The Red Notebook 11
This will break your heart. Standing on a train platform telling your best friend that you want something more. That shift you see in their eyes. Knowing that they will say no. She smiles. This is your heart breaking. With certainty but uneasiness she explains. Trying to let you down gently. You just want her to leave. The answer is no.
A different story.
Mina looked into the monsters eyes and smiled. This thing was supposed to be evil but she saw light in it’s eyes. It was strong, stronger than most men, that is where our fear of them came from she thought. The broad back of the creature was covered in spines and spikes and it moved on all fours with poise. There was no wasted movement. For something as large as a carthorse it was agile.
Mina reached in. It was aware. It could forms thoughts of a sort. Mina reached in to feel them. The emotions felts abrasive. The concept that formed in the creatures mind was close to what we humans call hate. It hates us.
It pounced against the cage. It was a futile gesture. Her folk excelled in steel and stone. They had craft. What the masses did not, could not, do was reflect upon why exactly they kept “monsters” like this one caged. Mina had decided it was because her folk had always done so and would always do so. People, humans, kept it caged not because it was dangerous but because it was beautiful. It’s beauty was glorious like the flames of a village set alight or a blood covered blade. Her folk always caged the beautiful when they could or destroyed it when they could not.
Mina recoiled. The monsters roared. It had twisted free like a cat in an unwanted embrace. Fury lingered. She was tempted to reach again. To whisper “Shush, you’ll be free soon”