Lessons: From a soulless child

ValerianZita
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

Life takes us to all sorts of places, and most times we won’t know why. Not until we’re ready, anyway.

So this one time, life placed me in the middle of a small village, not too far from the town I currently reside in. Now, I knew that my neighbours live in their own sweet world. A world full of trees, crickets, caterpillars and old women who don’t speak anything other their native tongue. I was okay with that. In fact, it fascinated me, but in the same way a sample of the black plague in a jar would fascinate a scientist. I wasn’t prepared to touch the black plague. Or to learn from her.

My companion and I were taking a walk, looking for a shop. As the fates would have it, the only open and stocked shop was empty. There was neither shopkeeper nor dog to bark at us. But there was a girl, standing behind the shop, peering at us through ebony eyes. She was breathtaking. Her skin was smooth and oiled, hair cut close to her scalp. She was a child taken care of by her guardians, preserved away from the evils of the world. Her ten or eleven year old body was slender, but healthy. She looked perfect, and yet rather deformed and ugly.

Her body had shrunk into itself, subtly but powerfully. There was fear in the way she stood, and terror in her sweet little voice. We asked if the shopkeeper was around, we needed a few things. She replied in the negative, shaking her pretty head while at it. So we asked if she could sell to us instead. Well, even a no would have sufficed.

Instead, she opened her eyes even wider and simply stared at us. Not a single muscle of her body moved, just those eyes. They said a thousand things, but I only heard one… The wild lashing of her soul at its confines. It lashed and beat, she stood frozen and transfixed. Ready for flight, yet held as one under a spell.

And me, well… I wanted nothing but to run far from her. Something in her demeanor set my wits askance. There was too much truth in her horrified stare. I had not been prepared for it. I yearned for the safety of forced smiles and pretended warmth. I wanted to be back in my city, where souls were subdued in their cells and never came out to bask in the sun. I was neither prepared to face a child’s living soul nor glimpse pure heavenly beauty. Not yet, no.

We left, of course. No supplies in hand. Just a whole lot of musing. We poured our pity out to the child, hidden away from the world and strangled into a horrible little monster before she knew what it was to be human. But we missed one thing, she wasn’t the horrifying one.

We were.

She, in her simplicity of mind and life stood above us. We, in our cells and airs, were undeserving of her innocence and purity.

)