Chapter 1
A widow wanders through the snowy forest. The tall trees that surround her body also shroud her assurance that she is alone in that forest–even if she doesn’t want to be. And so, in this thought of desperation, she turns around and hugs the air behind her: her husband, who is not there. In fact, she is lost, and so, she sees her child that is dead, who leads her home to their cabin. And there, before she may cross the pond, she sees the very body of water her family died failing to cross nearly a week ago.
In fact, sometimes when crossing that icy lake to get home, she steps just a little harder on the ice, just so she may have a chance at joining her husband whom she hugged, and her child that led her home. But when she finally reaches the house, she pretends to continue in the past, telling stories by the fire and cooking for her husband. But as she does this, the fire gets slower. She offers to go get wood but fears that if she steps outside onto that lake again, they may go out to save her, and they may fall through the ice once more. So she goes to the kitchen to cook a hot meal that may warm their hearts inside. But when she sits down, she eats everyone’s bowl, knowing well that their deceased bodies could no longer exhibit a hunger for food. But even with this realization, she continues to pretend that they are there, knowing that eventually, and alternatively, life will finally be worse than death, and that death will be a peaceful reuniting for that poor widow. She refuses to remarry, for her fairytale has deceived her, and she has already had her happily ever after. She wishes to enjoy her life, but how can she, after all, she has lost? She has nothing left to lose except for her life, and I often feel that every human has something close to them that acts as a shoulder to cry on, and a child to cradle. But in these times, I need cradling, especially after my ability to cradle others has been lost—for the very thing I used to cradle has already died, and frozen over under the lake of life’s circumstances, and below the cruel script of fate.
The thing I married fell through the ice at the cost of my own mistake, and now, the only things I must keep alive are the fire to keep my spiritual house warm with faith in better days, and my will to live as a human—even though that will has withered away for some time. Every day I return to my heart, there is in front of me a giant, icy pond. The feeling of purposely falling through the ice with the intent of dying is felt, because many hopes and dreams are like family members that are below the surface, with a failed attempt at floating to the top, because the ice blocks them from the surface. Every human has hopes and dreams inside of their cabin, all of which are different, special, and sacred. But every day when you return to your heart, the ice weakens, and eventually, one day that ice will shatter. In desperation to save you, many dreams risk themselves to pull you up, and depending on what life feels like you should lose, some dreams end up drowning, so you may continue making more plans for the future. I may have my whole life ahead of me, representing the light ahead in the tunnel, but even at that death is the darkness seen when the train runs you over. You see, when people consider life as something great, their words may be accepted in truth, and so because of this, we spend our entire lives running to the light—at least, those who live life to their fullest. But those who give up run too fast intentionally, right into the train because they know what lies behind that light. Death is that train, showing light in the tunnel as a trance for humans, but when that light is reached, the train has already turned you into a nursery rhyme, because all of the government’s medics and men, couldn’t put you back together again, like ice that has hit the floor, or one’s hopes after suffering from discouragement. But you see, So many dreams have been lost, that the source of these dreams that spark them(the one I have married), has died. And now, I am a widower. Life is like a train light—a white lie, while death is the dark truth that we see once the train has run us over in the tunnel.
But even in this acknowledgment, the widow continues to live with her imagination, without the thought that she would be truly disconnected from other forms of life other than the food sustaining her flesh, and the thought of her loved one's soul being alive upon the earth, rather than dead and drowned below the cold, icy surface. But would you even believe me if I said that the lady is partially responsible for crying into a crater, causing a pond to appear that froze over? Does she accept the fact that she is responsible, knowing that the motivations for her will to live have drowned under her small sea of sadness? She didn’t cause the ice to freeze that pond of tears, but she did indeed set her dreams up for failure, and so, because of this outcome, she is not surprised. In fact, she continues to live with this guilt, knowing that life is a metal casket that holds your tears so you may drown in them, and that, my friends, is why at times, death is better than the bright, white lie of life that sits at the front of death. And so, this is how dreams may die, because your tears have frozen over into a grave for your hopes. Life is a mask that covers death, and only at the end of your life will that mask be removed, so you may finally experience it for the first and last time. No one dies twice, and surely somewhere you have seen death face to face, with the blessing of its arrival from mortality’s grace.
