A Whisper of Hope

There is a persistent myth that the stars can be seen in daylight when one stands at the bottom of a well. I don’t know whether that’s true or not because I’m better versed in well-avoidance than Little Timmy ever was.

I can tell you why the myth appeals, though. It’s because it’s only when you feel like everything in your life is completely hosed that you come face to face with the core of things. It’s a great wall of ice, buried at the bottom of the swamp. It stretches to infinity.

It is your mortality, your brutal, utter insignificance. It is existence stripped of every surface thing you ever thought made existence good. Facing it, you realise that it has an austere beauty, that stripped of all the trappings that make life bearable, even existence itself is a miraculous thing.

Others never find it, flail inches from it in the mud their whole lives, hover above the ice on a veneer of lies and cutting or die before they reach it. They go to the bottom of the well only to drown.

Don’t give up, don’t cave in. Don’t confuse the surface with the core. You have one gift, greater than any other and eternal. Nothing bad matters.

This is a semi-autobiographic story of a young girl's journey through a rocky childhood, filled with tragedy and loss, and how she learned to cope with the world around her. It follows her into early adulthood, as she learns to navigate the challenges presented by family, work, friends and love.

This is being written as a theraputic experiment, and as a means to work on my writing skills. Please treat this as a rough draft until completion.