Balance of Hearts

 There was once a woman whose heart ebbed and waned with the goodness and sorrow of the world. All was well, while the balance remained. But when the world bent in favor of sorrow for too long, the woman felt her heart break. She fell upon her back and watched the spinning of time with all the numbness of her broken heart, where she could not weep or wail, keen or care, for her heart no longer worked. And she was alone.

    And there was once a man whose heart tipped and righted with the goodness and sorrow of the world. He remained steady, content to feel as events came and went. Until the world tipped into sorrow and he could not bear the length of it for the breaking of his heart. He sank into a chair, his head shaking in his hands, his body unable to feel the prick of needle nor the edge of a knife, for his heart had shattered. And he was alone.

    Too, there was once a child whose heart rose and fell to a tune of its own, untouched by the goodness and the sorrow of the world. She only paid attention to that which fell along her path, and nothing else besides. One day she came across the woman flat on her back, and the child did not understand. The next day she came across the man, sitting in his chair — this too, she could not fathom.

    And so, she brought the woman and the man together. 

    It was a moment, no more, that the woman saw the man and he her, and recognized a mirror image that suddenly fixed the hearts of each. For it only takes the blink of an eye for a heart to heal when it recognizes that it is not alone.

    But it was the child who went away with a skip in her step, for she was not weighted down by the world, and the balance of her heart could not be tipped. 

    It mattered not at all that she was alone.

  

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