Singularity
“Why does the sun shine?” the little girl asks me with eyes full of confusion and thirst for an answer. I don’t know what to say. Is it because without the sun life will be impossible? Like there is some unknown force behind the universe that nurtures and protects its seeds – us. Or is it because the laws of physics are that strict and the sun is just a star destined to live, burn and die out?
“Then why does it rain?” she asks me again and I find myself even more perplexed than the first time. Is it because Mother Nature cries for the way we people treat her children? Cutting down forests to build settlements we could have built elsewhere, hunting with swarms of deadly weapons to satisfy the needless but endless hunger, stockpiling like there is no tomorrow… Or is it because the moisture in the clouds above us condenses and falls back down to earth?
“Why does it get dark again?” she shoots her next question with relentless precision. Why? Is it a symbol of the battle each and every one of us wages inside of himself between good and evil? Between light and darkness? While in the light we go on about our lives and try to get through life, in the dark the beasts come out. Rapists, thugs, killers, child abusers… Or is it because the Earth orbits the sun in such a manner that every corner of the planet goes through the endless cycle of day and night?
“Where do storms come from?” she asks me yet again and this time I get frustrated. Her questions are so simple and demanding, yet to them there is no clear answer. Are the storms the fury of our planet when her patience wears thin? Is she trying to intimidate us into caring a bit more about her? Or are they just static electricity building up in the higher levels of the atmosphere?
“Why do flowers come out in spring?” she is holding a tulip in her little hands. I know the answer to that one but I hesitate to tell her. Hope…It is because of the hope we need to keep on living and never give up no matter what we face and who we lose. It is the way our planet caresses our wounded hearts and whispers in our ear that everything will be ok. That is why flowers come out in spring. But I dare not tell her. She should live her life in joy and happiness while she can and not merely survive only to see another spring and have hope restored to her heart.
“Why am I so sad?” her voice is trembling. I can feel tears coming to her eyes. She is terrified by the answers I am not giving her. She feels there is something wrong. About me, about the world, about everything. She knows things are not as they seem and that behind my smile I am broken down into little pieces, sobbering among the shards of my broken dreams. She feels it and her eyes glitter with tears of compassion.
“Why do people go to war?” she cannot hold back her tears anymore. “I don’t know” I finally utter these three words coming out from the bowels of my soul. I must muster all my strength and willpower to say them without bursting into tears with her. “People are not what they seem to be” I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe. Her eyes pierce mine and the clarity of the child’s gaze envigorates me. “But not all of them are evil. Remember that!”
“Then why do good people have to die?” I now notice she is holding a picture of a woman in her hand. It all becomes clear now. The questions, the sadness, the pure understanding in her eyes. She is an orphan. Her questions have gone unanswered for so long she could no longer hold them back. She was not a little girl inside. She was a woman carying the same burden I was. Tears veil my vision and fall to the floor mixing with hers.
“Did God make you?” she grabs my arm and gazes into my eyes. “Yes”. “Did God make me?” her eyes are so painfully clear. I feel as if they are burning holes in my skull. “Yes” I barely say the word under the pressure of the enormous sadness I feel while looking at ther. “Who made God?” I can no longer speak. I take her in my arms and walk away. My tears are falling down like heavy drops of rain on scorched earth.
In time I will answer all of her questions. In time she will become a young lady, she will marry, have children and maybe even relay my answers to them. But until then I know that I would give my life to protect the purity she represents. And when one day I grow old I will remember her little face and enthralling eyes gazing into mine and I will lie down and die in peace, knowing that at one time in my life I have been free of the pollution and darkness of this world, that I have been pure and good…And all this in the moments I was sitting there in front of her, looking in her eyes and finding answers to her questions…
