, she came alone. Every day, he was to expect her beauty to grace upon his door. He’d grown weary of beauty a long time ago. It did not mean that he wasn’t captivated by her, but being charmed by her simply left him fatigued. The mere thought of existence seemed like a dull chore nowadays. He existed indifferently until a vortex of emotion simply struck him at odd times. Every day, he returned home feeling like he’d been carrying large boulders over his chest and constructing houses when in reality, he’d done very little work. Today, he had been debating for quite some time about whether or not; he should make a fresh batch of bread today or tomorrow. In mid-debate, the maiden of copper curls and ruddy flesh graced him with her brother. Her brother did not seem to be very vibrant today, and seemed as dull as Angelo was. His skin was ghastly and he bore no enthusiasm.

Annabelle had placed a hand on Joshua’s shoulder. Joshua did not seem to be very aware of his surroundings, only the bread that he seemed to be assessing. Angelo didn’t know if the assessment was of positivity or negativity, and didn’t quite know if he should ask him as the boy seemed to be too fragile for questions. “Is there anything of interest to you?”

Joshua snickered lightly. “Generally so, I’m very interested in the way the baker is eyeing your rear. Is Annabelle finally getting a husband? Oh, who would make me your exquisite dinners then? I’ll ostentatiously miss the cold stew and stale bread.” 

Annabelle had shaken her head, glaring at Joshua’s words. “Mother would be displeased to hear you say this about her favourite daughter. You should be happy that I decide to grace you with anything at all. Your bed is warm at night because I keep it warm.”

Joshua found a small smile curling up on his lips. “I do not encourage you to speak of the dead, Annabelle. Also, my bed is not warm at all. It’s cold, sturdy and I found multiple things living in there that should not quite well be there, but I suppose your idea of warm can be distorted. No matter what the weather is, you seem to have this compulsive need to expose your bosom.”

In response, Annabelle can only snort at her brother’s annotations. “I see that your tuberculosis did not affect your charismatic personality.” 

Tuberculosis? Angelo had lifted his eyebrow, so Joshua was indeed physically deathly ill. The amount of envy and sadness that filled Angelo’s heart was clearly dangerous. He didn’t know which he felt more of; his envy at the dying boy, or his sadness at such a small, youthful male that had little adventure in his life to die. Angelo knew that Joshua was simply accustomed to routine; this boy woke up and fell asleep with the same schedule. He hadn’t done much. It was clear on his face that he woke up early and slept very late.

The colour from Joshua’s face drained. He looked at Annabelle, curling up his lower lip. “And who is to take care of you when I die, sister?”

Annabelle shook her head. Angelo can see sadness in her eyes, coloured grey in blue skies. “Hush now,” she said, voice strong and adamant. “I am very capable of taking care of myself. I guess I would have to work then?”

Joshua laughed, and shook his head. “I’d love to live to see the day you wear an apron.”

“I hope you do now,” Annabelle playfully pushed him against his shoulder. Joshua picked up a loaf of bread from a basket, and then walked towards Angelo. Joshua was just looking for coins in his pocket, when Angelo had shaken his head. Joshua still found the coins and dropped it at Angelo’s counter.

“A man that works deserves his pay,” Joshua smiled warmly at Angelo, and looked down at his fingers. Joshua’s clubbed fingers graced across Angelo’s wrist. “What is your ailment then, brother?” he asked with such a loving tone of voice.

“He is stricken with no ailment, Joshua.” Annabelle simply sounded out from where she stood. Her ruby red gown making her hair look more vibrant, yet Angelo seemed too exhausted to be astonished by her brilliance. How can such a thing be?

Angelo would have agreed with her long ago, but now, his mind was etching with images of Lillian and his’ quarrel. It was still fresh in his mind, clear as it could be. He could see the events replay back in his mind in a constant, perpetual loop, landing him into an even darker place than he’d been. It made his skin creep and crawl. Pounding and pulsing, his body twisted and turned. Despite this pain that was condensing in his stomach like nausea, his positive emotions for Annabelle stood still, refusing to leave his mind. He wished they would simply exit his mind, but the more he tried to forget her, the more he remembered her. How can it be fair for this anguish to exist simply because he loved another? How can love itself be so destructive?

“He’s stricken with the worst ailment,” Joshua muttered. “He holds not the face of a man that isn’t physically sick, but mentally so.”

Angelo slowly looked away from Joshua’s face, just to collect his thoughts. Joshua placed a hand on Angelo’s shoulder.

“I will not preach about your ailment, my brother,” Joshua muttered, his voice soft. “I will not land you in the hands of those that will only destroy your mind because you are able to overcome it with your own devices. You do not need the lobotomy yet if you turn yourself around. Can you not see, Annabelle? This man would be hospitalised if someone would have preached, a man that is sick with a mental ailment that will enclosed between sanatorium walls if the word is out.”

Annabelle’s smile slowly fell from her lips as she realised how sick his mind was, but it was only for a moment and then she smiled again. It was the smile of denial. This woman can see no wrong in him as well as anyone else can. She quite blatantly refused to. “Of course not,” Annabelle nearly mechanically said. “If he was insane, Joshua, I would not have proposed to go off to Germany with him.”

She had never proposed it, but now, apparently, she was. They exchanged eyes and body language. Joshua’s mouth was twitching as eyes bulged, widening with realisation. “Brother, please, don’t even consider it,” Joshua begged, shaking his head. “She is a source of delirium well enough on her own.”

“Joshua, you are ill, physically so,” she explained to him. “Your senses are dull and your sickness leads you to impulsive conclusions.”

“What if so?” Joshua asked, his eyes hardening. “Just because my decision is rash doesn’t eliminate the idea that I may be right. Annabelle, look at him. He harbours the reflections of a sad man. He’s too pale for it to be normal, and he holds disinterest in his own job, whereas before, he seemed far more passionate.”

Angelo’s mouth nearly dropped, because he had not expected Joshua to explain his depression rather than his feeding issues. He wondered why the depression seemed like an unholy representation to Joshua, because it simply existed because of his mind’s disorderly thoughts about his eating. The uncontrollable uninterrupted thoughts that were solely linked to food had caused him much frustration, anxiety and even now, his everlasting depression. This town was a town of happiness. This valley was a mere representation of joy. Perpetual sorrow, anxiety, and stress caused consequences, because as far as they knew, if the mind was preoccupied with negative things all the time then it must be a problem in the mind itself. The only way to cure a problem in the mind was to destroy the source through lobotomy. They whispered of how lobotomy cured all, but instead, made a hollow shell. However, this hollow shell was of no danger to society anymore, or themselves. Most were lucky if they still had retained some functioning so to speak, or walk. The simplest thing such as memory, or ability to carry out their lives through reasoning and planning were sacrificed. Too much was sacrificed, and nearly nothing was gained, yet the valley seemed to think that this was the only way of maintaining order through disorder.

“No,” Annabelle’s lips tightly pressed after the one single word that meant far too much at this current moment. “You don’t understand, Joshua. You don’t know him. He is simply tired today and has been for a while. This man holds a demanding life, but it doesn’t affect his mental stability. Come now. We’ll go to Germany together.”

Annabelle then grabbed onto Angelo’s clothing, which used to fit him ages ago but now hung far too loosely for Lillian’s fondness. She inched her mouth towards him. He could feel her hot breath. He could feel a singular copper curl touch his skin, transferring heat energy through his spine. She smelled far too delicate to be a flower, but strong enough to intoxicate him endlessly. “You don’t have to be with her, Angelo,” her voice was soft, as if she was afraid to stutter the words herself.

He could possibly just leave. Joshua did not know that his sister was manipulating a man that had an impregnated fiancée. Perhaps, it was better that way, to conserve him from hurt upon realising that his so called far too innocent sister was purely the opposite of so. She wore all of the essence of innocence, but spoke the words of harlots when he wasn’t looking. The next few words that fell from his lips had made all uncertainty leave his mind. “You  can see your Mother, Robert. Wouldn’t you like to see her?”

“Germany is vast,” he whispered, and noticed how low his voice was to his ears. He was afraid of not being able to see her, spending years in Germany and catching no sight of her, trying to find her when he had no fragment of an idea of where she would be at. He simply had to make the decision now with Annabelle’s begging eyes, driving him to near insanity. Oh, how ironically so, that his source of dismay right now was not his mental disorder, but the simple act of making a quick yet significant decision. “We might never catch her.”

“Robert, Robert,” her voice was softer now so his brother wouldn’t hear. He’d never known how his name can sound a lot like music, but with her voice, it simply did. There was no other way around it – it simply did. “Is it worth it to  take the chance?”

“Yes,” the answer rolled off his tongue before logic and reasoning can cloud his mind.

Joshua seemed to look away at this. “Fine,” he firmly stated. His eyes seemed to harden with every singular syllable that fell off his tongue. “It is your choices, and thus, your suicides. I just hope you don’t plan on leaving before the illness kills me and renders me as dead to the universe.” The boy sounded so bitter, yet he had a right to be. Angelo looked down at the counter, unable to meet contact with the boy’s expressive eyes. He left then, presumably to go home. Angelo hoped so, as Joshua wore the face of a male that needed rest and treatment. Unfortunately, he also wore the face of the man who wouldn’t rest nor treat himself even though if he was to die in a mere minutes.

Annabelle stared at Angelo, and nearly, as if she was trying to convince herself more than him, she whispered, “He’s just reckless sometimes.”

Robert Angelo’s most unforgettable memory as a child was with his Mother on a day when he’d returned from assisting his Father with his fishing. He slithered in his rooms, portly poor boy that lived on the heavenly baking from his Mother’s oven. He had tears rolling down his plump yet rosy cheeks. His blood circulation was sound. He’d never been as rosy as he was as a child, nor as young with cherub-thick fingers and fleshy arms that fit him far too well. His stutters were thick with anguish and pain.

“They’ve – they’ve – t-t-they’ve made fun of me again,” the small boy stated with shame fuming in those brown orbs. “They’ve made fun of me again! Calling me stout! I’m not stout, am I Mother?”

She never answered his question. His skeletal Mother simply leaned down, smiled at him in a heart-warming way and then gave him a square of chocolate that had become his favourite. “This small square would do you good,” she said, but that was all she had ever said.

Lillian’s voice was sharper than normal when she said, “You haven’t been bringing back enough money, Robert.”

He looked at her, unable to process her words. He felt as if he was beaten by iron, or perhaps, it was just the sleep weighing heavily on him. His mind was too active at night, rattling with a thousand thoughts. He was too willing to rest, yet his mind was not at all. Repetitive thoughts of self-loathing and revolt entered his mind again and again. He wondered if he’d ever simply tone them out, or if each word would still be a dagger to his chest.

“I’ve tried,” and it was the truest thing he’d said. He simply could not stand to be around the food anymore. His obsession had gotten to the point where being around food simply exhausted him. His mind had finally associated the food with impending nausea, or maybe because he hadn’t eaten in twenty-nine hours, and wasn’t quite planning to. Being around food meant that his body’s necessities might finally go against Angelo’s need for death, making him consume mass amounts – binge. “I’ve tried, Lillian,” he said, certain of the truth of his statement.

“We can’t live like this, Robert,” her assertive voice filled his mind.

“Perhaps,” Angelo purely didn’t know anymore. 

Her only inquiry was as follows.

“And our child?”

Angelo felt bile rise in his throat, strong, shocking, sickening putrid bile. He had nothing to say,  but he had everything to do.  In his picturesque bakery, he’d simply picked up a bowl he’d become accustomed to after years of usage. It was heavier than he’d remembered, or perhaps, he was growing weak. He needed to build up his strength through physical exertion then. Perhaps, he’d grown far too idle nowadays. His sales had gone down, and he’d been making things that were out of sorts.

In that moment, he took a deep breath, noticing how brittle his nails were. He laughed when he ran his hand through his hair and noticing how much of his hair was shedding. He’d always avoided running his hand over his hair due to this. Faith left this man a long time ago, and so did belief. Belief only stayed for a longer time, cajoling him into pleasurable pacifying fantasy. When his Mother left, it tried to leave too. Angelo clung on tighter, refusing to let go, but eventually had to because there was merely nothing left to believe in. 

He sighed, and then he picked up the first of the ingredients to make his Mother’s chocolate, because after all, a little chocolate never hurt. In fact, this little square will do him good.

Constructive concise patterns riddled his mind. He remembered as a child – oh, how he used to yearn for his Mother’s recipe for those chocolate squares, because he can never create anything of his own imagination. Partly because imagination seemed like an abstract concept that his mind simply cannot grasp, as he tended to look at the world in a certain, far too biased way. To him, there was no faith, or belief, and everything was too simple, so why glorify the simple? That was how Robert Angelo saw the world, but what he didn’t know was how his thoughts often contradicted his existence. Often times, he found himself using the world ‘I believe’, as it subconsciously slipped his mind. In reality, he had no beliefs, so he could not use that word without contradicting or denying his pure nature. He wondered if the fact that he had no believes was a belief itself. Believing that he had no beliefs – because a belief was a thoughtful proposition that Angelo held to be true, and he held the belief that there was no God, but that did that mean that it could be considered as a belief?

He knew that a religion was a system of morals, yet did Angelo not have a system of morals himself? Was not his atheism a religion? It was a secret. That was certain. If the valley knew of his reluctance to believe in a God, he would surely be lobotomised. This town held a strong delusion that the right state of mind was one that believed in faith, and then yet again – was the town’s delusion of the importance of religion really conveyed the fact that they all were mental patients? How was it that a woman can be so obsessed with praying and be seen as religious, but a man that was obsessed about food can be seen as insane? He did not understand how the double standard worked, how things seemed to challenge themselves all of the time. The world ran in an antiparallel motion, colliding with a mass of belief. One belief will always test the other.

How can everyone be equal by God’s creation, yet they still labelled people as ‘insane’? How could you judge a person if God himself told you not to judge? How could these fellow men believe so much in God, but yet were so bent on performing his doing by criticising people? He’d heard from those Doctors in white coats and fake smiles that a mental disease was spun on by the mind. Why would society allow these precious Doctors to tamper with God’s creation? Why did Lillian think that he had a problem, when she solely believed that God cured everything? She had told him that he hadn’t enough money for their child, but what was enough? Was this a sign of her displeasure at what God had given her? By keeping the memory of her Father so close to her? These questions ran into Angelo’s mind, filling his head with painful cotton that somehow transformed into a persistent headache.

He shifted slightly from where he sat. He was with Annabelle, and they were watching a field of grass. Of course, this only meant that they were both thinking and thus, staring into thin space.

“How’s Joshua then?” Angelo finally asked. It just came to his mind.

Annabelle simply shrugged, and her eyes seemed to harbour no knowledge for anything anymore.

“Dead,” the word was too strong for her fragile state right now. She looked down at her gloved hands. Her neck had a string of brilliant white pearls. She considered, contemplated, and finally, confessed. “I think I’m destroying you, Robert.” Her voice was too wobbly and her eyes were glued to his face as she placed a hand on his papery skin.

Angelo looked at her for the longest of times, and then slowly nodded his head. “Perhaps,” he whispered.

“Tuberculosis spread by contaminated milk,” Annabelle laughed and it made hot tears fill her eyes. “I destroy everything.”

A small girl trapped into a woman’s body. She yearned for answers that nobody knew for questions that will haunt her for the rest of her life. “I have not one ounce of love for anything. Not for Joshua, not for you, not enough.”

He wondered how something can be in such  dismay and still look so perfect. Her curls against her milky skin, still rosy even when pale, and her lips of powder pink…

“Who are you to decide if love is enough? Love is not measured by quantity. It isn’t measurable at all. It exists as one, and if it exists at all, then you are lucky. You are in pain because you love, Annabelle.” 

She looked at him for the longest of time, as if deciding whether or not to believe his words. Her narrow shoulders continued to shake. “I was a dancer once,” Annabelle finally said. She looked down at the grass and her eyes lit up in memory, just as they do when one recalled good things.

“And then what happened to that young dancer? Did she fall and swear never to stand again?” Angelo guessed, but she shook her head. She always surprised him.

She was weakly smiling now. It was the smile that only reflected how innocent her eyes were. “I wanted to be Giselle in the romantic ballet as a child. I was taught to dance. I thrived off learning. There’s so much to learn about a person through their dancing. Body language is a beautiful thing. It expresses things that words are simply not able to. A dance is not only a form of art, but also a form of words, a language on its own that most cannot fully put into words. I had so many  things to say but can say none of them…so I danced.” She smiled now. He can see the passion in her eyes, manifesting and somehow making her more beautiful by the second.

“I danced. I was to play the role in Giselle, as Giselle. It was the most wonderful thing in the world and I could ask for nothing more. My parents both fell ill, but swore to come for me, to see me dance. It was also the day my parents passed. After that night, I couldn’t dance. It was too much to bear. Giselle… Giselle was girl that flirted with a boy and completely fell in love with him, despite the gamekeeper’s words of warning to tell her not to. She was perfect.” She looked into his eyes at that moment, exposed and unguarded blue seas inviting him into a world of her misery. “I was perfect, Robert.”

“Human emotion destroys perfection,” Angelo finally explained but placed a hand on Annabelle’s knee. “I’ll tell you a secret though that you might like to know, human flaw tends to create its own perfection you see. Sometimes, things are much more perfect flawed, because pain can be a beautiful thing. Doesn’t Giselle die in the end? We all do, Annabelle. Death doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

Annabelle nodded her head. She sniffled at tragedies that too little people would understand and cried for loss. She wiped silent tears with her delicate finger.

“The world is darker and bleaker when you exist,” Angelo then smiled, wrapping two fingers across the finger she’d used to wipe away her tears. He stroked the skin with his thumb as he explained, ‘because nothing can ever be more beautiful or more perfect.”

She let out a treacherous sob that was followed by a trembling smile. “We’re going to leave together then. No regrets?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is the dancer afraid to fall?” he teased her. His statement was followed by a smirk.

“Is the baker afraid of bread?”  She so self-righteously called out.

He should not have laughed, but a small chuckle fell from his lips. “The baker is mentally unwell,” he finally confessed. “Joshua was right. I’m wrong, Annabelle, and you should stay away from me. If I had an ounce of love for you…”

She placed a finger on his lips and simply said the words that he had said only moments ago. “Love doesn’t exist in ounces. It’s a measure, and a man once told me that above all things…love is immeasurable.”

The world seemed to darken, or maybe it was just the fact that there were clouds lining up in the sky, making him shudder in despair. His extra thick coat was calling out his name back home, yet he cannot go back home and face another confrontation by his fiancée, so instead, he stayed there with her. She stayed with him. They stayed with each other and their thoughts. Neither of their thoughts were good afterwards. He stayed there, thinking of the child he was going to have, imagining how his Mother must’ve felt. His empty Mother had sacrificed everything for the child that will never be grateful enough. As far as he knew, no amount of pain or gratitude he would harbour for his Mother would be enough unless he found his way to Germany.

He was dead here. As long as he tried to come to her, as long as he’d die for her, then and only then would he be a good son. Robert Angelo was a good man, but that did not mean that he was a good son. 

“Don’t you care about your perfect little romance with Lillian again and your picture perfect child? Or have you left lilies for red roses?” she looked at him with a soft expression on her face. There was just inquiry riddled on that face. It was what made him fall for her the first time he’d ever looked at her face.

“I refuse to care,” he shut his eyes. “About anything any longer.”

Annabelle didn’t want to visit her own dance teacher, but something in her body told her to. It was strange, this thing called intuition that was the source of all of her actions. Her intuition embraced her with ideas of Germany, telling her of how grand they were and how beautiful it would be to see a man as broken as Angelo to be reunited with his Mother. Now, she was standing with a fluffy white shawl over her petite frame. Her ruby dress would match her copper curls, and the deep red would only complement the rosy undertones of her desirable flesh. She walked with steadiness as she was taught.

Here she was, standing again in a room full of memories. Most of them were not good ones that came to her mind. She had good ones, of course, but they weren’t flashing through her eyes like the bad ones were. It was horrific how the mind worked at times, but all in all, somehow fascinating. When her eyes landed on Louis, the only thing she could feel was a sudden anxiety accumulating in the depths of her stomach.

“Annabelle,” so he remembered her.

“Louis,” she’d never forget him. She said his name with fear, but he could tell more than she could that she held no fear for him.

“What do I owe this lovely pleasure to?” as charming as always. He moved towards her and she realised how much she missed dancing with him. She pushed it aside for now, and stared down at his body. She’d always noticed his body more than his face, because his body itself was a form of dance, no matter what it did – it seemed to take her breath away. She wondered if she was the only dancer than can understand that every movement of Louis’ body spoke volumes.

“Can I tell you a story?”

“Of course,” he said, as he stopped moving. He was only inches apart from her now, looking down at her face with compassion in those eyes. He always took her breath away with the amount of emotion that was in his eyes. Although he managed to do this, she could never find him attractive when it came to romance, because he was a work of art… and art was solely created to be admired. 

“I was fifteen when I found out that boys and girls alike would fall in love with me. I loved them, but I also destroyed them. I fell far too fast in love. Girls were mostly likely to fall in love with me. This disparaging illusion, this dark enchantment bought on from centuries of so-called family beauty and love, would only destroy the innocent and veer them off to self-annihilation.” Annabelle acknowledged, eyes shining too brightly for her own good.

“But you loved all of them,” Louis muttered, remembering the romantic fleets on stage. Annabelle was not naïve, but she held the most naïve trait of all those girls that were – she fell in love too quickly, too hard, and she made everyone do the same.

“What kind of love destroys?” Annabelle whispered.

“All love destroys, Annie,” Louis called out to her. It was such a plain name, but it was the name he’d always called her by. It made her feel special to be called by something common rather than her own name right now.

Annabelle shook her head. She made their skin turn grey and their eyes go insane with obsession. She was the fear that filled hearts and thus, tearing them bit by bit, slowly turning a once and beautiful human into fragments of what they had been. “I would do anything to save him, yet I’m the one destroying him. I can see it in his eyes. He was content with life and I took that away, Louis. I took away the contentment. I sucked it dry like a greedy gent that has found a source of gold amongst his peers.”

“You have done nothing.” His voice was certain.

“I’ve done everything,” she whispered, shaking her head. She did not choose Angelo and Angelo did not choose her. She watched as those worshipping eyes spoke to her about dreams and senseless things. He would not have dreams veering off paths of self-destruction. Annabelle had seen far too many hurt themselves in her conquest, yet she could not do anything to stop them. She whispered these words, just because she thought that it would be different. She hoped they’d reach their full potential, but more often than not, everything would spin out of control. Everything was indeed spinning out of control with Angelo and her. She had met a man that had loved to bake and that was content with life, but she made him crave more. She dissatisfied him. She only wanted to give him another way of looking at the mirror, yet the more he looked, the more he threatened to break it, and everything along with it – even himself. He despised everything right now, even her. He hated that he cannot go to Germany, but at the same time, he was revelling into that insanity. All logic told him not to go, but he was thinking of leaving. He was thinking of leaving a pregnant woman and divulge into a war that he was not prepared to face. He was a baker’s son, and knew nothing of true pain.

“Yes,” Louis finally said.

“Yes,” he repeated, as he pulled her chin up like a man that wanted his child to look him in the eye. “Yes, you’ve done everything…for love.”

“He was perfect,” were the only words that could fall off her tongue. She was the reason why he was dying right now. His mind had become his confine, chaining him. He was a butterfly before, but somehow, she’d made that beautiful insect build a cocoon when it didn’t need to, when it was perfect all by itself. “He was so perfect,” she whispered again.

“You remember when you came to me after your parents’ death and told me that you destroyed them? That they loved you too much because they were ill, and they came to your show, and died an hour before it began.” Annabelle slowly nodded her head, as her eyes filled with guilt again. She was much too fragile, a girl of emotion. It was always her flaw. “I held you. I told you not, and then I’ve done the unforgivable by kissing a girl in her fragile state—“

“No, Louis, please, don’t…you’ve never meant to hurt, only mend.” Annabelle tried to cajole him.

Louis laid a finger on her lips. “Oh, dear Annie, precious girl, and what have you tried to do? You’ve only tried your best. That’s always been more than enough.”

She nodded her head. A little chuckle escaped her lips. “Joshua’s dead,” she announced in her shaky voice.

“Oh, dear girl,” Louis stated, bringing her closer to him so that her head was pressed against his chest. Annabelle was taller than most girls, but still shorter than the dance instructor by quite a bit. His fingers ran through her curls. Everyone had always comforted her like this, with their hand gently caressing her hair.

“He was a good man,” Louis finally declared.

A good man, just like Angelo was. Joshua would not fall for her spells and smiles, but Angelo would. Angelo would, and it would end up being the death of him if he did not stop seeing her.

“I met a boy,” Annabelle almost giggled at her confession. “He bought me red roses today. He used to bring his fiancée lilies.”

“Fiancée?” Louis repeated, his eyes widening slightly as he realised that the situation before him was more complex than he’d realised. “Oh, Annie, why do you always do this to yourself?”

“I can’t help it,” her voice was small, like a child addressing her Father.

“Precious Annie,” he called out to her again, lifting her heart-shaped face to look into those sparkling blue eyes. “Oh, precious, darling Annie. Still swooned by roses red and ruddy?”

“They’re my favourite,” pink lips trembled. “You, of all people, should know.”

The dancer danced because it was a secret language, so he was to know of the language of flowers, which harboured a language akin to the language of the dance. Of course, he knew. 

“He will have a child,” she shook her head adamantly. The curls shook with her head, flying in every direction and her curls themselves had their own dance it seemed. “He’s so small though. His eyes seemed wider now that his cheeks have sunken in. He looks…like a child himself. He cannot take care of a child. He has a mental disease – it will surely effect the development of the child. I just…Germany. We could run away to Germany together and then everything would be alright.”

Louis seemed to digest her words for the first few moments. He then placed a hand on her shoulder, gripping gently but also firmly. “You’ve always been so selfish,” it was a fact that rolled off his tongue.

She looked down. Her skin growing rosier by the moment. She can remember Angelo’s face – the face of a man holding delusions of glorious days too close to his heart, in his metaphorical skies composed of the blue in her eyes and unrealistic clouds.

“I just wanted him to reach for the stars,” she finally said. “He reached for an entirely different planet in dissociation. I never meant to be selfish.”

“No human means to be selfish. It’s by nature, lovely Annie, don’t you see? You deny human nature all the time, whether it is by your words or by your corsets.” Louis’ finger ran down her side, into the band of her dress. His mouth was too close to her neck and she can feel his desire in his way.

“Don’t,” Annabelle’s voice was soft.

“Oh, don’t you understand, Annie?” right now, calling her that name made her sick. “I was the one that filled your head with the idea of Germany. You should be going with me….not him. Just me. You wanted love and I love you, sweet Annie. I was waiting for you to return to me. I taught you the dance. I taught you so much…”

“Yes, too much,” Annabelle finally said. “As well as my own self-worth. You taught me that I should never settle for a man that will not give me his all. You will never let go of the dance to love me, but Robert…Robert has let go of everything, everything he’d ever wanted to love me.”

“Isn’t that the same as destroying himself for the sake of loving you, Annabelle? Do you want him to destroy himself for you? Selfish, petty girl…” Louis finally snapped, but his eyes only bore truth even so. It was those words that broke her, allowing her to weep gently into her hands. He moved towards her again, holding her against him.

“You’re right.”

His hand caressed her cheek. Soft, as he remembered. “Kiss me, Annie.”

“You’re right…”

At a gloomy Monday morning, two souls would reunite.

Lillian thought that two people often strung together like nursery rhymes. They evoked love wherever they went. As a child, she was always taught that a parent would always love their child. She never knew there could be another love until she’d seen him, until he’d seen her – until they spoke to each other.

She always knew how he was feeling without a singular word spilling from his lips. He was unhappy. He had been for such a long time. He went to the bakery and came back late at night. He was creating a world for himself and this Annabelle girl. He told her too many words when they kissed, but he did not speak at all. Sometimes, she swore she could feel his soul when he stared at her with that piercing gaze. He was done with what this world had to offer – he wanted to escape this world. He wanted to fly to Germany and find his Mother. He wished to be reunited with a living body. Maybe he thought that they’d make amalgamations of cake together, but she knew the truth. His Mother was more than likely to be dead.

She learned a long time ago that the language of love often required a loss of reality. She was blinded by his love for him the first time he was this unhappy, but now, he was becoming something that she cannot love. He cannot love himself anymore, just like she couldn’t love herself. Maybe that was why everything was growing crystal clear. She knew that the wise thing for her was to let go of Angelo, when she knew what was in his heart and soul, but in the end, Lillian refused to have a child that only had one parent. She refused to see another girl or boy walk down the street, staring up at church bells and giving her faith to God, because there was simply nothing else to give that child hope for the world.

Annabelle Rochette did not count on him standing outside. He was looking at the studio, where she and Louis stood seconds ago in sinful kiss. Robert Angelo stood with his hands in his pockets, as he blinked over and over again as if still trying to process the infidelity. Ironically, because he was unfaithful to his wife, yet he’d never kissed Annabelle, not yet anyway. It would not constitute as unfaithfulness if there was no indication of him acting on it. Lillian knew he was leaving. He could tell from her body language that she did know. Angelo could hear her at night again, calling the child her child, not theirs, but hers. It didn’t stab that big of hole in his chest anymore, because logically, it shouldn’t. He brought this upon himself. He was dissociating himself from his child a long time ago. It was for the best, he told himself, so that the child wouldn’t have an insane parent, and learn from insanity rather than beauty.

Oh, how he was a picture perfect representation of that alone. The child that learned from the parent, picked up on habits, innate ones, triggered by an unrealistic need to become as light as one of the pearls her Mother wore on her necklace. “Robert,” she said his name as if she had a right to after what he’d just witnessed. “Robert, listen.”

“I don’t have a choice but to, do I?” his voice was icy, as those brown eyes hardened. She’d always loved how brown they were, and now, the brown in his eyes had turned to solidity and indifference.  “God has punished me with ears.” He said, emphasising on God, mocking his name with his tongue.

“Hush, Robert, if they hear you, you’re dead,” Annabelle called out in a whisper, thinking that he’d be less likely to snap at her if her voice was low and if she held her head down. This reminded her of something familiar, like a parent, like a family, but that didn’t last for long.

“Annie,” Robert said the name like it was a sickening disease. “Annie.”  He repeated it, but this time, his voice was fading, as if he can no longer hold any anger in his voice.

Annabelle looked down at where his feet stood. The asphalt was somehow comforting now. Anything was comforting compared to looking into his eyes, as with in those eyes, there were a thousand emotions and all of them made Annabelle’s heart ache. The desolation that now constructed his eyes. She’d destroyed his eyes. She’d destroyed him, for the sake of pleasing another. “I-I-I’m sorry,” was all she can say. “I’m t-truly-“

“No, Annabelle,” and this time, he shook his head as if he was tired of hearing her speak, and he was. He was tired of hearing her speak, stuttering words of apology that meant nothing at this current moment – not in his state of mind right now.

“Robert.”

“No.” He sounded like a child that was in complete and utter denial. He was always so thin, but somehow, thinner now with his newfound sadness and irritability. She observed him with his eyes. Collarbones too prominent, skin too drab, scrawny wrists, a narrow, gaunt face, skinny arms, bony legs, sunken cheeks and hollow eyes – this was not the man she knew before. “N-no, Annabelle,” he could not steady his breath for the life of him. She thought it was because of pain, but noticed the adamant shaking and shivering of his body, the trembling of those frail shoulders. He was cold.

“I never met to hurt.”

He laughed, and it made his body compulsively quiver even more than it was right now. “You didn’t. You killed,” he finally said. “We were going to run away together. You promised that it was going to be okay.”

“Robert-“

“You promised,” he repeated, his eyes melting into liquid chocolate. “You promised,” he repeated again, like a child reminding a parent of something they’d said they’d do.

“It’s not okay, Annabelle.” He held a face of a man that simply just wanted it all to end.

“It meant nothing.”

“It meant something,” the image repeated itself into his mind. Her lips against his, her body moving, melting like liquid at the palm of his hands. Sinful kisses were stolen, leaving two people breathless from exchanges of passion – exchanges that were supposed to be their own. “It meant everything.”

Now, his mind was reeling to Lillian’s face, those eyes pools of blue betrayed. She was left alone and didn’t know how to cope with the loneliness. The girl that tried to be strong in the face of abandonment by focusing on a child, the child that she longed to raise with a man that was ready to be a Father. How selfish was he. Always so selfish. Little Robert running away at the sight of help, becoming less and less until he weighed nothing – because if he didn’t exist, he didn’t have the responsibility.

“You promised you’d run away with me,” they were supposed to be reckless together, but she was reckless with another. The other man that was a part of her life as so, and that was when Robert realised that all he knew faded away. He wasn’t a moral man as he’d thought. He had no beliefs, and he had no morals. A man with morals would always do the right thing in the sight of darkness, but he’d only done wrong, so much wrong and the life of an innocent would perish. “You…”

Somehow, his eyes flickered and flashed to happier times with Lillian. It made his heart beat race and then come to a halt, restricting him of breath, beauty and blamelessness.

“I’m afraid to be left alone,” she told him, as she pressed her head against her chest. Those blue caverns she called eyes produced tears. They only made her tragedy more beautiful, but at the same time, the chaos was too much for his mind to take. “I’m afraid.”

“I won’t leave you,” and that was when he kissed her the first time. Her lips were soft. He’d always remember that Lillian was the softest lips he’d ever kissed. “I promise I won’t leave you.”

Recurrences and recollections could not render even more realisation than they did right now. He was a moral man, with good intent, but now, he was immoral. He had good intentions, but what was good intentions worth if the man did not apply them to his real life? How can a man be seen as moral if he’d leave his child and his wife, abandon them for selfish conquests and reckless dreaming?

“Robert,” her voice was soft, but not as soft as the memory of her lips against his. “Robert,” she spoke to him as if she was afraid he’d died when he was reminiscing what was.

“You…” he repeated his statement, then his voice trembled. “I…”

“Germany?” Lillian had asked. He didn’t know if it was a memory, or a hallucination. It was just as haunting as lasting as unforgettable as a memory, something at the back of his mind that can finally see how innocent she was. 

All of the fury he had for Annabelle disappeared in a fraction of a second. “…I…I…” He was the one to blame, the one at fault, the one with flaws. “…I-I...”

“Robert, breathe.”

“…I promised I wouldn’t leave.” Robert shook his head in sudden dark epiphany, the loss of sanity completely, the loss of love. “I promised.”

…

…

…

“Robert? Robert, can you hear me?”

…

…

…

Robert laughed and stared at her, finally having processed everything. Skin, skin, skin, blonde hair, blue eyes…beauty, beauty, beauty.

Crash. Burn. Insanity.

“Anniebelle,” he said in a near childish chortle, and then laughed. His mind just raking with a thousand thoughts. None of them made any sense.

This time, they didn’t have to.

…

…

…

The bed was white and her skin was pale. Her lips tasted like white wine and her hair was a cascade of light. Lillian stared at him with a smile. It was the first time he’d touched her like this, and it wouldn’t be the last time. She tasted like a strawberry and smelled like vanilla, or maybe it was just the illusion her skin gave. He loved how her body fit against his in the best way possible, like a puzzle piece joining, assembling surely, sweetly, softly.

“I’ve never felt like this before,” his Lillian had whispered. It was so long ago, yet he still remembered that night, because when she looked up, in a blanket of white, even after losing her virginity, she looked innocent. She always was so small, so sublime, so sensual. She was looking at him like a girl would look at her Father, as if she hadn’t just fornicated with him. “I feel pretty.”

“You are beautiful,” he assured her.

She smiled and pressed her head against his shoulder. They just lay there, and for the first time, Angelo had made a secret language with someone else too. “I’ve gotten you a music box. It may not be much, but I think it’s lovely. It’s as black as my heart.”

She laughed because she thought he was joking, but he had never been more serious in his life.

“Love?” an eight-year-old Angelo whispered for the first time. “I want to be in love.”

His Mother laughed, and ran his fingers through his hair. “You will be.”

“How are you sure that someone will fall in love with me?” Angelo whispered yet, almost as if he was too afraid to speak the words that were raging into his mind. They were thoughts that implanted in his mind at night, and repeated over and over again; making him fear everything he’d ever known. “I’d fall in love quickly. I’m known to trip.”

“Other girls are known to trip too, and they’ll do this right in front of you.”

He smiled, but it did not mean that he believed that he could be loved.

The music box had a ballerina. She danced in white. Lillian would stare at it for quite some time. The first months of their relationship, it was always somehow playing in the background; swift, supple, sinuous song filled the air. She stared in longing. It was just the gift that a Father would give her daughter.

Angelo kissed her cheek, and stared at the small figure. “If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright,” he told her.

Lillian simply raised her eyebrow. “But she’ll keep on dancing whenever I open the box.” 

Angelo simply gave her a pleased smile and then repeated. “If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright.”

Annabelle lay on top of his body. She was nude. He was insane. Angelo’s eyes riddled with far too much crime and falsehood. He wasn’t wearing any clothing at all either. Their skin rubbed against each other, frictionless, fragile, frail skin. She was shaking, and he was insane. She was cupping his cheek, and he was insane. He was insane. He bit into her skin, and rubbed the ivory flesh. Her curls were a sea of glossy red that twinkled golden in the light. Her rosy skin contrasting with every single speck of bright red, as each fragile curl of what was now ruby red touched his skin. Red curl, colour of love and intense desire, framing her like petals did a flower. Red, vibrant and vivacious curled under the vigilant eye. Blue eyes attentive of every muscle, and every speck of skin, before her, watchful, wonderful wonderment. Copper in her hair, terra cotta was her lips. Her body blushed, and red crimson fell.

He laughed.

Blood.

Angelo had seen it with his eyes when he’d been  following her to see what she did for the rest of the day after leaving his bakery. Annabelle’s lips attacking Louis’ tongue, clashing, combating, connected, and the language of the dance came rush to her mind. Angelo watched and he was in pain, just like men in love where in pain when they realised that the ones they loved had fallen for another. His mind was racing, his heart swelled, and nothing made any sense anymore. He can see things in his mind, and none of the things he saw were good. He can hear nothing from where he stood, but he could see them from the window. If only he could hear…

If only he knew what words were being said.

“Good girl,” Louis finally called out. “You remember the dance after all.”

Annabelle whimpered and then her feet moved too gracefully for most women. Her body was fluid and lovely. She moved like she was a liquid, like she was in tune with every particle of her body, flexible, malleable, able to bend into anything and everything – become everything. “Louis,” she called his name like she was afraid of him, but he knew that it better than she did that she could never fear him.

“Annie,” he called out to her again.

“I’m sorry. I have to leave—“

“Annie, please,” he begged her with those soft eyes of his. “Please, no.” His eyes ached for her, their dances, their bodies, their love, their fabricated perfect play that nobody can ever take from them.

“I have to go.”

“Don’t leave. If you leave, you’ll never return,” and she knew it too. He knew her too well. He knew that with the way she strode, she’d probably never come back again if he never convinced her. “Annie, I’m miserable without you.”

“No,” she shook her head, looking down at her feet. “You’re miserable without love. Nobody has ever loved you, and nobody will, because the only thing you can love is intangible. The dance is a language, it’s not a person. You love the dance, but you can never love the dancer. I…I have to go. It’s always going to be Robert. The kiss was not an exchange of passion. It was a dance routine that you learn but never understand. It’s always going to be him. I’m sorry.”

“Annie,” he called out for her again. “Annie, please.”

“Goodbye, Louis.”

“…Annie.”

Annabelle. Oh, Annabelle. He fisted her hair, and every ruby curl belonged to him in this moment of anger, fury and passion. In this dark, her hair was waves of carmine, splashing, spluttering, splattering. Spraying over his shoulders, as Angelo’s tongue flickered to taste, hungry, haunted, happy. Rosy buds, and hard nubs, skin to skin, body to body, soul to soul, ripping, rasping, roaring. 

Inhumanity.

In the light of her candle, Lillian lay sitting beside the window. She watched small children play. Her weakness was always her envy, but she kept it at bay. She took a deep breath, lit up another candle, and hoped that spiritual love will help cleanse her sins.  This blonde girl knew of nothing but light, but now, in darkness, she tried desperately to find it. She looked down at the clock. Angelo wasn’t coming home today. It was silent, far too silent for her own liking. She opened the window, and heard the sound of children laughing.

They were playing and they were laughing. She smiled weakly.  “Laugh with them, little one,” she spoke to the child in her womb, the child that will not have a child – be like her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted the child to be born anymore, because she suffered. She told herself she wasn’t alone, as she lit another candle.

“God is with us.” She smiled at the small creation that was developing in her very abdomen at this instance. The warm laughter of the children suddenly echoed in her mind. She wanted to laugh too. She couldn’t. The last time she laughed was in the church during a ceremony, and the sisters showed her how immoral she was, for disrupting a spiritual event with laughter. There will be time for laughter later when the ceremony was done, Sister Marie had told her. Now, Lillian was waiting for her wedding with a man that was devoted to his mental distortion more than he’d ever be devoted to her, and afterwards, she could laugh. She could laugh because they’d be bound together, and he couldn’t leave her.

He promised he wouldn’t leave her.

She knew of his plans to Germany, but if he didn’t leave before the wedding then it still gave her hope. That, or her mind was conjuring up a façade to keep her sanity at bay. Her eyes were looking down at her stomach, bulging at the seams of her dress. It was a beautiful sight, gratifying on its own – and most of all, comforting. She heard from the Doctors that those that were mentally diseased usually had children that spun from the same disorder. No, God had given her this child. He wouldn’t give her a diseased one. Surely, not. She prayed for this child. Her child wasn’t unholy. It would be anything but.

She looked back down at her stomach, revelling in silent prayer. “By God, you’ll be perfect.” She meant every word of it. By God, her child would be perfect. God would keep her child from being diseased. Her child was be beautiful, perfect, lovely. 

“By God, you’ll be pure.”

Lillian was the snow white angel that cannot see the darkness forming, until it had already formed. It was on a dark, horrific June evening that he stumbled home in. His lips were stained, and his eyes rendered something that she didn’t like. She wanted him to have dinner with her, yet he passed the table without a second glance at her, or her belly that carried her babe.

“You’re home far later than usual,” she commented stiffly.

He had simply shrugged. He did not look at her face, simply because he knew that looking at her would reduce him to an emotional disarray of confusion, fear and love. “Tell me about your day then.”

She shook her head, but then replied anyway. “I think that our child may be as diseased as you are. The Doctors say that there is a high chance that the child will end up to harbour the mental disorder that his Father does.”

He didn’t want to hear any of this. “Please, Lillian, not today.” He didn’t look spiteful. He looked defeated.

Slowly, Lillian stared at him. “God help you.” Only she can say it with that much emphasis on God, on His power, on His abilities. She’d meant every syllable that left her mouth.

“If there is a God,” and she never corrected him. How she managed to find faith in a faithless man she never truly knew. She sat down beside him and looked at him for the longest of time. She smiled at him. It was a weak smile that still told him that she loved him despite the disease that was plaguing his mind.

“That girl, Annabelle,” he seemed to be still contemplating on the words he wanted to say. “Anniebelle,” he corrected to himself, giggling shamelessly. His fits of giggles were somehow sad, somehow not Angelo at all.

“She…I’m done with her.”

Lillian laid her head onto his shoulder. It was too bony and she can feel too much. It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. “What made you change your mind?” was her only inquiry. It was the only thing she wanted to know.

He sniffed, and she suddenly didn’t want to hear a story. “His name is Louis, and they’ve been—“he looked away. “I suppose I know how it feels to be abandoned. I’m…I’m sorry. It’s not enough, and never will be. I haven’t made a mistake, I’ve made several that seemed to become this huge horrendous situation and I was blind. I was…I was…reckless. I was....”

“Angelo,” she called out to him, not wanting to hear any more of this. “Germany?” she asked, wondering if he was still leaving – even if it had to mean going alone.

“My Mother doesn’t want me.” Angelo finally realised, shaking his head. “She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t love me. Nothing can.”

“I love you,” her voice was hollow, and her eyes tried to fabricate romances.

He knew it wasn’t true. Her love for him was long gone with her fixation on God. How can she love someone that didn’t understand how it was like to have faith? How can she love someone that wasn’t himself anymore because of a disease? She was in love with a memory of what he was, of what he might never be again, something he wished he was.

“I don’t deserve it,” was his whisper. “But I will one day. I’ll earn your love. I hope that you understand…that I’ll do anything in the world to deserve to love again.”

“Robert, you’re sick,” she reminded him, placing a hand on his chin and lifting it.

He shook his head. He was always so cold to touch, Lillian mused, but never like this. Her hand was numb, his skin was cold and he looked like he was breaking apart at the very seams.

“Your sickness is undoing your own existence,” she looked away, as hot tears filled her eyes. That was when he knew, that no matter what he’d do, she would still habour some kind of love for him, a silent faith that was undying and it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever see in his life. “Look at you.”

“I can’t,” he called out. “I hate the mirror. It makes me loathe myself even more—I…I can’t look into the mirror. There’s too much of me.”

“You barely exist.”

Angelo chuckled, as hot tears finally made his way into his eyes. “Lillian…lovely, lovely lily, I…what you see right now, is the morals I have. I weigh too much for my sins. If I was to be a reflection of my morals and beliefs, I should be nothing at all.”

Lillian stared at him. Oh, she was so beautiful in this sunny light. Her hair was a cascade of sunshine gold against this beautiful light. “Do you hear yourself talking?”

He chuckled again, as if she didn’t understand. “I hear myself talking all the time. I wish I’d stop. I wish it’ll stop, but it won’t. Or I won’t…or…or…” he took a deep breath again, and then buttoned a now open button on his thick, cotton black overcoat. The silence made him realise that it was playing in the background. It was playing in the background, itching at the back of his head. “What’s that repulsive melody?”

She didn’t seem to understand what he asked for the first few moments, before she realised. “Robert, that’s the music box you gave me. Don’t you remember?”

He looked up at her, understanding.

She smiled at him. “If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright,” he seemed to be quite unnerved at this. “Remember?”

 If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright.

If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright.

If she keeps on dancing, it’ll be alright.

Robert blinked a few times, and then slowly nodded his head. “Of course,” he thickly said, but his mind was whirling with a thousand thoughts again and none of them made any sense. The melody in the background was haunting his mind, lasting in memories he didn’t want to remember. “If she keeps on dancing, it’ll…”

He just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Robert?”

She noticed as he stood with sudden fury in his eyes. She’d never seen him look so unnerved, so shocked, so confused, so angry and so much in pain all at once. She’d never been able to decipher him too well, but it had never been this bad.

“Robert?” she called out again, as she walked him stride through the hall of their small house. It wasn’t a big enough hall, so he stopped very quickly. He was hovering over the little music box that was singing out sweet song to him.

“Love?” an eight-year-old Angelo whispered for the first time. “I want to be in love.”

The music box that he just happened to find was now destroying him with senseless imagery and horrific memory.

“Robert?” Lillian called out for the third time. He suddenly realised that his name was Robert, but he couldn’t wrap his mind around that insignificant thought. He looked back down at the music box, as if it would hurt to look back at it again. This was what their love was built on, what he’d given her after they first made love to each other, her hope, her solace…and it was making him nauseous. He was sick with disgust and distortion.

“Robert?”

“I love you, you precious child,” his Mother said, proud of her adoration for this small child.

Oh, his Mother.

 “Mother, you look sick,” he whispered, as his eyes looked up with fear. “Mother, please don’t die. Are you going to leave me now?”

“No, I will never leave you, Robert.”

And Annabelle…

‘Dream, dream, dream,’ whispered darling Annabelle. ‘It’s love. We’re love. We are in love, and we will die in love.’

‘We’ll die,’ Angelo simply commented.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Annabelle, oh dear sweet Annabelle said. ‘No, nothing matters anymore.’

And then they devoured each other.

Oh, his stupid Mother.

And then, in three months’ time, his Mother left to see a love that will never love her back. With wide eyes and broken dreams, Angelo watched his Mother leave. He grabbed onto her dress, bright ruby red, and clung on. 

“Robert, stop. No.”

“Why are you leaving me?”

He looked up and shrunk in fear. He wondered why his Mother didn’t want to answer him. His lips formed a soft smile, but she turned to leave again. He tried to get her to stop. He screamed, and yelled and hollered and cursed. He swore in ways he’d never swear before, or ever again. He’d cried for a woman that would never cry for him in return…

“Unlovable,” he whispered. “I’m unlovable.”

“Robert?” and that was the fifth time she’d said his name, breaking him out of reverie.

He laughed, laughed, and laughed. It was not like the laughter she heard the children laugh. It was a laugh that alarmed her, making her body curdle with fear. She wasn’t afraid of him. She didn’t care about herself. She was afraid for him, for his mind, for what he was going to do. He finally looked back at the music box once last time, as if his heart wasn’t shattered enough. He finally took the box, and threw it across the room. It hit the wall, and then it hit the floor. The small ballerina still kept on swinging. The music was all distortion. Robert seemed so frustrated that he’d left, only to return with an axe. Lillian was too aghast to say a word, trying to understand his hatred for a little music box that he’d given her.

He lifted the axe with shaking, trembling hands, unable to support the weight of it with his small stature. He hit the music box with the axe repeatedly, hearing the sounds of the sweet song combine with the sounds of his disturbing, deafening demolition of the box. When he was done, he finally let the axe sink to the floor. Lillian stared at him for a while, completely shocked by his actions.

He finally looked up at her and then asked. “So…our child…will be diseased well? Like me?”

“There’s a chance but God will protect—”

He broke into insane laughter again, shaking his head. He then placed his head in his fragile hands, and looked back at the axe beside him. She finally realised that it was marred with… “There’s blood on that axe, Robert,” she finally commented, eyes on the blade.

Angelo looked back at the axe, dressed in blood. He nodded his head and now, he looked completely nauseated.

“Whose blood is that, Robert?!” her voice was adamant, confused, and dark.

He looked so small. He just laughed. “I…I said I was done with Annabelle,” he explained, looking up with his far too innocent eyes for his putrid crime. “I…I’m done with her. We can be together now. It’s…it’s okay. We…can be in love again. I…I want to love you. I want to try. I…”

“Robert, please.” She wanted him to stop talking, hot tears in her eyes. He was on his knees now, as he crawled towards her. He placed his head against her hard, protuberant stomach – the residence of their small and beautiful child.

“I didn’t leave,” he tried to tell her. “I…I kept my promise. I didn’t leave,” he was shaking again. His eyes filling with tears, as he sniffed and sobbed. “I didn’t.”

She could never hate him. She had always loved him far too much for his own good, when his first love was his disease. He’d die—but at least her child would have a Father. Their child can be carried by a Father. She placed a hand on his cheek. “You’re a murderer,” she told him, just to remind him of his crimes.

“How can I love you?” but she still did and that was the truth he’d never know, because he never looked for the reality behind the words she said.

“Love?” an eight-year-old Angelo whispered for the first time. “I want to be in love.”

He let out another strangled sob from his throat. “I know,” and his voice was genuinely torn.

She helped him up even though she shouldn’t have. She’d always forgive him. When she nodded her head, he laughed, and that was the first time she heard a laugh that was full of melancholy but still sounded like the pain of an angel brought to her by the grace of God. If she kept on dancing, it would be alright, but perhaps, if she stopped dancing, then everything would be better than alright. Everything would be perfect…if she stopped dancing…if she stopped dancing…if…

“Here,” it was days later when he came from his work with a pearly white tray. Nobody would ever care about Annabelle enough to find her. She had no parents, no brother, nobody to look for her. Louis would always live in misery, thinking that he’d lost her. Lillian would always never know how shattered Angelo’s mentality was. He had pushed the tray towards her. The small chocolate squares she’d once loved him making. He’d perfected the recipe by now. His blue eyes had their own smile today. “I’ve made them especially for our child.”

She looked away for a few moments. “I’ve went to the church today,” she whispered. “They told me that I was to birth a monster of genetics.”

“Hush now, love. I’ll take care of you today,” he promised. He was still too gaunt for her liking, never quite putting on any weight, but never losing it either. He looked sicker yesterday than he did today. Perhaps, it was the small smile that graced his face. It made him look like a man that was nothing more than alive. This was it. This was perfect, them trying to rebuild a romance. Lillian tried not to think of his actions, because how can she judge the actions of a man that was mentally ill? 

She took a small square from the tray and smiled at how heavy it was. “What if I birth an abnormal child? What if they’re right? I don’t…I want this child to be safe. He’ll be pure, and perfect. He should be safe.”

“He’ll be safe, by your God then,” he tried to reason with her, smiling at her with his features. It was the first time he’d ever acknowledged it as so without mocking the existence of God. It made her smile. “Apparently, it’s never the apple of the eye, it’s the lily that gets to me.”

Red apples, red roses, all gone today.

He sat down beside her, taking the square from her hand and bringing it to her lips. She took a miniscule bite, and her eyes lit up like a tree from the ecstasy she’d received from his best dessert. He’d never tell her the recipe of course. He’d always wanted to be original after all, and he was finally able to find a lovely twist on his Mother’s recipe. Oh, the outstanding oil, the bounds of butter, the fluffy flour, the minced remains of Annabelle and Louis’ corpses.

“Come now.”

He brought another serve of chocolate to her lips only to utter those words again under his shaky breath. “This small square will do you good.”