The Good and The Bad
There was this girl. She lived in a home where from her window she could see every soul of the world. She didn’t know how it worked. She didn’t even question it. She didn’t possess a mind that questioned just a mind that accepted and thought ‘sure, of course’ without ever needing to expand and find some scientific equation to explain. Why explain when there is nothing to be explained? Can’t things just be?
Anyway, from her window she watched the souls wandering about in their lives. Some always in a hurry, some aimlessly, you know how it goes. She watched them fight and tear themselves apart, rip themselves away from others and live closed off, shut off, within their own shells. She shook her head and tutted. Did they not understand that human beings were not designed to be alone? They craved attention and warmth and love. But the people below grew scared of each other and built up walls as thick as skin. Keeping the bad stuff out and the goodness of their soul in. But with all goodness secluded to themselves, the world grew sick and needed some loving help.
The people could not put the world right again, they couldn’t see how or what was needed to be done, they didn’t have the perspective that she did, so she knew it was up to her. Her heart ached for them, her body convulsing in sympathy with her mind stretched to unfathomable lengths as she wished and hoped for each soul daily.
She could not stand their pain.
But there was one thing that stood in her way.
And it was him.
There was this boy, as there always is where there’s a girl in these things, and he knew what she had to do to make the ache go away. And he would not let her do it. She couldn’t. He loved her and what about him? Didn’t he have the right to be happy? Didn’t she? Why waste it all because of that sea of fools below her window? Why couldn’t they figure it out for themselves?
But she shook her decided head and cupped her hand under his chin. And he knew what she was going to say before she said it. He could see it in that sad smile.
“Because love is not for me.”
It wasn’t so bad at first. When she first started to weave her blanket. But as the days turned to months, turned to years, the boy could see how it drained her. But she continued to sew.
Sew.
Stitch.
Make.
And mend.
Sewing the world back together again.
With every needle droop, sink and fly back up again; the life from her body caught in her throat and upon the world below it did descend.
She had taken to staying in bed, she told him it was because she was tired. But he knew her better. Her physical strength had left her now. All that kept her going was the ache for the injustice inflicted upon those she loved.
So she stitched her blanket, her love coursing through the thread that she knitted it with. The embroidered picture was bloody brilliant, a bright, bleeding red; an image of a rouged world, with all the countries being sewn back together again.
The boy watched her every day. Even though it pained him to see what was being done. He watched her. And as he held her pale hand, when she would lay down her stitching and close her eyes for sleep, he noticed how the red tracks beneath that frail skin ran blue. She was sacrificing not only her love, but her life for the sake of their souls. And it killed him. For she could not see how beautiful she was. And she would not believe him when he told her. She just responded with a sad smile and a shrug and distracted herself with her sewing.
Each and every morning, the moment her tired lids dragged their way back up over her orbs, her hands reached for the next stitch automatically. No rest for the good.
And he would grasp back at the hand that she had taken back from his, and he would tell her “Please, just not today, please.” And she would smile at him like she had done all those years ago, and he would know that there was nothing he could do that would make her stop. She had got it into her head that love was not for her and that the burden of their souls was upon her shoulders.
And so she took up her sewing each day. And as she did, flickers of fanciful good floated down into the cities and the countryside. People noticed that sometimes life wasn’t so bad. In fact sometimes, it was even worth it, and by heck it could be fun! Especially when they found somebody to love.
But the boy was bitter at it all. If love was not for her, then it was not for him either. And to prolong her life whilst she slept, he unpicked the threads she had done that day. But you must not blame him, for he only wanted her to stay. Stay in this life, just a little longer, for all he had ever wanted was to be the one to always hold her. But she knew what he was doing, so she sewed quicker, too many stitches an hour for him to unpick later.
So one fateful day she sewed off the last thread, and it was done, her last breath was taken and the ache that infected her body was done.
The boy, ever watchful, endured watching his love die. Leaning his head against her lifeless face he kissed her and silently cried. Once a day had passed since her last stitch, he went to that window and scowled at the oblivious happiness of those below. He took up her scissors and cut a few threads, and heard the howls of those who mourned below at the bad that had just happened.
He was surprised by the instantaneous reaction. And vowed never to do that again. His love would have died for nothing and he knew that would have been pointless.
But sometimes, just sometimes, when he reflected on how the injustice had refracted its way away from them onto him, he cut just one more thread, letting the love in someone’s life below greet death, just so he himself didn’t feel quite so alone in all of this.
So yes, sometimes good graces your life and then sometimes bad; but what you must realise is just how much love there is in your life and be glad.
