The Fourteenth Cookie

10 - Blood and tears

The little boy was in a truly sorry state, a state of enormous and unprecedented emotional distress. It was quite simply impossible to accept what had happened and how something like this could have happened...so close to home. His feelings had overwhelmed him in such an undisputed manner that his young brain found it impossible to fully process what was taking place. There wasn't a single thought present in his mind, it had all gone completely blank. His eyes were now expressionless, remaining focused and firmly set only on the cookie. He was staring at the broken-up pieces, speechless. They had come so close. They were literally steps from the safety of the flat. Why had this happened to them?

He started sobbing, silently. Soft, bitter tears continuing to make their way from his little eyes down his now completely pale face. They kept ending-up on his tiny chin, staying there, not wanting to fall. Hanging there like a bunch of grapes, not wanting to let go of him, not wanting to abandon him, wanting to stay with him for as long as possible.

A single drop of blood from his injured face dropped slowly and landed on top of the cookie's crumbs. It landed square on the biggest remaining piece of the cookie and that made the little boy cry a painful sigh of total torment at the top of his voice. Another drop of blood fell on his palm, on top of another broken-up piece of the cookie. His despair was immeasurable. There had never existed a feeling of sadness, of pain and of sorrow, as profound and as powerful as his.

The tears which had been accumulating on his little chin all along, had by now become one single large drop of tears. That single drop of tears fell down suddenly and wholly unexpectedly in one go and in an exceptionally forceful manner. It splashed on every piece of the cookie, every tiny crumb of hers. It was as if the little boy's palm had been inundated all of a sudden. All the small pieces were now practically drowned in the lake formed by his tears. Every remaining bit of the cookie was now virtually liquefied. But the little boy's eyes got very large out of the blue, because it suddenly hit him! He knew exactly what he had to do. There was hope, after all!