I feel as if I am stepping on a thousand needles, each one poking tiny holes in my skin with every step I take... but I know it was just the grass beneath my feet. It has always been routine for me to wake up and, before dawn, go up to the mountainside where I live. There, the warm embrace of the first rays of the sun held me. It’s a small act of rebellion on my part, I had never told anyone of this habit. That’s why, when I finally reached the top, my whole body froze, shock waves travelling through my veins, as an apology formed on my lips.
“Don’t worry Nish.” Said Dagmar, the elder of our small village, sitting on the ground. “I won’t tell anyone that I found you here.” From her lips a smile bloomed as her hand reached to me in an invitation to join her.
Slowly, my muscles relaxed, and I dragged my legs toward the one everyone called crazy. Noticing, with some shock, the uncommon firmness of the soil, I remembered it had been quite a while since it had rained last. I got the impression that I had to be the one to break the silence that had befallen us like a blanket, but my throat could not form a single word, even if I wanted to.
“Nish,” Dagmar looked deep into my soul with eyes so clear that they bordered on inhumanity. “What is it that you want out of life?” A question that with all its simplicity, was anything but.
“I don’t know.” The answer rushed out of my tongue, even if it was a lie, but it had become a habit to pretend not to know. Although, for some reason, from deep inside me the truth twisted itself and came out. “I want to leave here. My life is chosen for me without my say so. I want to be able to make my own choices, see something new, do something different than what everyone expects of me.”
“‘Ah yes, the dream of every young person. But will you be willing to sacrifice for it?” Dagmar said, a small smile contouring her features, and beneath her mad gaze I saw something resembling a deep knowledge. “When I was your age a beautiful man came to this village. Every single woman fell in love with him, yet he only had eyes for me.” She looked at the horizon, lost in memories. “What a wonderful time we had, I will never forget him. But eventually he had to leave, go back to his home. He asked me to join him.” she became silent with her dreamy eyes still looking ahead.
“What did you say?” I asked, curiosity overpowering my patience.
“‘I’m still here, am I not?” she turned to look at me once more. “I didn’t sacrifice the life that I knew.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Not going with him? Not even a bit. But not seeing the world beyond our little village? Every day.” Gentle hands took mine in their grasp. “If there is one thing I have learned in life, it’s that you cannot change anything unless you are willing to sacrifice all that you know, all that is important.”
“So,” Uncertainties gnawed at my stomach, bringing bile to my mouth. I did not know if I was ready to sacrifice everything, if I would ever be, even though my biggest desire was for something new. Yet at the same time, I was scared to spend the rest of my life with regrets. “What is the right choice to make? What… What should I do?”
“How would I know?” She laughed. “You are the only person capable of answering that, Nish.” A heat, stronger than that of the emerging sun, lingered in her words. Slowly she got up, one hand on my shoulder as support. Her weak legs started their way down the hill, back to the village. Before she could go very far, Dagmar stopped and turned to me, clear eyes shining with the first rays of daylight. “In the end, you are the only person who will have to live with your choices. No one else.”
