Alright, slightly strange story that I wrote. I kind of wanted to put it somewhere, so it went here. It is really for my friends, but not sure exactly how to give it to them. Hope it isn't too depressing.
This is the story of a little girl.
She wasn’t anything special. She liked the things most other little girls
liked. She liked stories of princess and
magic, wearing dresses and drawing, but most of all she liked to dance.
And so, she danced.
Everywhere she went. In churches
and schools, sidewalks and parks. Alone,
or surrounded by people. And she was
young, so the world danced with her. She
skipped and leapt, and spun and jumped, and twirled and twirled and twirled to
the music that surrounded her. She
danced to the bells in the steeple, to the wind through the trees, to the
sounds of cars and people talking. And
she was happy.
But then, as all little girls do, she grew up. And the innocence that had protected her from
the stares of people vanished. When she
danced she felt the way others watched her, and not with the joy she felt but
with mean laughs and harsh glares. She
was no longer allowed to dance in the churches and the schools. She was told to sit still, and to ignore the
music all around her.
She did as she was told. She stopped dancing. Now she would only dance when she was certain
she was alone, but soon she stopped even then.
She couldn’t fight the fear of people seeing her. Of knowing that she was the strange little
girl who danced when she was meant to stay still. As she stopped dancing, she slowly sank into
sadness. She felt cut off from the world
around her. She was assaulted by
emotions she didn’t understand, and she had no way to free herself. She was alone, even though she was surrounded
by people, and that is truly the worst way to be alone.
One day she found a pair of scissors in her
room. She didn’t know exactly why she
did it, but she pressed the blade of the tool against her wrist. A red line formed across her arm, and
suddenly she felt something she understood.
She felt a pain she knew how to deal with. She found a way to control her life without
anyone else knowing. So, instead of
dancing, she cut and cut until her arms were covered in marks she had given
herself.
But the cuts did not fix things like the dancing
had. They gave her a moment of solace before
leaving her more empty and lost than she had been before. So she gave up. She taught herself to smile while sitting
still. She focused on studying and finding
other ways to distract herself. And if
sometimes she would tap out a rhythm to the sound of car horns, or if her
gestures grew a little more wild and strange no one questioned her. And eventually, she even taught herself to be
happy, by forgetting the joy dancing had brought her.
Then things changed again. She moved away from the safety of home. From the pressures and structures of parents,
and in to a new city, a new place to be. She was surrounded by strangers, people who
wouldn’t expect her to act any certain way.
And she heard the music again.
She felt the beat. And she
danced.
It started slow.
Just running and jumping when others walked. But then she realized something. Not only did people not stare and laugh when
she did, but there were others who joined in with her. Who seemed to be able to hear what she
heard. Who longed for the dance just as
she did. So, she danced. And suddenly the world danced with her again.
