It’s an age-old story.
Nobody knows where it started. Who told it first? Was it truth or fiction?
Or was it the start of everything? Was it just history being retold over and over?
Not once, not twice, not thrice. Too many times.
Two people are put in two different rooms.
So close, but too far to touch. A barrier stands between them. No letter, no manual, no guide on how to get rid of it.
This wall between them is clear as water, and thin as paper. But the two individuals can’t get through.
It should be easy. It is easy. So easy to look, to appreciate, to smile at the other. With voices crisp and clear as crystals and bells when speaking.
So pleasant to the eyes and ears. So pleasant to behold. Like soft winds that brush your skin on a bright, sunny spring morning.
A bond is formed this way. Despite the paper-thin barrier, they find ways.
They notice habits. They get used to the others’ reactions. They try their best to understand the other a little better.
There is always a way. We always find a way. Nothing is impossible.
It’s simple. So simple.
We just have to go back to the start. At the very beginning, where a simple look of acknowledgment brings comfort during the harshest storms. Where eyes and ears follow your every movement and word, as if you were going to fade away in a minute.
Words so soft they could be clouds. These little things that unfurl our threads and intertwine it with the other, forming a knot that symbolizes the connection we have formed.
All of this done without touching. Without feeling the other’s skin. Not knowing the feeling of their warmth. Intimacies are more than touch, after all. Touch is not always a requirement.
That’s not to say there haven’t been attempts to break through the wall. To get rid of the damn barrier keeping them from each other. Who put them in these rooms? What kind of sadist does this?
Both will try to rip it, to smash it, to burn it. But, for some reason, it doesn’t budge. The wall remains unchanged. Immovable like the world’s oldest willow tree. More stubborn than Earth herself.
But it certainly doesn’t hurt to try…right?
This story may be generations-old. It may have been told since the beginning of time. People may have changed parts of it to suit their situation, to make it more interesting. But one thing remains unaltered.
It only has two endings.
This has never changed. Not even after centuries of being retold and reconstructed.
a.) ending one (the bad ending)
The barrier remains. The two individuals put up a good fight. They tried and tried. It wasn’t enough. They eventually stop fighting and trying to break through.
“It’s useless. We’ve tried everything. Nothing ever happens.”
The wall between them that was once paper-thin and clear as a mirror then grows thicker and covers itself in bricks until they grow more distant. In time, they forget about their time together as two people having formed a bond across an invisible wall.
b.) ending two (the happy ending)
The wall stays standing. But the two individuals don’t stop trying.
They fight, they rage, they push. Until they have deconstructed matter itself. Until they have changed the composition of chemicals. Until they’ve rocked the Earth and rearranged the stars in the night sky to mirror themselves.
After a long, exhausting battle, they succeed in breaking the wall down.
It crumbled with a sound like a million explosions going off simultaneously. The entire planet rocks at its core from the combustion.
The wall falls at their feet. And the threads that have formed a knot between them intertwines and becomes one. Forming a rope so strong that no blade can cut through.
They inherit the strength that the wall once had. Nothing can get through them. They’re unstoppable.
They fought for this. And they won’t let anyone, or anything take it away.
They’ve made it through. They’re no longer separated. No wall stands in their way.
They are now two inseparable individuals. They have done the impossible and made it possible.
There is always a way.
The wall between us is still standing, but there will only be two endings to this ancient story.
Which will it be?
