In The Garden of Longing

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Longing. He lived in a beautiful garden full of flowers, dewy grass, and his friends the cats, goats, and cows. He had everything he needed, but still, there was a longing in his heart. The one thing he longed for most was love. 

Every day he wandered through his little town, looking for a woman to make his dreams come true. And yes, sometimes he would meet somebody who could make his heart sing, but after a while, the songs always started to feel stale to him. That was when her words faded to the background and his glance wandered off to the horizon. When that happened, it was only a matter of time before the woman left him for a pair of more attentive eyes, and a heartbeat that drummed along with her song. 

For every woman who disappeared from his life, he planted the seed of a tree, so one day he could remember her song as the wind would blow it through its leaves. Surrounded by blooming trees, he would sit in his garden and sadly stare into the horizon that kept on distracting him.

One day, while sitting in the grass, he saw a cloud floating by, framed by the orange and of the early rising sun. He instantly longed for her with all his heart. Every day he went to see her with a smile around his lips and the sun on his skin. This time his longing did not fade. Whenever he looked at her, he saw new shapes in her, heard different songs that she carried through the wind, and always exactly what he needed, when he needed it. Never did he feel the need to let his eyes wander into a further horizon. And so, of course, he fell in love as he had never before. 

As he was waiting for her to float by, as he had done so many times before, one of his cats walked up to him. It had become skinny from all the times Longing had forgotten to feed her.

“I have been watching you sitting here, staring into the distance,” the cat said. 

“It’s normal for our kind, but for you it’s unnatural. I’ve never seen humans do anything but run around to get from one place to the other. We are worried about you.” 

The boy sighed and nodded to where his beloved cloud hung still in the blue afternoon sky.

“She’s there and she is perfect. She has a thousand different faces, yet she always shows me exactly what I need to see. Never do I have to get bored or restless with her, like with all the others. She is loyal and yet so elusive, always being there for me, but always too far out of reach to truly have her.”

The cat sat down next to him, following his stare.

“You’re a weird bunch. I have observed your kind for many years now. When you wanted a better view, you started to walk straight and when you desired warmth, you build houses. Whatever it is you need this time, we can help you with it. The sooner you start feeding us again, the better. I’m getting sick of hunting mice. It’s such a tiring and ungraceful business.”

And so it happened that the cats, goats, cows, and the boy himself started to collect all the things needed to build a machine that could fly him to his beloved. His heart was beating in his chest as he got into the cockpit and started the engine. The propellers roared loudly as it left the ground. 

He flew higher and higher, but as he got to where he expected her to be, he found nothing there but a blinding fog surrounding him, disorienting him, until he got lost in the endless sky. No matter where he looked, he saw no way out. His beloved was nowhere to be found.    

It was then when he noticed a silhouette next to him, smaller than his flying machine, but going just as fast. 

“You are lost, I assume,” he heard a voice say. 

As the figure became clearer, the boy realized it was a duck, gliding through the air. 

“I am looking for the woman I love. She must be somewhere around here, but the moment I got to where I always saw her, she disappeared and left me with nothing but mist.”

“You are not the first,” said the duck.

“Many have come before you. They loved her but none of them managed to take her home. Her place is between the stars.” 

The boy named Longing shook his head and then smiled.

“She will come to me, I will be the one to convince her.”

“Suit yourself,” said the duck, shaking his head as he flew ahead of the boy’s little wobbly flying machine.

As he landed, all boy’s animal friends were waiting in line for him. 

“She didn’t come?” the cat said. 

“No, but you can help me to get her here anyway.”

His friend shook his tired head.

“We weren’t fed while you were away and now we are too weak to help.”

Longing looked at his friends one by one, and noticed their weary eyes.

“Well okay, then I will make a home for her myself.”  

And so the boy started to steal lamps and lanterns from wherever he could, hanging them in the trees of his lost relationships to recreate the home she wasn’t willing to leave. He made sure there were lights in every color imaginable illuminating the treetops, as he had seen the sun illuminate her. He got so busy that he didn’t notice his friends leaving him one by one, looking for a place where they could find food.

Once everything looked perfect to him, the boy sat down and started to wait for her. And yes, every day she was there again, but she never came an inch closer. He waited and waited but she no longer changed her shape to become what he desired. 

‘Fine,’ he yelled at her.

‘Then I will forget all about you.’

And so, from that day on he stopped trimming the treetops of the loves he had lost, so he would never have to see her again, or be reminded of the pain she had caused him. He would live the rest of his life in the shadow of the trees, surrounded by nothing but the flying machine that had brought him nowhere, and the lights that were meant to guide someone who didn’t want to come. That was the day sunlight stopped reaching the garden of longing.