Trials

the cost of certainty

 

Cassandra has been quiet for

a long time.

Not unhappy, exactly.

More dormant.

She still works. Builds. Lives.

Does all the things people do.

But Cassandra has never been

particularly interested in the ordinary.

 

She looks for the extraordinary.

In stories.

In people.

In those moments when the world

suddenly becomes larger than it was a

second ago.

 

Usually, she has to go looking for it.

This time, it seems to find her.

Naturally, Cassandra is intrigued.

She is about to see something she

cannot explain.

This rarely discourages her.

Quite the opposite.

The gods are watching.

They might want to pay attention.

paradise in hell

 

There is a certain understanding we

have of paradise and hell. I had that

too. How wrong I was.

 

When we met, I was starved - starved

from cold nights and grey skies that

had stretched across years.

He was brilliant, at first. Emotional

depths, I thought, distant in a way that

mirrored my own.

I didn’t see the sharp smile, the teeth

glinting behind it. Power and control

shaped every move he made,

softened only by words I mistook for

poetry.

 

It took time. Glances, hints, nothing

serious at first - but they grew, day by

day, like embers catching flame.

He knew I was not one falling easily.

Finally, we agreed to meet in a quiet

café, the air thick with coffee

and unspoken promises. At some point,

he took my hand, his grip warm yet

commanding.

 

Then, something shifted. The café

dimmed, its chatter dissolving into a

void.

A night sky unfurled before me,

studded with stars - ancient, newborn,

pulsing with secrets.

Two vast silhouettes loomed against

the cosmic expanse, their edges

shimmering with celestial light.

 

I reached out, heart racing, as if I could

graze their divine forms. An eternity

passed in a breath.

Then the darkness receded, the café’s

hum returning, and he sat there,

watching me, as if nothing had

happened.

 

I was awake, truly awake, the vision as

real as the pulse in my veins. It shook

me to my core and still does today.

A glimpse of paradise, I thought. A sign,

surely. It was, but not for me and him.

Somewhere, a god froze in shock of my

misinterpretation.

 

We met again. He is the one, I told

myself, ignoring the warnings. The

promise of paradise was so tempting,

so seductive, its call drowning out the

whispers of its eternal foe.

 

He called me Eve, smirking. “I always

see you with that apple.” I thought it

was a lover’s jest.

For him, it was a challenge, one he

craved for long. To me, Eve was

freedom, the spark of wisdom born

from defiance.

My belief pure and innocent. Eyes in

the dark longing for this, which I

couldn’t see.

 

A dance of back and forth began.

Stolen kisses, fleeting touches, but

never a true claim. “Little Eve,” he’d say,

pride gleaming in his rejection, as if my

desire fueled his twisted fire. I tried

harder, convinced, I had seen it in the

skies.

 

Hell deceives, a lesson I’d forgotten,

clothed in a black net woven of silk and

promises.

Desires unlived but kindled are hell’s

elegant weapons.

 

A day came when I was done. I hated

how he looked at me, how “Eve” dripped

from his lips like a curse.

His words felt corrupt, blasphemous,

but striking too deeply to resist. Yet he

begged, almost, and said,

“I will come tonight.” A bait so perfectly

served. Something in his voice

rekindled my belief in paradise.

 

That night was magical, an

enchantment. Every word he spoke

lowered my guards, a hypnotizing spell

I couldn’t see.

I stood there, no walls, only naked skin.

He, in his expensive suit, gazed at me,

eyes dark with desire and

a will of steel, cruel, yet brimming with

lust and shadow. “No,” he said,

“I will resist you, little Eve.”

His laughter roared from the deepest

lairs of hell.

 

A blade in my back, a hundred in my

heart. More than pain, a soul’s core

laid bare, ready to be devoured by

hell’s hunger.

But somehow, I had fire still and burned

the darkness away.

Hell is cold, a truth seldom told.

 

I stood, barely, as he left, then fell to my

knees. Is this what they mean by a

fallen angel?

The darkest night followed. Hours

vanished. The pain unbearable and my

mind collapsed, nearly.

A knife lay in my hand, but I set it down.

No blood spilled that night, only tears.

 

It tore me apart, every fiber of my

being. I thought of the silhouettes, how

wrong I was.

A god somewhere watched, waiting.

Years passed before I understood.

That night, I died and was reborn.

The silence was infinite.

 

The Dark Night of the Soul, they call it.

Little do they know, it’s the walk from

hell to paradise.

Only then can we reach the golden

shores, not as a gift, but as a truth

forged in fire.

Eve, from somewhere, looked at me,

knowing, smiling.

She knows I will succeed, as did she.

Paradise.

Excellent marketing.

You can hardly blame Cassandra for

being interested.

Especially after everything that came

before.

And she did see something

extraordinary.

Something true.

 

The trouble began when Cassandra

decided what it meant.

With considerable confidence.

We've met Cassandra.

This shouldn't surprise us.

 

Reality had other ideas.

Painful ones.

There was rage.

There was fire.

There could have been blood.

There were tears instead.

 

And somewhere in that very long night,

something important remains.

The vision.

Cassandra doesn't throw it away simply

because she was wrong.

She keeps what was true.

And begins, slowly, to face

what was hers.

 

The certainty.

The choices.

The mistake.

That's harder than blaming the gods.

Less dramatic too.

 

Cassandra manages.

Mostly.

And perhaps that's why Eve is smiling.

Paradise was never the part

Cassandra got wrong.

She simply had rather a long way

to walk.

The shore is still there.

 

The gods might have been clearer.

A little late with the clarification,

perhaps.

Communication has never been

their strongest gift.