On The Swing

From a distance I could see a little girl sitting on the swing, rocking and swaying, up and down and back and forward again. Every time the swing reached its maximum height and stopped in mid air, she would exert more force to push it either backward or forward, hoping that it could take her even higher as it swings downward.

Her face had no smile. Usually people who sat on the swing would smile or glee as the wind breezed through the hair and the ears. Not her.

Motionless eyes that gazed into the sky, not looking at anything particular or of focus, she just allowed herself to be immersed into her own thoughts. Even from a distance, problems, loneliness, desolation, despair, all of it could be seen from her eyes.

Getting out from the van I was in moments before, I asked, "Need a ride?"

She hesitated. She explained that she didn't need one since she was living nearby, and her parents just went out for a little while.

"But it's not safe for a girl like you to be alone." Then she frowned.

Perhaps the only thing on her mind was not to be safe but to be alone. She wanted to be alone in her own thoughts, in her own thinking, in her own little heaven. Her thoughts were her solitude, her emotions her fortress. Perhaps that was the case.

She eventually went up the van with us after a fair bit of persuasion and reasoning. Throughout the whole journey to the coffee shop that we came from earlier on, she was quiet and uttered not a single word. Again she was left to wander in her very own world.

The noise around her in the coffee shop failed to deter her from being in the state of selfness. Friends all around her were yaking and talking nonsense and were laughing, but she sat still beside all of them, gazed at her own shoes and sighed. No longer did she frown, but her tears could be seen hidden deep in her eyes. She never let out a single word, cried not even a single tear, commented on nothing, just left alone.

Looking at her from across the table, a sudden sense of hopelessness and helplessness overwhelmed me. I could just do nothing to help her, I couldn't comprehend the magnitude of the problems that she might have been, neither could I be of any encouragement to her.

Later did I realise, that sometimes, the best therapy for helplessness is just to be by their sides and let them wander on their own.

Sometimes, the best discipline is to do nothing.

Sometimes, the best words said are silence.

Sometimes - right now - as I look back at how the world is unfolding, how darkness is creeping into this universe, how problems are invading our lives, the only thing that reminds me of the tears never seen, the only thing that reminds me of the wanting to be alone and in solitude, would be that girl on the swing.