Feste's Lute

I feel so content. It seems all my life I’ve spent searching, trying to find something beyond modern fascinations. It seems I’ve run from distraction to distraction hoping that, in all the glitter, I would find gold. 

One day walking among funhouse waltzes and clusters of sparking lights that only make your eyes grow dark, I found a room. In that room, from every surface, corner and outcrop hung a million gossammer threads. I explored, and as I did my body brushed hundreds of these strings. Each one told a story. 

Some were vulgar and base, and could not be woven into any life as something useful, but were small entertainments. I spied the creators; fat, bulbous spiders that would pounce on the string if it was touched and leave a thorny kiss with an empty feeling and nakedness. I learned to avoid these. Others were not so bad, plain homespun thread… they were honest but rarely true, they spoke never listening and so they never said much at all. There was a type that rose even higher, I delighted in these and wove them into my coat. They spoke of heroes, subtle beauties, and worlds that every soul must travel in the quest to truely change. I felt my strength increase with these clothes. Though I did not notice, I had grown.

My fingers reached up into a small corner higher than I had before and found a single thread. Images flashed before my eyes… a black horse, a host sleeping beneath a cold moon, a small beautiful girl, a skeletal dance. I gasped and pulled the thread closer, wrapped and wove it into the fabric near my heart. I sat there for a time, finding many threads about it almost as dear. I felt a sharp tug and I found that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light. I turned to see tiny fingers resting on the thread, just a short distance from my heart.

I sat and watched those fingers for so long. Somehow through those threads each tiny motion of her hands was sent to me. I finally spoke. Just a few words about how lovely the story was… she sat in silence for a while, but then responded that she loved the old man who had crafted this and another who had placed her hand upon it. All the while I watched those beautiful, white fingers. I saw her begin to weave it so close to her heart with such care.

As she did I began to see the tapestry of her gown, draping her tiny figure, and all the threads that made it. And each tiny weaving stroke pulled at my heart till I found myself face to face with her, looking into the brightest, truest blue eyes I had ever seen. What she saw in the dark, I was just beginning to see. So we sat for so long, looking into each other’s eyes, each devoted to seeking something more than glitter. When her tiny fingers touched my hand, I knew I had found it. 

So we sit, and we whisper mysteries. We walk and we weave our own tale, which we cannot even touch without weeping. All the sparkling lights have faded, and the music replaced by a gentler, nobler song, and we travel together toward each new dawn.