„We are our masters in a parallel world”

  A large and badly illuminated office because of the thick red curtains hung at the window was seen by Eva while standing in the middle of the room, not that far from that desk in the oriental style at which her father was sitting. And, in the same room, two chairs, with back upholstered in black velvet, a massive wooden bookshelf on the left part, and a red sofa on the right side, were the only shabby furniture of that XIX-th century „science room” as Eva’s father used to call his office.

  Yet, even if the room wasn’t as welcoming as it should have been at first glance, it was also a place where one could lose himself entirely if he allowed himself to waste some time there, finding it thus enough interesting and somehow acceptable, because of the countless novels found on that bookshelf, making the reader deeply immerse into a new and enough exciting world.

  And, how those novels weren’t at all boring let's be honest because all the well-known writers of that moment could be found on that shelf, Eva was often enriching her stock of knowledge with events and situations described in those novels, even if they weren’t educational mostly of the cases for a 16 years old girl. But, because there wasn’t anybody to keep in check her curiosity or to prohibit her something, Eva could at any time enter and come out of that office, taking any novel she wanted, novels brought there by her father's ex-mistresses or wives.

  That freedom, of reading all she wanted, Eva had due to that she has never been the object of interest neither of her father nor of her step-mothers, who always preferred to „find out” more about what happened outside than in their own house, for the lurid details of what happened in the boudoirs of different ladies and misses of the high society were an interesting subject of talking about than to waste their time to educate the daughter of a first wife.

  And… they were somehow right, for why should have they sacrificed themselves to educate the other’s daughter when her father couldn’t find time for her, being too busy with other things than to pay attention to what his daughter was doing?! But this made Eva understand that she wasn’t more than another „object” found in that house and nothing more and this comparison was better noticed at that moment when Eva was standing in the middle of the room, waiting for her father to start to talk to her. He, however, preferred to let her wait, for he needed to finish reading the newspaper first.

  Then, he finally raised his glance and looked at his daughter over the top of his glasses, which, even if they didn’t serve for anything for having no zoom lens, were his favorites. He was all the time using them, for he thought that by using them he was looking like an aristocratic person, an educated man, who knows a lot. And he spent thus minutes in a row, looking at his daughter till he finally dared to talk to her:

  „You’ll go to London today and you’ll join the „Red Ants.” It’s your duty as my daughter and I won’t accept a „no” as an answer.”

  But her father’s words resounded in Eva’s head like a hard hummer hit, right on the top of the head: „The „Red Ants? But… what is he talking about?! This means that…”

  „I know what are you thinking about, but… it’s the only chance to survive, Eva, for… I’ve lost a poker game.”

  Again. He lost a poker game again. „What a surprise!” murmured Eva, bitterly smiling, for it wasn’t anything new or surprising - Alfred always promised himself and his creditors that it was the last time he was playing a poker game when he was losing almost everything. Yet… he was always falling into the same abyss… again and again… for only at the game table did he feel like being someone important, triumphantly looking at all those distressful people that were leaving the game before him.

  But… what was even more surprising for Eva at that moment was to understand that the real business was related to her, for losing a poker game meant the same for her father - losing his fortune and, to be sure that he won’t be left in the basket, without a shelter overhead, the last thing to exchange was… „it can’t be!” thought Eva. „My father couldn’t do that! Even if he’s shameless, a bad father, neglecting, and a game addict, he wouldn’t have dared to sell or exchange his daughter to pay his debts.”

  But… he did this. She can see this in his eyes that are avoiding her glance, somehow dancing on their orbit while he was trying to look everywhere in that badly furnished room than to look at her.

  Finally, Alfred looked at her: with that glacial glance of a father that doesn’t pay two pennies for his daughter’s safety, and this made Eva slowly shake, for it wasn’t what she had expected or what she thought that she’ll feel in the end.

  And… even if Eva knew that, that she had never had his love or attention because he had never had a good word for her, she at least thought that she has a father.

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  „Maybe he hasn’t been the father I wished I had, but at least he has been always by my side, feeding and dressing me like one of his many mistresses. But… I must accept that I’ve been yet blind all this time, pretending to be a fool that doesn’t understand anything, ignoring the fact that I was comparing myself with his women instead of considering myself his daughter, even if this never bothered me. At least I never felt the pressure of this comparison before, but it starts to bother me now when I finally understood what kind of father I have: a gambling addict, capable to sold his daughter instead of giving up on his fortune, considering me as being his insurance for a better life,” and Eva shuddered, understanding that her dream of being loved by her father had been only a dream in the end, for he never loved her, he only wanted to marry her with a rich heir, even if older than her or a widower, but at least someone rich enough to help him if necessary and only because of this did he grow her up by his side.

  But his biggest dream has been broken when none of his candidates accepted Eva, and this hurt him so bad that he decided to get rid of her, eventually, feeling no remorse or at least wondering what will her future be if he does this and… thus, he decided to accept that shameless plan only to protect himself and not to protect her, even if he tried through his reserved behavior make her think that he cared about her. „It’s painful and it hurts so much, but I must accept my fate which isn’t anymore in my hands now and, even if I feel that I’ll collapse, knowing that if I leave this house I’ll be lost forever, I must leave it at least with my head up,” Eva thought, continuing to stare at her father, even if her eyes were empty and cold.

  And she shuddered again, understanding that cruel truth: that person, who was standing in front of her and who was her father, sold her, and this was her reality at that moment. But the most painful for her has been to wonder if he really was her father, the one who has been the object of her adoration once, the one she used to sketch like a prince in her head, being only a child while waiting for him to return home from his long and continue journeys when he seemed to have completely forgotten her because of his love affairs. Yet, that innocent child, who Eva has been once, was waiting for him to come home, staying for hours on that cold wet stair, looking in the distance to see if that carriage with black and red is not approaching to bring her father home.

  „No, he is probably a fake, someone who exchanged places with my father for playing a prank on me, only for a while,” and her father, her real father will show up later riding a white horse, and will chase away the fake one, telling her that everything has been just a lie and that she mustn’t go anywhere, that she’s free to dream about a similar life to her favorite characters which she was generally reading.

  And Eva turned her head to the left and looked at that old massive bookshelf, colored dark brown because of the time and, in front of her, the red lid of a book, so beloved by her, appeared: „The love of the beautiful Beast,” by C.N.Chane, a thriller-romance about a kidnapped young girl named Allia, who managed to make her aggressor fall in love with her only to survive, to later also make him pay for what he did to her.

  „This story is about many things: love, respect, sufferance, and, in the end, justice. But even if I know all this, I must realize that it won’t ever be about me,” Eva thought. Why? Simply: she wasn’t Allia and she also didn’t have the power of the main heroine, as she wasn’t also capable to fight against anyone. She was only capable to accept everything as being her destiny and, in the end, still thinking so, to accept to die, but not to hurt anyone.

  And Eva was sincere at that moment, accepting that she had always been a weak person, an innocent child that had dreamt about a sure world, a universe where nobody is hurt, where nobody suffers, where there are still sun rays that will eventually break that thick fog that is separating her world of the external one. But… what Eva wouldn’t have been able to change at her, or at least this was what she thought, was the fact that she could hurt herself only to save a butterfly caught in the spider’s trap, thinking that she was also a butterfly caught in the trap of the spiderweb called life, cruelty, and vanity.

  „Why are you silent? Say something! Blame me if you want, but don’t keep silent,” said Alfred, staring at her with his glacial glance.

  And Eva felt so small, so weak, and so unprotected, hearing him talking like that to her, as she felt empty inside at that moment after she caught her father’s glance and she saw no love in them.

  „What can I say?!” murmured Eva eventually. „There’s nothing I can say. Just…”

  „I don’t send you to death. I just want to…”

  „You’re just sending me to a lost world from where I’ll never turn back and you know this very well.”

  Finally, Eva’s voice got a natural force and she could talk to Alfred as she always wanted: confident in herself, knowing who she was, and what she deserved. That’s why, after she had told him such words, she turned her back on him and confidently walked toward the door, and this hasn’t been for sure the reaction he had expected from her.

  Eva stopped and turned to see him, only one step from the door, saying: „send someone to summon me when they are here. I’ll leave this house immediately. I don’t have anything else to do here and, for sure, I don’t have a family to which to turn back one day.”

  A slammed door… an empty room… a man sitting on a chair covered with black velvet and blank inside, without nobody left by his side… it’s all that Eva left behind, for the man she was giving him the go-by and who she has called her father for a long while was a person with no future, a gambling addict, someone who sold his soul eventually to pay for old debts.

  But… what neither Eva nor Alfred knew was that the old debts are so stubborn and they never accept a simple payment as being completed… and they, the debts, are all the time asking for more… asking for someone’s soul to be sold eventually.

  And they are always waiting in front of the door: tuc-tuc… we are here… just wait… our reward will be paid soon… but it won’t be completed, but it’ll ask for more… asking for your life… to leave past dreams behind…