Spring had finally arrived.
At least, that was what the calendar said.
The birds were meant to sing. The snow was meant to melt. Somewhere deep inside, there was meant to be a spark, something that filled you with energy, something that told you that something good was about to happen, that you were meant to do something, that something should push you forward.
None of it matched the reality.
The snow had stopped, to be fair. There had been no rain either, and the wind hadn't been strong enough to cut right through my coat.
The city was still wrapped in a thick fog. Underfoot, there was a strange mixture of slush, dirt, and whatever chemicals the municipality had clearly used in an attempt to deal with the mess.
This was one of the most respectable parts of the city. A place that, in theory, should have been cleaned to perfection. A place that should have been dry a long time ago.
But no.
It felt like something had gone wrong somewhere in the system. Either they had spent all our taxes, or something else had happened, but the cleaning had been neglected, and the whole area looked dirty.
On top of that miserable scene, the weather and everything else, my mood was dreadful. The reason was simple - that blasted headache had not gone anywhere.
Spring had truly arrived. Somewhere inside me, there had been a small hope that the change of season might finally bring relief.
It had come to nothing.
Nothing had changed.
The worst part was that I still didn't know what caused all this misery.
I had begun to wonder whether the problem came from something absurd. Solar flares… Or Mercury standing in the wrong place in the sky… Or perhaps I ought to visit some fortune teller.
I had no idea what I was meant to do.
My doctor, it seemed, had no idea either. The old fool had examined every test he could extract from me and found nothing.
Now I faced a charming choice. Undergo a whole series of examinations and tests at some clinic, thereby letting the whole world know that there might be something wrong with me, or follow his advice and see a psychologist.
A psychologist…
Me?
Edward Moncler?
Had the man lost his mind?
He'd said that there was a possibility the cause might be psychological. Something pressing on me. Stress or some form of trauma.
Trauma… Really?
Despite all his obvious helplessness, the doctor had managed to give me one useful thing - tablets.
Those tablets proved far better than anything I'd managed to obtain on my own. The pain had faded to a manageable level, but had not truly disappeared. It remained deep inside my skull as a faint pressure.
Not quite pain… more like something drawn tight somewhere inside my head, stretched to the limit, ready to snap at any moment.
Because of this, even though the headache had grown far more bearable, my mood remained dreadful.
No matter how I felt or what state I was in, I couldn't avoid the family gatherings. I had spent far too much time at them recently. Sitting beside my mother, watching the aunts, enduring the whole performance.
All they ever did was talk.
"Dear, you are so lucky; your son is so talented, so capable."
"Edward, you simply must continue to make your parents proud.
"We expect so much from you."
They were expecting something from me all the time.
It was probably meant to be flattering, but in the end, it only got on my nerves.
At least my father had not been there. Then again, he was never there.
Where was he now? Somewhere abroad, across the ocean, no doubt with another companion, hiding behind the excuse of business affairs.
What business affairs could he possibly have when I was the one running everything?
Nevertheless, his absence was a blessing. Had he appeared, I could not say whether I would have managed to remain calm.
It was strange how he had been absent from my life all this time, and yet how much of an impact he had managed to have on it.
That had always been the case, even when I was very young.
A grown man. I ran companies. My decisions affected the lives of thousands of people. But I was still under the influence of my past.
Back then, I had to spend hours on end in a small room they called the study. I was expected to read, to learn, to memorise page after page of information that, to me as a child, seemed unbearably dull, tedious, and completely uninteresting.
I could never understand why I was wasting all that time, hour after hour.
That strictness and discipline held no appeal for me. I wanted to play. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to spend time with other children my age.
Now and then, I ran away. Or tried to, at least.
I never enjoyed the moment when they caught me.
My father expected the very best results from me, and therefore from my tutors as well. The methods they used never concerned him very much.
I have never been able to forget the blows. Sometimes, just thinking about it made the skin on my calves tingle, as though it had happened yesterday rather than years ago.
The past is a curious thing. With the years, it ought to fade. Faces grow difficult to recall. Details slip away. At times, memory even plays strange tricks on us, altering events in our recollections.
We would expect that the further away it moves, the less power it should hold over us.
However, it just grows stronger, shaping us.
It shapes me.
I wondered what had made my father the man he had become.
I suspected I would never know.