His Innocence - Part 1
Every detail within this place he calls home is a sentence in a familiar tale he's long ago memorized. From the hand-stitched embroidery on the pillows to the missing threads on the worn carpet, he knows it all.
"But what's out there," Cencia thinks. How is it that he can quote any page of the dozens of books in the study but has no inkling of the terrain he's enclosed by? He has walked the parameters of the land that's surrounded by a low stone wall. But he stays within because none of his texts have told him of what's outside. The stone walls have cradled him. In the past, he's felt foolish about even thinking of leaving that comfort; it's the only comfort he knows. He has no family here with him, and the last time someone held him, as the walls hold him now, was when his father wrapped his arms around him and abandoned him there. He doesn't know how long ago that was.
Cencia loved to learn anything he could.
But only so much of what someone knows is actually found within texts. To know the world, you have to go out and live in it.
The uncertainty to leave his nook, and the tempting answers of the outside had started to overwhelm him. For about 2 months he had rationed the meals delivered to him. Yet another mystery that kept him wondering during sleepless nights. He didn't know who brought him what he needed, the food, books, water, or clothes. They had just shown up for him.
It was a question for another day. Because tomorrow he'd finally go beyond those stone arms.
