8 December 2012
A short story
A long time ago, there was a girl. She was awkward and deep and had stars in her eyes and the wind in her hair. She lived by the beach and roamed the cliffs, wishing she were as free as a bird but feeling so lost and alone she hardly knew how to breath. Let's call her Eliza. Eliza met a boy called Jack and he had the earth in his hands. She found that the world made sense. Like two halves of a whole, their souls were twinned and entwined and destiny held them together with a bond as strong as gravity. Jack showed her the beauty of the world, the depths of the sea and the stars in the sky. He taught her she could do anything and they promised to belong together forever. In sunlit fields and beneath a hazy summer sun they spent their time. In winter woods and on autumn tides. They lived their lives separated from the normal world by a dream curtain. Devoted, neither really existing without the other. Jack showed Eliza how to soar like the birds and how to listen to the stars and they lived for the breath of the other. And Jack gave Eliza his heart, and she gave him hers. And they wrote each other the most beautiful words and sailed on paper boats. And years passed and the girl grew restless. And in the world they had made for themselves, Eliza caught a glimpse of what lay beyond. Every so often, the curtain between them and the real world drifted in the wind and Eliza saw flashes of another place. It would not be long before Eliza realised that to see this world, she would have to leave Jack and go beyond the curtain, into that other place. But Jack had taught her she could do anything, so she wanted it all. Jack knew that if Eliza left she would not return and he knew that the world they had would cease to exist, but Eliza wouldn't listen. She was cruel and unkind and she left the world they'd made expecting nothing would change. But oh how she was was wrong. She wandered the world outside for a while and was happy and life was new and exciting and still she called on Jack, for he was her constant, her anchor. From the other side of the world, she called on Jack and she thought of him often, as one does when a presence has been so solid, so reliable, it becomes easy to assume it will always be so. And after a while, Jack met a girl called Time and he started to be happy again and Eliza was pleased, because it eased her guilt. Eliza had a new life, a sensible one. A corporate, ordered, mortgaged life. Jack was still the boy with the earth in his hands. But Eliza was no longer the girl with the stars in her eyes, she kept them hidden now, for the wider world was a hard place to keep stars bright. And Eliza and Jack remained close, through it all. Through Time and others, there was always each other. Eliza and Jack started to write to each other again. They'd found a place where they would be safe. Where the world they'd made and Eliza had broken, so long ago, could exist again. It was different now, now that they both had other people. But occasionally, in a field where the sun shines, Eliza is still the girl with the stars in her eyes and Jack is still her Jack, with the earth in his hands and together, they are the moon and stars and birds and sky.
Belonging • Opuss № I