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The soothing glow that escaped through the lamp’s screen was cast against the ceiling’s surface as a citadel’s reflector burst into the bottomless darkness of the night sky. It vaguely traced the objects at the corners and on the walls with its bright edge, exalting with vigorous dread the stretched out shadows in multiple shapes from the papers on the desk.
The voracious and caged silence within the walls became deafening courtesy of the calm, frozen avenues trapped in the baleful cold of the desert, where only the bravest and most ambitious shops left a hatch open to welcome any traveler foolish enough to get through the endless arid expansion showered by its heartless night.
Gaara firmly stamped the seal on a neatly folded work programme in the cut of an amicable offer counseled to him, albeit omitting the direct intervention of the deliberating council. The concentrated circle impetuously judged the rebuilding projects and benefiting proposals for the village’s advancement, subtly overtaking their kazekage’s decisional power, sinisterly dismissing previously approved suggestions from arduous sessions that led nowhere. There were a few moments where Gaara could let go of his worn-out body a relief sigh to save himself from a spare night cussing endlessly to a personal distaste, and alien to him being led to inquire over the depth of the routinary stress he kept on gaining.
The vermillion seal engraved in the approval symbol on the top face of the paper became a satisfaction over the consistency of negative numbers. Gaara handled the paper back to its folder on top of the pile, bringing the odyssey to a conclusion. The files needed to be revised were kept in a pile at his left on the desk, etched by a ghostly touch of the glow provided by the lamp in the corner. Gaara’s fatigued sight delineated by heavy and lilac dark circles on top of the parading outlines of his eyes, traveled faggedly to the multiple and categorically rejected projects from the pile which, with a weary brain and a hungry rage increasing from the bottom of his guts, decided it was enough.
He sighed with the weariness of a tired man at the cusp of his thirties, the specialness of it, the very moment Gaara started to perceive it ceased to be a matter of alleviation, turning into an odd mix of dwindling and exhaustion of a murderous and demoralizing routine. The silence no more was a gnawing showcase of solitude, and it turned to be the appeasing of any enraging thought, a friendly interval, a certain break he awaited. The chilly cold became a comfort, the passage of the years has made him get used to its frigidness, and it endured his health to survive, and for him the lively memories that took place after Yashamaru where to live faded away as a concept, and the streets became an adaptation to the disdain and to a voluntary dehumanization returned unwanted. Yashamaru was the memory of an ephemeral warmth Gaara could ever have experienced with his mother, and it slowly grew into the occasional query from the late nights, which were the portrayals Yashamaru played to be, or the bizarre picture of a maternal role Gaara now could distinguish through the many memories of those short years that slipped from his small hands like a breeze. There too took place a subtle paternity.
A roaming memoir knocked at the door from the back of his memory. The frosty winter had permeated the old night intensely and Gaara shivered against the window pane spending endless minutes standing in front. He kept a powdery remembrance from the shrivelled voice of Yashamaru calling to him anxiously.
“Lord Gaara!” the dreadful tone of Yashamaru came from the threshold. “Please, step back from the window”, shortening the distance between them, he held Gaara by the shoulders softly pulling him away. “It is not good to expose yourself to the cold, your health is fragile” he smiled.
Gaara lowered his gaze, mumbling an unheard “hum” to Yashamaru, despite not understanding his panicked reaction, Gaara understood the calm warmth that washed away the relentless pain.
“Yashamaru, what is that?” Gaara pointed at an eye-catching white box over the counter by the entrance.
It sat there boasting its contrasting appearance against the sandish walls and the brownish color scheme of the furniture, a rather simplistic box cake capturing Gaara’s attention as any colorful gift box would’ve done to a 5 years old child. A souring sadness caught Yashamaru about a life far from Gaara’s reach.
“Is a present, Lord Gaara”, Yashamaru replied back, swallowing the fleeting sourness. “Today is a special day for you”.
It was Gaara’s 6th birthday, and the sorrow flooding the room brushed against Yashamaru’s cheek through the slit left by the half-opened window where Gaara had been standing moments ago.
“Mother…” Gaara mumbled. “Mother passed away today”, dwelling upon what to say next, his gaze traveled in dismay across the floor. “I... don’t want it”.
Yashamaru stared at him with brooding eyes, frozen in the overlapping silence choking the air away from his lungs. Both stood there parading their suffering to no one else but each other in the eye of the stopped time.
“Lord Gaara, come here”, Yashamaru gently called.
Gaara took a few steps to lastly be standing in front of Yashamaru who had carefully knelt to meet his gaze, and kindly led his hand to Gaara’s unkept reddish hair. Meeting his eyes closely Yashamaru saw his in them, pressing his lips on a rapid straight line he attempted to pretend a smile.
“Elder sister, Lord Gaara, loved you more than anything else in this world”, these words flowed slowly from Yashamaru’s lips. “When she passed away she was happy to have given you birth. Elder sister did so feeling a deep bliss thanks to having met you, Lord Gaara”, he continued, pretending from behind his words Gaara could grasp as much heartache. “Your birth was her whole happiness”.
Gaara was attentive, shuddering as he played with the rim of his long-sleeved t-shirt. The frenzy happening within him was unsought, he couldn’t tell the pain over his heart nor the tingly warmth taking over his young chest. He looked around seeking his mother’s picture who stand as the guardian of the room, in the meeting of her weary violet eyes, he wept.
There wasn’t a sound that could fill the dead silence, Gaara’s mutter sobbing pressed on his chest, becoming the spectacle for the heavy oxygen trapped in the living area, and Yashamaru holding his tiny hand vaguely lose himself in the distant memoir, opening in front of his eyes from behind the feeble body of Gaara. The image of Karura broke with the limitations of his remembrance, and walking toward him with a ghostly delicacy she knelt before his eyes and held in her arms the weeping body of her child. Her fragile smile blurred alongside her tangible image who once was more than her ephemeral life.
“Yashamaru…”
With a faraway look on the holy lost image of his sister, Yashamaru absently spoke, “Yes, Lord Gaara?”
“Mother would be happy to celebrate my birthday?”
Yashamaru snapped out of self-absorption, noting the enthusiastic tightening of Gaara’s hand on his, with a plaintive look he dug into Gaara’s eventuality where he saw the near sadness creeping into his soul, and the death roaming him, an eerie loneliness accompanied by any trace of love. He saw himself as a sickening ghost encompassing a heartless love, the harassing approach of this present future shed a blue light on their time not meant to repeat.
“She would be, Lord Gaara”, he resolved that a child wasn't meant to grasp it.
Gaara smiled effulgently and alive, and Yashamaru wondered once again at the many more occasions left to see him smile so carefree with tender childness. A dreadful fog pressed on his chest as he saw Gaara lively skipping toward the awaiting box over the counter, keeping a medium-size cake inside, which he had baked as a present for him, balancing it on his way back, Gaara cautiously placed it over the tea table in front of the couch. Going back his steps now dubious, peeking at Yashamaru from the corner of his eye looking for a sign of approval, he paused his pace facing the round table in the corner of the room. Gaara wide-eyedly stared at the picture of his mother, trying to find her image at the back of his memories, awaiting her presence to burst into the room and smile motherly at him. But even a child knows his mother will not come from her deathbed.
Gaara hesitated for a moment, his small hands resting by his sides stopped their tracks without having yet moved, and he swallowed afraid in the face of wrongdoing.
“You can, Lord Gaara”.
He jolted at the sudden sound of Yashamaru’s voice and abruptly turned around toward him, at the encounter with Yashamaru’s smile the warmth of safety invaded his heart expanding over his chest and drawing a timid smile, facing the picture once again he took the photo frame, and embracing it, he brought it beside the now open box showing a crunchy cake decorated with topping of pistachio.
Yashamaru sat at his side and lightened the candle, glowing against the crystal protecting Karura’s picture Gaara quietly stared at the light kissing her features like during a sunny day, his little heart washed away by a sudden sadness wished for his mother to come, and Yashamaru motherly smiling at him rubbed his hand against his small back in hopes to comfort his hurtful expression.
“Come on, Lord Gaara, make a wish”.
Gazing at Yashamaru through the margin, he peeked at his heart for something to turn into an eternal moment, he shut his eyes bloating his chest, and he blew softly and continuously on the candle that took his wish away alongside the weak flame.
As the years passed he wondered about the whereabouts of the dusty wish he kept locked somewhere within him. The young night with its devouring, unending sky lulled him trespassing the pane window up in the extension of the wall, embracing in tenderness each and all of his remembrances folded cautiously all over his mind. The creak coming from the door opening sent him back to his senses, and releasing a sigh past his nostrils, he saw the image of Shinki and Kankuro helping themselves through the door, bringing with them a shaky light flaming up their faces.
“Happy birthday, Father”.
“Gaara, happy birthday”, the youngster's tone on Kankuro’s accent took Gaara years back.
Still occupying his place behind the desk, Gaara stared at them with an endearing expression and softly thanked them as he stood up to meet them on the opposite side. Over his brief stroll, he heard once again the faint voice of Yashamaru telling him to make a wish. Closing the distance with the fragile flame of the candle, he blew its light away, deciding this time, with a softened smile, there wasn’t a wish to make.