Realizing What I Want

"I think I've heard that logic problem before," I said, "I did study philosophy in college. Briefly. Okay I took like a month in one class before I dropped out but I remember that logic puzzle. Can't remember who it was that said it but-"

"Why must you ascribe a thought to a supposed greater mind instead of taking it on for yourself?" she asked me, cutting me off with an abrupt interruption.

The moment hung heavy in the air. I looked up to meet her eyes but when I saw the judgment there I couldn't help but stare down at the object she'd brought out on the table instead.

It was a small square, maybe a rectangle. Nearly nothing at all, a finger width of thickness at most. Covered by a handkerchief that was almost the same exact shade as the table, a little frayed at the edges, I don't know why it took my attention except that perhaps it was just something to look at. Something to occupy my sight so I didn't have to see her silent and not so silent judgment.

"You say you are not at peace, so is that why you come here? Do you want to know the reason you are not at peace? Do you want to know why you have never once in your life found a moment of true happiness?"

I swallowed hard. Nodded.

She laughed.

"You think I can tell you that? You think I know you better than you know yourself?"

Reaching out a kind finger she crooked it under my chin and turned my face up to look at her. The judgment I'd seen in her eyes, it was still there, but it was different now. It was muted somehow. It was... gentle.

"There are questions that only you can answer. There are answers that only you can understand. There is truth, but none of it is objective. Facts exist in this and in all worlds, but none of them are applicable in this moment and none of them can answer this one question. Because emotions do not obey the laws of nature, only your heart can tell you the answers you seek.

"What can make you happy?"

My first thought was of regret and it made the tears well up in my eyes.

They started to burn at the edges of my vision and I clenched my fists hard, not wanting to show this weakness. I blinked rapidly, hoping to hold off the tide of it even as my vision went blurry and she started to wash out. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks and in my face. I could feel the rivers start to run down my face against my hardest attempt to hold them back.

"Child," she called me, "Gentle child. Why do you cry?"

Why don't I? That was what I wanted to ask her. I wanted to ask her what reason there was to stop crying. I wanted her to give me a reason, because I'd been searching all my life and all my life I'd fallen short.

I have nothing in this world. I have no friends, no family who cares where I am or how I am doing. I have never once felt love, and even the few times I've been with someone else physically I've only ever felt a hollow emptiness inside of myself.

I crave a connection, a real moment to reach out and touch someone and have them touch me. I crave the chance but I think it might be beyond me now.

I think my last chance to make a change might have been left behind somewhere in the past.

All of this I thought while she looked at me, silent as the tears ran down my cheeks. She held my chin and she held my gaze and when I swallowed hard at the end, feeling the tears dam up as I managed to still myself, she nodded as if she'd heard every word in my mind.

The woman let go of my chin, but it didn't fall. The silence stood long between us until she broke it after her contemplation.

"You're wrong, you know," she told me, "And I know that it is futile to try to argue this but argue it I will. You can make a change here and now. You can turn anything around, at any time. There is no fate, no future, that is set in stone."

Maybe that was true. Maybe, but I didn't want a different now.

I wanted a second chance.

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