Not All Falls Require Stitches

Photo by Thiago Matos from Pexels

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 67 and Telling Tales with lovely Magaly A Pantry of Prose # 6 ~ Stitches at Poet’s United

Come join us!

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.  ~Joseph Campbell

Scrapes from the jagged edges of glass are always messy and painful, but they usually heal soon enough.  It is the scrapes from the jagged edges of hearts that need stitches and a life time of healing.  That kind of hurt does not leave soon enough, and has a way of changing the way we look at ourselves and others.  We learn to keep a distance.  A place that seems safer, but seems to keeps our vision impaired.

Bernice spent years in a place just like that.  Somewhere that was right there, maybe even next door, but still far enough away from the jagged places that hurt.  She may smile, and say hello, but you were never going to truly get close.

No one ever saw her much.  She went to work, and then she went back home to a cat named Slugger.  Most of the time Slugger was enough.  He made coming home sweet.  He was a comfort indeed, but sometimes she longed for something more. 

One day Bernice left the window open to catch a cool breeze.  Slugger had never tried to leave the apartment before, like her he preferred his safe domain.  She was never sure why this day was different, but today Slugger peered close to the edge of the window, watching the people in the distance.  There was a tall oak that stood just yards away from her apartment and a squirrel had been playing there.  Slugger cautiously watched, and then jumped out the window heading straight for the oak and that squirrel. 

He never caught the squirrel, but he got a taste of freedom that he had never known, and discovered he had a fear of falling.  The handsome Fireman McKenzie got him down and gingerly placed him in Bernice’s shaky arms.  Soon Bernice would learn some risks are worth taking and not all falls require stitches.