It Is Very, Very Dangerous To Come

After Spending Most Of Her Life Scanning The Horizon For Slights And Threats, Genuine And Imagined, She Knew The Real Threat To Her Happiness Came Not From The Dot In The Distance, But From Looking For It. Expecting It. Waiting For It. And In Some Cases, Creating It. Her Father Had Jokingly Accused Her Of Living In The Wreckage Of Her Future. Until One Day She'd Looked Deep Into His Eyes And Saw He Wasn't Joking. He Was Warning Her.

The Leaves Had Fallen From The Trees And Lay Crisp And Crackling Beneath His Feet. Picking One Up He Marveled, Not For The First Time, At The Perfection Of Nature Where Leaves Were Most Beautiful At The Very End Of Their Lives.

He Tried To Let Her Know It Would Be All Right. Eventually. Life Wouldn't Always Be This Painful. The World Wouldn't Always Be This Brutal. Give It Time, Little One. Give It Another Chance. Come Back.

Or - Perhaps - I Should Just Worry About My Own Behavior And Let Others Be Who They Are.

Aid Workers, When Handing Out Food To Starving People, Quickly Learn That The People Fighting For It At The Front Are The People Who Need It Least. It's The People Sitting Quietly At The Back, Too Weak To Fight, Who Need It The Most. And So Too With Tragedy.