I Have Never Known
I went outside for the first time yesterday. They let us walk, the only things keeping us together being the chains around our feet, but there were no walls to hold us in. We wandered aimlessly, taking in the world, breathing in the air we didn't need to breathe. I walked past people of all sorts, examining their faces, their emotions painted as a portrait on their skin. Some try to hide them with tight lips and squinted eyes, but I find the truth. I saw a woman with a stroller, walking and laughing with a man who held her hand, pure bliss shining through every step they took. In the stroller was a babe wrapped in a blue blanket. I touched his skin, marveling at the soft, then continued with my group. I saw two young people, sitting shyly on opposite ends of a bench, their faces a perfect image of boredom. But their hands told me of how they each wished that the other would start a conversation. They danced a slow, delicate dance, glancing at each other only when the other was looking oppositely, and tightly breathing as they anticipated what the first words to each other might be. In a grassy green park I saw a man who has seen many, many years, sitting on a bench with a harmonica, playing a jaunty chorus for his feathery companions who skittered around his feet. There were two young girls who skipped along right through us, giggling to each other about the frivolous things that captivate youth.
These people each held secret smiles, secret hopes, dreams and joys. They breathed in the air they depended on and never worried that it might run out. They held tight to their companions, never wondering what it would be like to lose them. No, because when you're mortal, you don't think of these things. You think all of this paradise will last forever. I walked amongst them, but not with them, without the slightest feeling of remorse for their ignorance, only envy. Envy at their blindness to their oncoming end. For I will never take part in it. This "World that's full of happiness that I have never known." And never will know.
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Synopsis
Just the beginning to a short story I'm writing.
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