In a Forest, Under a Tree Where Many Plans Were Made

Chapter Seven

🌲Do Not Linger on a Path of Perfect Things, Lest They Disappear🌲

Summer awoke the next morning with a fresh determination in her mind. She WAS going to convince Jack to go to Radnok, and there would certainly be a romantic and dramatic ending to their tale. It's just the way life goes for two people who aren't allowed to love. It's like a story, which you tell for certain will have a beautiful, perfect ending.

Summer thought a little while though, laying awake. For her, everything was fine. It's like you're in a trance sometimes, where EVERYTHING should go right for you. You hear of people dying, terrible tragedy of course, but it would never happen to you. "I'm not them," you'd think. "I am going to live a long and prosperous life, and be rich and famous, be in love, and all that talk I talk about hopelessness: well, it will pass and just add to my wonderful experience of the life I shall lead, the perfect life!"

But yet, at any second you could be diagnosed with cancer, could be hit by a train, could suffer depression and commit suicide. Good things happen to those who wait they say. But bad things happen to those who linger to long on a path they think is perfect, when really, a demon is lurking behind every corner, waiting to pounce as soon as your head is turned to the pretty things on the other side. You must always move forward, before the monsters catch up with you.

You would say, 'but Summers life is FAR from perfect, and this she knows well! Her town destroyed, everything gone, only the man she loves is left!"

But truthfully, this makes for a romantic, tragic story. Of course, who wouldn't trade places with our pure and lovely heroine right now? She's madly in love, and that person loves her equally as much. Her town is gone, she could starve, but who cares when you are too kind to kill animals? Who really cares when you are beautiful and full of life? She was never depressed or lonely, she shed tears, but only enough to give an impression of sadness, not to ruin her makeup. In truth, being Summer would be perfect, and I know you would agree.

But that could disappear in an instant. She would stray the perfect path, pick some pretty flowers and the big bad wolf would pounce. Or she would stay to long in the same place, admiring the tranquility of the perfect world in which she lived, and then it would crumble before she could move. Wouldn't you rather it be short but beautiful, than long and sad at the end, leaving a sense of emptiness?

You should not linger on a path of perfect things, lest they disappear.

"Jack, take a day off. You've been working nonstop for three days. You need to rest."

"Summer... This house will never get built if I don't work on it everyday." Jack said exasperatedly.

"So it will be finished a day later. Who's counting? Please? I haven't spoken with you properly in what seems like forever." pleaded Summer with her large blue eyes.

"Nonsense. Just the other day we were talking about my family..."

"No, I mean about something that didn't leave us sad or determined. When we talked about absolutely nothing at all, but went on for ages." Said Summer.

"So what do suggest we talk about?" replied Jack putting down his flat rock, smeared in sticky stuff.

Summer thought for a moment.

"About the kindest thing you've ever seen anyone do, to someone who wasn't you." Said Summer. It was clear she'd been thinking of this.

Jack found it hard. His life had been cold. He might've said the old man in the other shop who took him in for a while, but it had to be about someone else.

He thought for a while. It hurt Summer in a way, to see that he had never seen many acts of kindness. The way he had grown cold and indifferent to everyone but her.

"I once saw a beautiful girl. She saw a homeless boy and they fell in love under a tree."

Summer playfully hit him. "That's us stupid. I said about someone else."

"I am someone else. I was lonely and depressed and now I'm happy and full. I am a completely different person."

Then the rest of the day, they playfully chatted about nothing, each conversation leading to the next, more complex one. The day was amazing, with its warm sun and soft grass. With the two lovers letting everything go and just being normal, forgetting they had to run away, forgetting their past of woes and only remembering and thinking of happy, perfect things.

But as I think I have said before reader, perfect things do have the tendency to slip away as soon as you think you have them in your grasp.