ORIGINS: Look at the eyes of the third character. If those aren’t mammoths wrapped around the world, trying to keep it warm and take the brunt of the cold, we don’t know what they are.
The world is still a cold, cold place, and I just wish mammoths were still around, because the cold is seeping into my bones, and I would feel better under a wooly blanket. I am not asking for a hug; I gave up on human interaction a long time ago. I just want a blanket big enough to treasure the little corner of the world where some day I hope to feel at home. Among tall grasses, swaying in the salty wind, knowing that I am not the only one with old wounds that will never heal.
Where did they go? I am still here; all alone. Where is the wooly mammoth that should be here keeping my world warm? This is my lake. There are shooting stars overhead. If I close my eyes, to keep my tears from falling, I can pretend that the wind blowing through the grass behind me is still connected to those stars. I can touch my lake’s surface and tell myself that those shooting stars aren’t out of my reach. But the water is cold. And I am just a child. I can’t throw my wishes into the universe. Not without someone here, willing to share its warmth with me.
This is my tree. It’s the only thing that’s left of the person who raised me. She said that she loved me, and for the longest time I thought that those words were everything. That she was solid; that she was whole, because she was my world. But on a cold day the tree cracked, and I realized that she didn’t have anything; that she was hollow inside, because she got rid of everything else to keep me there, in her heart, where I no longer was. And this is me begging you to come back. Because I tried; I did my best, but I am not familiar with the cold. Not like mammoths are. And I need you to hug my tree, with everything in you. I need you to put its pieces back together, until what is now hollow becomes solid again. Because telling her that I love her doesn’t work.
I once had something I wanted to protect from the cold too. I wasn’t a mammoth; I didn’t have a wooly coat, but I pricked my fingertip and bled all over it, hoping that sharing my warmth with it would do the trick. I was naive; most children are. If you are wondering, the place of my memories still exists. The waterfall is still there, so white that I still find it hard to believe that there aren’t any falling stars flowing through it. The flowers are there too, one for every secret we shared with each other while growing up. But I couldn’t protect anything, and now it is just a place. Just another place where I feel cold.
If a wooly mammoth wrapped itself around me; if I could partake of its warmth, and I had to choose which part of my soul to keep safe from the cold passing of time, I wouldn’t hesitate. I would choose self-preservation, the part that knows when to avert my gaze, barring the door to ugliness, so that I can still hold on to a beautiful memory or two.
I will never let you go. You are the wooly mammoth that keeps my blood warm after every heartbreak. When people let me down, you are here, to turn my head in the right direction. Away from resentment and pointless grief. You remind me that thankfully life is too short, and there are still more than enough wonders out there to feast my eyes on. Because, in the grand scheme of things, people don’t amount to much. Not while there are still stars and snowflakes around.
I should have accepted the cold as a natural consequence of growing up. Wooly mammoths went extinct, and that should have clued me in. But I tried to hold on to the warmth; I tried to hold on to my childish heart, until what once was genuine turned into the worst kind of lie.
I promise you that one day I will grow up and I won’t need your warmth anymore. You will see, my heart will be enough. I will be enough. And when that day comes, I will set you free. When the day comes when I don’t call it loneliness by mistake anymore, I will let you break free of this embrace. But until that day comes, please don’t forget to make me feel loved, ok?