Chapter 8: and the Heart Thief (Part III)

Hold on, hold on...

I remembered my home, the one I was so eager to get back to; its culture and religion, I was once a good Russian orthodox boy but things change and reality catches up with you as I see what everyone did not "the gods. To the most powerful religions this is a disappointment that their God is but many and coming in different forms as we see them for who we believe them to be. Osiris, Yama, Azrael, Pluto, Hades; they are all connected to death and the underworld, evil and the afterlife. Though gods perceive themselves into what you most truly believe, for me with my travels and such I had come to realise that Greek Mythology just spoke to me, seemed more believable or pure and true to than any other religion even the one that was etched in my brain since childhood. Zeus was my creator but Hades was my undoing and my new beginning. Like Jesus, of Christianity; who walked to desert plains for forty days and forty nights, was tempted by the once great archangel Lucifer -Satan as he is more formally known- and resisted, though me being week and naive, gave into temptation. But that is the past and split milk if you will; it cannot be changed and must not be dowelled upon.
     “前來乘坐.” I looked up to a rope at my eyes, a boat the side of a whale was in front of me.
     “謝謝你.” I replied, taking the rope and climbing aboard. Recognising a few men from when we were purchasing fish at the market. I smiled and gave thanks for their generosity. They handed we a woven blanket and offered me a drink, I declined stating that I was ok. They asked if I was in trouble and where I was planning on going, one young man even asked if I was trying to drown myself "was my swimming really that bad? I told them I was bound for Alaska that if they dropped me at the water’s edge I will be alright from there. They agreed, and didn’t ask many questions. They told me they were off to catch some more fish way out into The Great Ocean. I’d never seen it myself, but it is said to hold dragons and great creatures of the sea. They were very brave men "I was merely grateful they weren’t pirates.
     The waves bashed the cliff peninsula; a small beach was in view where the cliff had crumbled and eroded almost completely. Their boat was too large to go any closer than a kilometre into shore. I thanked them and wished them luck before diving off the side of their wooden boat. It gave me splinters in the soles of my feet which I’ll have to dig out later. The sand was a soothing to my feet, they were rough from walking bare footed almost everywhere but the splinters had found a way to embed themselves deep in the sole. The beach wasn’t as wide as your average stretch of shore but was long and dunes like ship wrecks were slammed against its edge, baking in the sun like seals. I walked up the dunes with ease, my hair dripping and my pants socked and heavy. I came face to face with it -her house. Though I’d never seen it form this angle I knew it was it, and the wind sent her scent through the air, intoxicating my senses. I looked down upon myself; I couldn’t greet her like this. It took all my will to continue down the street and away from her, where the area became more populated with wooden cabins that blended in with the untouched forest and shrub around it. The only patch of bareness was wet dark soil that was their front yard; some had wooden steps to their house, others had stones as a path to their front door. I pulled into the first house on the left and knocked on the door with force. The scent was familiar, like I’d met it before but it was also laced with her, had she been here?