Thing And Goodness

Although Thing had still not reached the horizon, he was prepared to keep walking until he found it. And perhaps, he would find his mother and father, whom he had not laid eyes on since they left him in the cave. Yet he had a feeling in his heart that he would see them again, someday.

Now please don’t believe that this journey to find the horizon was easy, because it wasn’t. Thing was sometimes chased from little towns that he passed through, and even threatened with beatings if he didn’t leave the ‘good folk’ of whichever hamlet he was in, alone.

In one place, they called him a ‘devil’ and when Thing reached safety in the hills above the town, he sat and wept.

Yet he was alive and relatively happy and that was enough for now. Better still, was the discovery which he had made, that there were always good hearts out there.

One morning after he had slept in a cave high in the mountains, he looked out and he was sure that he could see the horizon was within his reach. This gave him hope and he quickly set off down the mountain.

Because Thing was never sure if folks would like him or be frightened of him, he tended to keep to the quiet roads around the houses and villages.

The sun was warm and it warmed his heart, so much so that he started to sing a little tune about what he’d do when he got to the horizon.

It was just then that he heard a little girl crying. She was sitting on a rock by a stream.

“Don’t cry,” Thing whispered.

“Who said that?”

“Me,” said Thing, still hiding in the bushes.

“I can’t see you,” said the girl.

And so Thing stepped out of the bushes not sure what to expect but the little girl smiled at him.

“Hello,” she said.

“I just wondered why you were crying.”

“I am just sad for my mother, that is all,” said the little girl.

So Thing sat by the stream to find out how he could help the little girl.

“My father left me and my mother, when I was a baby,” said the girl.

“And that is what is making you sad?” Asked Thing.

“No, my mother has worked hard to keep me and my brothers, happy, but recently I find her crying every morning but when I enter the room, she smiles as if nothing is wrong.”

And Thing asked if the little girl had spoken to her mother about sadness.

The little girl nodded, saying that her mother worried about all the wars and violence in the world which she read about in the newspaper.

So Thing told the little girl a story:

“There was a neighbour of my family when we all lived in the cave, who would call every morning. And this neighbour would tell my mother and father of all the bad things that had happened in the town. When she left my father would say that he let her tell her stories because it made her feel important. My father said she was wrong, of course, because the good things that happen in the world greatly outweigh the bad things, there are more good folks and hearts than there are bad ones. It is just that people never talk about all the good. Your mother is reading a newspaper and that only tells of the bad because it make it feel important. However if you go down any street, anywhere in the world you will find more love and happiness, than you will find sadness.”

Then Thing stood and said, “Don’t let the badness overwhelm you, it can never win. There is too much good for that.”

And Thing saw the little girl smile, and told her that he must get on his way as he was nearly at the horizon and wanted to get there before sunset.  

bobby stevenson 2014