"You want a why. Well, maybe there isn't one. Maybe... Maybe this is just something that happened.
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And that's when I figured out that tears couldn't make somebody who was dead alive again. There's another thing to learn about tears, they can't make somebody who doesn't love you any more love you again. It's the same with prayers. I wonder how much of their lives people waste crying and praying to God.
I think there are two ways you can see the world. You either see the sadness that's behind everything or you choose to keep it all out. Your heart can't break if you don't let the world touch it.
......
- When you see what's really there. It's always there. Even when stuff looks good... ...and kids are playing, couples are kissing and junk. It's in all of that stuff. But mostly people just look right through it.
- Well, what's the “it”? I mean, what don't they see?
- Just how everything's always slipping away. How everyone's always kind of dying inside. Just how sad everybody really is.
- And seeing things this way makes you feel sad?
- It doesn't make me feel much of anything. Sometimes things don't work out between people and it's nobody's fault.
It covers my eyes. It's all I can see. Say there's some kids playing baseball. All I see is the one kid they won't let play because he tells corny jokes. And no-one thinks they're funny. Or I see a boy and a girl in love and kissing, you know. I just see that they're gonna be one of those sad old couples one day who just cheats on each other and can't even look at each other in the eye. And I feel it. I feel all of their sadness. I feel it probably even worse than that sad old couple or that corny kid will ever feel it.
I saw the sadness in every single one. I felt my heart break over and over and each time like the first time. I even saw it in my mum's face, I saw how much my dad had hurt her and I saw how lonely she was and how much she wanted me to be happy. It's the same with every parent, they want their kids to be happy but they should know it always turns out the same.
Maybe it makes sense now. Maybe somewhere in all of this there's a reason. Maybe somewhere in all of this there's a why. Maybe somewhere there's that thing that lets you tie it all up with a neat bow and bury it in the backyard. But nothing, not getting angry, not prayers, and not tears, nothing can make something that happened unhappen.
The worst part is knowing that there is goodness in people. Mostly it stays deep down and buried. Maybe we don't have God because we're scared of the bad stuff. Maybe we're really scared of the good stuff. Because if there's no God, well, that means it's inside of us and we could be good all the time if we wanted. So when we do bad things, it'd be because we want to or because we have to. Or maybe we just need the bad stuff to remind us what the good stuff is in the first place."
-- The United States of Leland