bRing iT 2

One day we stepped out, away from the hiding place. We had decided to breathe some fresh air, and after all that - all the stories we told one another about the monsters lurking outside, the air dirtied by belching industry, and our hearts clenching at the thought, our stomachs tightening - after all that, it was easy. Cool air calmed our bristling brains. No monsters. Not even any sloppy, bursting industry. No structural imprisonment - no baffling schemes to denude us. We were just simply, calmly, undeniably free.

And we laughed heartily about the years spent huddling around little cold machines that promised everything but gave nothing. We laughed and we feasted. We looked at one another for what seemed the first time. Same eyes same mouth same body same everything, but somehow - (we were infused with merriment) was it the depth of colour? The grace of the lines? The whole flexibility of the thing? - we saw something new. No more bitter, petty dramas about whose ice cream cone was bigger or more delicious, no more fisticuffs over who got to sit in which old smelly chair, no more whispering behind backs the same old tiresome recycled secrets that we all knew anyway except that we kept pretending they were brand new, the wave of the future! - we had held them over one another's heads like weapons, and traded them under the folds of long coats like tokens of alliance...

Poof! Gone like smoke in a puff of gentle wind. Bye-bye - we don't need you anymore!