Posts tagged: the sandman
I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love someone. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich, or how to be poor.
They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying.
They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.
I like the stars. It’s the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they’re always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend…
I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don’t last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust.
But I can pretend…
…sooner or later, we all meet her.
At first it seemed to the monk that the inside of the lacquer box was a familiar place that he had somehow forgotten —- perhaps his room as a boy, or a secret room in a temple that remained hidden until this moment.
There was nothing in the room but a mirror in one corner. From the mirror came a gentle glow, as of sunlight in the final moments of the day.
The monk picked up the mirror.
On the back of the mirror was a painting. It showed two men: one was a fierce, proud man with hunted eyes and a gray beard. The other was clearly intended to be the monk himself, although it was covered with stains and mould.
He turned the mirror over, and looked into its face.
He saw a green-eyed girl who seemed almost as if she was painted out of light. When she observed him looking at her, her face fell.
“Why did you come here?” she whispered sadly. “I gave my life for you.”
