you make me laugh but it’s not funny

With the dawn of winter, a series of births took place amidst the population on Earth. They gave rise to peculiar little children–the first on earth to not be perfectly Happy. Or Sad. Or Angry. These kids discovered desperation.

Those who gave birth to them–The Happy–did not understand. What was this–this grey fog their children writhed in silently, mechanically? What was this watered down imitation sunshine that bathed their houses and plants and roads? The Happy did not understand.

The Sad–who came before the birth of The Happy–were similarly flummoxed. What were hesitant smiles that did not perfectly contrast their misery? What was this tentative hope, hesitant optimism?

The ancestors of The Sad–The Angry–understood the newest people in a way the other two generations didn’t. Of course, their great grandchildren were still freaks as far as they were concerned, but they could see the method to their madness. They understood desperation, even if they were unfamiliar with the intermittent moments of apathy that followed.

The Happy, The Sad and The Angry all loved the newest people unconditionally. The Happy delighted in the way their fingers dipped in the colours and drew swirls of beautiful, bright madness in the air. The Sad wept with them when they sobbed the tears of the discontent and wailed as they cried the woes of the distressed. The Angry ranted with them against the injustice of the skies and the flesh, and the betrayals of the heart and the mind.

And to all this, I stood a spectator.

The newest people took off sometimes. You can stay in the same place and still find ways to leave people, it’s fairly simple. They took off in the still night, picking locks with pieces of hearts ripped empty and sharpened to a point; crystallised preservations you could hear over the dripping of the faucet if you listened hard enough.

They’d breathe in the night air and look at the stars and grasp comfort from lights long dead and so far. The Sad once told them that stars are just stars. Not dead lovers illuminating the dark.

The stars are just stars, but some flowers used to be people, The Angry would hurriedly placate. For instance, windflowers sprang forth when Adonis’ blood fell to the earth. The hyacinth used to be Hyacinthus, a victim of jealous rage, the narcissus, the lily, the lotus.

The kids laughed and wept and joked and threatened to choke on the air they inhaled. Some of them fell in love and forgot to be sad, others fell in love and forgot what it was to be happy, still others did neither and stared at the scenery. And this has been their story.

The End

Yours Truly,