“Why?” She asked with a wry little smile on her lips. The questions never ceased. There was always something on her mind and she couldn’t restrain her mouth from opening and asking all the questions her brain thought up.
“Why?” she asked. This time a little frustrated and frazzled at not getting the response she had hoped to get, nor as soon as she would have liked to have received it. Sometimes her patience was too low and her expectations too high.
She paced, and sat, and wrote and read and still, she was bemused at the lack of concern, the obvious disregard to her questions. She despised the lack of communication, especially when the general consensus was a horrible mask of harmony and understanding.
Waiting was the hardest part. Waiting with nobody to talk to, to discuss her unrest with. Being discounted time and time again in order to avoid any unpleasant discourse. She treaded lightly, intent on cradling the delicate perspectives that hung around her like gossamer threads. She was suffocating and nobody noticed, wrapped up in their own threads, choking her as they danced aimlessly around her.
A thought came to her mind, like a beacon of light against a cold, crepuscular ledge on an isolated shore. But the thought frightened her, so she pushed it down, deep down into the vault of her mind.
But inside of her, a battle raged. In her heart the torment was insurmountable. Faces, like those from a masquerade bandied around her, mocking and laughing at her discomfort. She shied away, but no matter where she turned, there was always another to take its place, more disconcerting and frightening than the last. She tried to face the terror head on, but was buffeted, and rebuked. She tried again and again to stretch forth a hand, for anyone to grasp it and throw off the mask, to reveal reality. But they were all so intent on the intricacies of the dance, and staying in time with the twisted tune of the blighted guise, that nobody saw her flail, and fall, then fail.
But she was strong in ways they could never have guessed. She got up, and dusted herself off and turned and walked away from them for a time. Jeers and chants and cries of resentment floated after her on the wind, but she kept her back turned and her eyes forward. She knew the answers she sought could not be found in the throng. She removed herself far from the noise, and the chaos. She fell on her knees, and then to her face, prostrating herself even lower than the dirt.
And she cried out, into the darkness.
The darkness was complete. She trembled and wanted to turn away from it, but she was paralyzed and unable to turn her face aside, one way or the other. A slight buzzing sensation began at the nape of her neck and she was afraid. She hunkered down, bringing her body into itself. The silence bored into her ears, heavy and tenebrous. The buzzing quickened and spread into her mind, shooting out tendrils of emnity, endeavoring to consume the very fiber of her soul. But she fought for the light that flickered deep inside of her, and she caught hold.
And she turned to the light.
She pulled her body up to its knees, but could rise no further. Around her, light began to fill every dark space. She could sense, in the distance the thrum of the dancers, and could hear the rustle of many masks being tossed aside and trampled upon. The light surrounded her and penetrated the darkest parts of her heart, the ones she had locked away because she didn’t want to feel the discomfort of healing the broken, jagged lines. Softly, gently the light permeated her heart, restoring and restructuring the damage. But as her heart began to heal, her mind fought to cling to the pain, to be right and be heard no matter the cost.
They battled. The light and the dark. The mind and the heart. Two strong forces pulling her like the ebb and flow of the tide. Gentle one moment and the next moment lashing and roiling against one another. Scenes of injustice and of betrayal, words of poison and jealousy stung and flung themselves against her heart, trying to weaken and destroy the healing balm. But her well was deep, and she began to remember the peace she had written on her heart in the years of calm. The peace pulsed, and enveloped the hurts, turning them around and and then changing them to something bearable. Slowly, her heart began to mend.
Cautiously she stood on her weakened legs. She felt like an infant, trembling with her first steps and trusting that somebody would be there to catch her if she fell. She had to take the first step in order to dance the dance. In her mind were still doubts and worries, but the light was bright, and it would sustain her for a time. A warm hand slid into hers and pulled her forward towards the throng.
