In the dead of the night, when the west winds blow in stirring the dried leaves in a mysterious dance and the moon lights the dark paths that lie before us leaving shadows to play with our heard, you’ll hear her deep sighs of distress. Never will your heart ache so for another as it will when the winds carry her sad cries to your ears, and you hear the sad song spill forth from her tear stained lips, a sorrowed melody inspired by your neglectful heart.
When the meanings of love and life begin to slip through our fingers, she will always be there to remind us their purpose in our hearts and whisper to our lonely heads the tale of a man so lost in himself and the lust that ate at his soul that when he fell from the grace of goodness he took with him an innocent.
You’ll recall her story, I’m sure. For with every empty word, every hallowed promise, every heartless actions you brought her tale to life, carving it into the very fabric of existence.
Funny how even the most awful, cruel, vicious murderer could recall his victim’s names, but your victims remain nameless, faceless and unaccounted for. I suppose that makes your crimes easier to live with. There may be no body count, but the souls you’ve destroyed will not soon let you forget your evil ways.
She was a young girl, just starting out her journey into the real world, spreading her wings to soar as high as the winds would carry her. Her eyes wide with curiosity and amazement, captivated by all that surrounded her. She flew circles around the world, doing flips and cartwheels in the air. Filled with the innocent happiness of a child, she knew no wrong, and the beauty that surrounded her entertained her to no end.
We all remember the glee and wonderment we felt when we opened our eyes to a vast world of possibilities. We remember the childish freedom from reality’s grotesque truths that we yearn and crave to get back, only knowing it’s been lost forever. It’s why Peter Pan never wanted to grow up, and why we wish they could always stay kids. It breaks our hearts to watch them fall, but hurts more to know they’ll never soar again.
The sun standing high in her sky, and the currents supporting her in her effortless flight, she’d stare forward looking to all that lay before her. The sky went on forever. There was nothing she couldn’t reach, nothing she couldn’t’ do, now where she couldn’t go. Before her was her playground, her sand pit, and from it she could build anything.
Do your recall the sand castles you built with your tiny hands? The things you imagined, the places you would go, the mansions you would live in? We all brought them to life. WE all made them real. We made dreams reality and we could do anything out hearts desired. We believed….
She believed took as we once did. And with it she built her dreams, her hopes, her future.
But it was only a matter of time before darkness would reach up and steal another glowing star from us. Only time before she would look down below and see the bleak, dirty land below her, and hear the cries of a fallen innocent. Those awful cries she couldn’t’ just turn from and forget. Her name was being called and it tore at her heart to hear another in distress. The cries grew louder, making her cringe. An odd dark feeling filled her soul, but she brought in her wings and dove toward the darkness in search of the source of the pain filled cries.
She searched day and night determined not to give up, determined to save the poor soul crying out to her. But the cries were soon swallowed and she sat in the silence waiting. She blinked back tears and fought back the over whelming emotion of sadness. She cried out for the lost soul, but they only echoed back to her in the dark. She collapsed to her knees, her face fallen into her hands.
How do you tell a child they can’t save everyone? How do you reach out to her and tell her to run, and save herself from those begging voices? How do you tell her to care, but not act on it? We only want them safe, we want them to stay innocent, to never hurt, to never know deception. How do you protect her from her own good intensions?
She woke up to the soft touch of another child. A young boy caked in dirt, his clothes torn and his eyes blood shot from a constant onslaught of tears. As dirty and rugged as the boy appeared, he had the touch of an angel and his eyes were bright and radiant. The girl stared up to him in awe. Her tiny hand reached up slowly to gently caress his soft cheek.
He carefully took her hand in his and helped her onto her feet. She was every unsteady, but the boy held her till she found her balance. They both stared at each other amazed at what was before them. Neither spoke a word, but they heard everything the other had to say. A silent exchange of hellos and stories they spent all day and all night talking and laughing. They had so much to share, they lost track of all time. Till finally she saw how late it had become. He begged her not to leave, insisting she stay with him. But she promised she would not forget him and visit him again soon. And with that she spread her wings and soared back to her sand castle in the sky.
The young girl was true to her word, and she made appoint to visit the boy regularly. She spent much time with him on the land. She saw his home, learned his games and became close with him. Before long she was spending all her time with him. They sat and talked for hours about everything. He’d sit behind her and softly stroke her wings, staring at them longingly as she slept.
One night the girl finally asked the boy why had he been crying the night she found him?
He looked her in the eyes, and spoke, “I was once like you. I soared the skies free, greatness spread out before me, the possibilities endless. I lived in a sandcastle in the sky, just as you do now. And one day, I had it all taken away from me, by another I cared deeply for and trusted. She tore my wings from my back and broke my heart. I’ll never soar again… I’ll never know a love like that I felt for her. I cry for my castle in the sky that the tides brought down.”
The girl’s heart ached for the boy, and she embraced him as she had no other. She felt a bond so strong and a love so pure, all she wished was the bring happiness and love to the boy.
The boy looked sadly into the girl’s eyes, “Do you love me?” he asked hesitantly.
Her eyes softened as she took his hand tightly in her own. “I love you very much,” she whispered into the night.
He jerked her violently to him, pressing his body against hers. His face inches from hers, “Prove your love to me,” and his lips smothered hers before she could reply.
He took her to the ground, their bodies intertwined, pushing, pulling, rolling, shaking in a violent tango. His grip unrelenting, his body unforgiving, melting into hers. Her strangled cries fell on deaf ears, and her struggle was futile.
Oh, the anger, the hate, the unforgiving emotions boiling beneath my skin. How could you? How could you hurt her like that? Her only crime was caring for you, and this is what she gets? How can you live with yourself? The hatred in me builds, but it does her poor soul no good. No one can reach her now… No one can save her.
When she awoke the next morning, the boy was no where to be found. She called out to him, but he gave no reply. She stayed sitting upon the dirt ground, hugging her scrapped, bare knees to her chest. Her clothes were dirtied and torn, and her back ached greatly. She reached a hand back gently to feel what was aching. When she looked back to her hand, it was covered in blood. She jumped to her feet screaming. Upon the ground before her feet were her wings, torn from her back and shredded. She threw her head back and cried out a howl of remorse and despair heard all about the world, as the tide came in washing away her sand castle in the sky in one heartfelt crash.
And the girl climbed to the highest point and leaped, attempting to soar once more, wanting to feel the wind beneath her wings lifting her higher and higher. But her wings were no longer there, and she came crashing back down to the ground. She tried again and again, failing each attempt. And the tears wouldn’t stop and her heart ached more and more till she hurt too much and collapsed to the ground. Despair ate her spirit, and the light she had carried with her for so long was no more. She laid there day and night, never sleeping, never eating, just laying there in pain. Till finally it hurt too much to lay there any longer. So she stood and did the only thing she could. She ran. Ran so fast, and so far, never stopping.
You saw her run, I know you did. You were watching . Was she running from you? Or for you? We’ll never now. I can’t help but wonder how you felt, when you saw her soul die before your very eyes. I wonder, did you feel a bit of remorse? To this day people say she still runs, stopping only to whisper her troubled story into a lonely innocent’s ear, and she carries a candle with her, to bring a little light into the bleak unhappy lives of those she encounters.
When I close my eyes, I still see her soaring high in the sky doing cartwheels and building her sandcastle. She keeps the dream alive within us all. She’s what inspired man to build airplanes and jets, so that they could soar once more, to fulfill a dream that was shattered and taken from them, to be free. And the birds we see soaring above us in the sky, are the innocent souls set free to remind us all that one day we too will soar again.
09-29-03