The boy's eyes were green but not the kind of shade that's easy to describe. It was almost like they were both green and yellow at the same time, with blue creeping in around the edges as if it were trying to take over. He blinked and the beauty was momentarily covered by the shield of his eyelashes; naturally long and soft looking - feminine compared to the rest of his well structured features. By the time the boy's eyes opened again, I had still not recovered from his intense stare. It was a stare that communicated the boy's former pain, and his wish for me to let go and to move on. But I could not move on, just as I could not forget those glaring eyes whose light never faded even in death.
Waking up can be really harsh, especially if your dreams are better than reality. The saddest part of it is, though, that eventually even the memory of your dream will fade - if you are even lucky enough to remember it that is. Then you're left with this lonely feeling of detachment, left to explore in the empty void of emotions, the only proof that you ever had the dream to begin with.
There were no windows. Only--one, two--five seats; four lined up on the long side of the rectangular prism and one sitting opposite. The first noticeable thing was the utter lack of motion. It did not feel like any sort of future tech, it felt like the back of a truck. It was barren, smooth, it appeared as dirt brown walls in the lack of light, with sharp corners at the vertexes; but where was the motion? Those only objects within the box where the chairs, the only occupants were those sitting within them, and me; within the lonely chair.
The others were asleep. Three I knew: John, Dean, and Sam. The fourth I didn't, sitting to the far right. She was some young excitable girl, just kinda tagged along; I never knew her name. I sat there, harness pulled taught, in the groggy state that occurs after being woken from a deep sleep. I didn't have time to register any sort of fear or darker thoughts. I was still mystified at the lack of motion and the then growing presence of complete silence.
He settled himself in the corner of the settee, ready to indulge himself in a bit of reading before the evening was spent. The binding creaked, its spine aching with age and service, only for there to be little surprise when blossoms fell to his breast. Canterbury pressed between pages he had hardly marked but the day before. He leaned his head back and placed the book over his eyes, allowed its knowledge to press gently against his eyelids. A smile crept and the air grew thick with a tenderness that couldn’t help but make him breathe slower, deeper, happier. So someone was after his heart yet again.
To break me, you must show empathy. Yelling and shouting your frustrations about my lack of work, or need to shape up, won't help your cause. I'll only stand firm in my resolution to not give in to your tempestuous voice. To break me, you must show kindness. If I have a low performance on tests, "Are you okay?" instead of, "STUDY HARDER, YOU IDIOT!" will make me try harder. I want to please those who care. I want those who love me to see me do well. If you love me, and outwardly show it, you will break me.
This bow has been my steady partner all these years, safe at my side. The arrows it launches fly straight and true, always right on target. I would feel less at ease walking these forests without it, I guess some things become a part of you over time.
"I can feel the pain that swirls in your brain, all the stories you keep telling as if they hold answers. They don't. People do things because their emotions are driving them that way... all those things that hurt you, baby, had nothing to do with you at all... and perhaps that's even worse. The thing is, if you practice 'mental hygiene,' if you clean out those thoughts, everything gets better so very quickly."
I bind my boat to the shore, to the anchor point that will keep it safely in the harbour until conditions are fair enough to sail once more. I wrap the rope as my grandfather showed me how, though that was so very long ago. It's a memory made from watching him in awe, feeling the movement of his weathered hands as if they were my own, then trying it for myself. My hands move as if they were his, the decades between nothing at all, feeling the texture and the movement it takes to make the so knot fast and true.
You are the sweetest melody on these eyes and ears. I could wrap myself up in your words and sleep more soundly than a baby. I guess that's attraction but it feels so deep, as if this were the start of a song that plays on and on, something so soothing to my soul. So I'm wishing on every rainbow, I'm wishing under skies of velvet cloud and acres of blue, that you are the soulmate I've needed for so very long.
I wasn't there for the crowds, or for the sound of the ball made when I sent it into the stratosphere; I wasn't there to make my parents proud or to show the teachers I had listened to their advice... I was there for me. I was at that baseball pitch to show up for myself and prove to to my own satisfaction that I was always gonna try to be more than the statistics predicted for kids from my neighbourhood.
Our house was the result of years of hard labour on the back of swarthy Bengali-speaking workers. At the height of its sumptuousness, it was the jewel of the river; the house of an important government official. Even when we lived, nearly five decades later, its pertinence and grandeur endured. But the formality of the house was both frivolous and well receded, so our childish endeavours could be fulfilled and we were free to squander away what was left our childhood on the riches of the land.
The greatest thing about money is that it is fictional - and so for the creative brain there are endless solutions to the problems we are in. We can't magic up any real resource, but money? Press some keys on a keyboard and you have it, simple! So how do we use that to save our planet... here is our answer...
Pay polluting factories what they would earn and tell them to close their factory. The workers get the same salary and they are free to volunteer in the community as much as they wish or to take another job instead of the "volunteer salary." If the product is essential we pay to renovate the factory and make it clean and eco friendly. We find individuals who through their actions demonstrate that if given the chance they would spend their entire lives dedicated to helping humanity and the environment through their sense of love and good intentions and we pay them a comfortable income to do just that.
The truth is, our economy is built on inflation. It has to be "baked into the cake," always. The pot of money has to keep expanding, but... because this system is fictional we can choose how to expand it. In this system we have a new and healing cycle for Earth and society...
As stress and environmental damage go down, costs go down, many services and drugs become redundant. The economy goes down so we pump more money in by paying people "comfort" incomes so they can do good works that appeal to them and they have full liberty to choose what they do, or simply to stay home and raise great kids! Eventually, it all collapses, but only when the world is healed, healthy and pretty much everyone is already a volunteer and doing what they love.
If the current system stays in place it will collapse and our planet will be destroyed. If our kids don't inherit the Earth, they inherit nothing and die, it's that simple. If we change to this health model of finance we all win, we save Earth and evolve our society and planet to something sustainable, happy and free.