Drabble 13: The Cure For Loneliness

I am lonely, Ingrid thought. I am lonely. I am lonely. And it became a cry that filled her lungs and prevented breath. Sadness cuddled against her chest. She was not afraid of enchanted vines or enveloping lakes. She was afraid of endless space and empty years.

Love, she thought, love is the only cure for loneliness. The paper crumbled in her hands as she pulled a blank sheet from the neat stack, and dipped her quill in the ink and began to write that love.

 The cure for loneliness: love.
 And she did not want to be alone.
 If love was the ground beneath her feet, she was walking on air.
 I need you, she thought. I need you. Your sadness. Your love. Your happiness. Your willingness to share my bad thoughts.

I worry about what I'll do if you no longer exist, Ingrid wrote, and I wonder what you'll do if I no longer exist, and I cannot determine which scenario is better because I would gladly die before you, but I do not know what would be worse, to leave you alone in this world or to watch you leave me.

Ingrid stared at the ink in disbelief. Those were not her words. She was surprised by the leaking of her eyes and she wiped at them quickly and reread. "But I do not know what would be worse, to leave you alone in this world or to watch you leave me." She ran her fingers over the sentence.

She saw two people deeply intertwined, heads bent and resting against one another. She saw their laced together fingers and the way that their eyes held secrets. She saw them break and fall apart before her eyes and she watched as one held onto life crookedly, leaning drastically to the left, and the other crumbled into nothing but a pile of ash. The remaining figure wobbled and fell to its side. Its tiny, dull eyes watched the ash fly away.

Ingrid was struck by this, struck by love, struck by loneliness, struck by loss. Love wasn't the cure for loneliness. Love was the reason it existed.

She was suddenly very afraid of her own words. She promised herself that she'd sooner jump into the lake than love.


Notes: Random Fragment I have no idea what to do with: To be bent like a willow tree is to provide some shade and cover.

Poor Ingrid. I wish I could hug you.