It had been several months since Thing had last seen his
home but, it didn’t deter him from two things: one, was to find the horizon
that always seemed to lie just over the next hill. The other was to see his
parents again; his mother and father who had left his cave one day and never
returned - but Thing knew that didn’t mean it was forever.
What was meant would eventually happen - and that was the
kind of thinking that Thing liked to hold in his head. That didn’t mean
everything that happened was good. Hadn’t the kids in school made his life a
little harder because he didn’t look like them? Thing might have looked different
but he had a huge heart and that’s what mattered in life, at least that’s what
his mother had told him.
Thing had found that some of the nicest looking kids had
the darkest hearts and Thing was still trying to understand that. But, it was
like his mum had said, ‘Hate don’t get passed through the genes’. She was
right, you had to learn those things.
One day, when Thing was walking through a real nice
valley, he was sure he could see his father up ahead, staring back.
“Dad!” Shouted Thing, and as he waved his little heart
out, his Dad waved back.
Thing ran and ran until his heart was almost bursting,
and the faster he ran, so did his father. It was only when Thing got closer did
he realise it was a reflecting glass, a mirror - they called it. He had only
been waving at himself.
So that was what Thing really looked like. His family
didn’t have a reflecting glass in the cave and the school didn’t allow mirrors.
Sure he didn’t look like the other kids but he looked
like his Dad, in a handsome sort of way. If something happened to this planet
and
Thing and one of the other kids were the only two beings alive, then
neither would be right or wrong and both would be beautiful. Thing decided it
was only ‘cause there were more of one type than another, that made those folks
think they were in the right about everything.
Thing had been brought up to believe you were your
brother/sister’s keeper - but just ‘cause you felt that way didn’t mean that
other folks did. But if being selfish was the point of existence – then what
was the point in trying? You’d only be expecting the other folks to be more
selfish than you. But if the point of existence was not to hurt others and care
for them, then all you’d be expecting is more love and help.
Thing, there and then, decided that from now on, he’d
live by his own rules. Ones that didn’t involve hurting others, or judging them
by the way they looked or being selfish, and if he was the only one who thought
that being your brother/sister’s keeper was the right way – then that’s how he’d
live.
He knew that life wouldn’t get any easier thinking like that,
but it hadn’t been all that easy up until now and he was still walking and
talking, thank you very much.
So for the first time, Thing looked at himself in the reflecting
glass and smiled, because he liked what he saw in his eyes.
And in the reflecting glass he found someone, he had
never seen before, a friend. Himself.
bobby stevenson 2014
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