ORIGINS: It was a pity that we didn’t get to use the ostrich in the last series. But then we thought that mourning is a time for shrouding oneself in memories, and we could easily turn an elephant’s trunk into an ostrich’s long neck.
I still haven’t decided if I want to be an elephant or an ostrich when I grow up. Remembering everything would hurt, but I don’t think that hiding would be a better option. I would like to be able to forget, because at the end of the day I need to believe that the good outnumbers the bad, and I don’t think that will change once I stop being a child. But I know my games, and burying my head in the sand wouldn’t be much of a life. Even if I could manage to hold my breath and not resurface ever again, the bad would eventually find me, because the game is called hide-and-seek.
Promises have been broken; lies have been told. And I remember every single one of them. I want to grow up. I don’t want to keep holding grudges like a child. I want to learn to forgive. All the things that were done for my own good, but, more importantly, the ones that couldn’t be helped because every one of us is just human. I want to bury my head in the sand, like an ostrich, and forget everything that hurt my little heart. And when I become just human too, I want to be able to forgive myself too. But there is still too much elephant in me. I don’t know how to make the hurt go away; how to erase these tear tracks before they turn to wrinkles in my skin, and forgiveness becomes just another lie in my life.
I barely recognize myself. Soon I will be all ostrich, without a single trace of elephant left. All the things that have already turned to dust. My friendships. My dreams. My future. They will be nothing more than memories in the desert of my heart. The sand will just be time that is already behind me, stripped of everything that once mattered. And when I bury my head in it, when the urge to cry strikes me out of the blue, it won’t hurt. Not at all. Because the hedgehog’s spikes will already have worn away.
My elephant can’t help it, he remembers everything. The good and the bad. All the little things that now hurt so much. But my ostrich is very smart. She knows that life already hurts, and memories shouldn’t make things easier by offering to help. My ostrich knows how to embellish my memories, by burying her head and letting the sand wear away every ugly little thing that doesn’t belong in my heart, where I go to hide from life.