Love, It's All You Will Ever Need

Or so they always told the little girl. Unhappiness doesn't need to be solved by you, they said. He will come. He will complete you. All you need to do is wait. Don't strive, don't aspire, what would be the point? He is coming.

So she did. She listened and did nothing. Contented in her bower, she sat and thought about Him. What would he look like, she wondered? Will he be beautiful? Will he be kind? Will he really make everything else fade, not matter?

But this could only take her so far. Bored with the limitation of a single Him, she moved beyond.  She conjured up wisps that formed into stories. Stories of companions, of journeys, of distant landscapes that were as far from her prison as she could escape to. Bright as moonlight, the wisps grew large in the reflections on her open eyes and whisked her away. Glitzy balls she attended. With glittering dragon’s fire did she warm her hands. On stars she reclined and watched the antics of dancing planets. The rabbit with the monocle, the bear with the crown, and the lion with its fierce roar, bosom confidantes, laughed with her when she was hopeful and held her when she was wracked with sobs.  

They locked her away, you see. Too fragile, they whispered. She will break, crushed upon the twisted spikes of reality. Too weak, they breathed. Incapable. Inexperienced. Powerless. Worthless, like a porcelain doll. Insidiously, these thoughts crept and crawled, inching their way towards her. They oozed and they dribbled inky darkness. Stealthily, the words slithered through her as she lay dreaming about the rescue that was promised.

One by one, the words squeezed into her ears, contorting themselves to fit. Soon, they filled her and left room for nothing more. One by one, the wisps began to fade. First the sweeping mountains, oceans, and forests dimmed into nothingness. Then the stars twinkled out, shut off as if a switch had been flipped. One by one, the night went dark around her. As she cried out in alarm, grasping first for the fierce lion, he was already turning transparent, his roar drifting further and further away. She whipped towards the rabbit but he too was waving a slow goodbye as he blended into the bed frame. Finally, with its arms wrapped tight around her, the bear’s warmth started to seep into bitter cold. With her eyes wide open, she stared blindly around her room.

They forgot about her, you see. He never came. Locked up in the dust, in the worn, she sat where she had been left. The world didn’t break her, you see. They did. 

 

This is a story I wrote and shared on this site called hitRECord. This site is the brainchild of Joseph Gordon Levitt and I've very recently (today) become involved. 

Hit RECord 

If you want to contribute or even heart it, just search Cicinator or, even more simply, click here:

My hitRECord site 

Hope you enjoyed it!

Also, here is a phenomenal talk by Elif Shafak, a Turkish writer, about the power of fiction:

Elif Shafak

She has the most fascinating views.