4

 Julia still lived, existed, was. She was increasingly fading away internally, feeling like a feather thrown into the wind, fluttering and landing wherever the magical force carried it. In her gray loneliness, she sought a moment of silence from her own thoughts. She wanted nothing, could do nothing. She didn't want to live, couldn't die. She stopped dreaming. The Demon was fading away. She knew she couldn't be with him anymore. She gave him time. His time, apparently, fate had willed it, she used to say. It didn't matter that she suffered. She had gotten used to it. Yet, she was dying inside. She knew that her love for the Demon was an escape from the world. She had always dreamed of a different kind of love. Because you always long for what you don't have. She had always had an abundance of love. Love surrounded her, filled her to the core, even killed her. You're probably wondering how love can kill. But it's possible.

You might ask why she ended up in the demon's arms. The answer is simple – he offered her what the world couldn't give. A different kind of love. A love that earthly people call madness, absurdity, some youthful excess. Some called her a madwoman, others an adolescent girl. Both were wrong, for Julia was simply a lost child entangled in the web of life. She never had a childhood, always firmly planted in the world, knowing what was right and wrong. They taught her to live without the shadow of a shadow. She was meant to be for others, for the glory and comfort of her parents. How pathetic those words sound in her ears now, as she stares sightlessly at the page of the book, strewn with a black dusting of stamps. Only one thing puzzles her: where do those tears come from? It doesn't hurt anymore. Or maybe it hurts even more than before? Maybe now she's still feeling that tiny thorn that appeared with her trial? Maybe now she feels even worse than before. Maybe now she cries at night. She feels angry at herself, hates herself, wants to disappear.

You ask why? Maybe she simply feels like she's failed, that she hasn't proven to be as strong as she thought. That she's become an insignificant part of the so-called family atom. Maybe that's why she feels empty, useless. Lonely, even though so many people are there for her. Loneliness eats Julie from the inside. Sometimes on a dark night, she lies upright in her cozy bed, stares at the ceiling with wide eyes, and sobs with invisible tears. She sobs silently, in her mind. Why not for real? Because she can't anymore. Her eyes are clouding over. She no longer sees the happiness around her. Though she notices them around others as a haze emanating from the surrounding crowd. She's still alive, yet only in body, halfway.

She hears music, and a sudden noise rips her from her reverie. Julia is there again, pretending to be alive and well. But only she knows how it really is.