literature

Strength

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banner Strength by CrystalGears

What is strength?

The woman clutched her bundle a little more tightly as she listened. They were coming. She turned and flung herself down the path, to what little hope of safety it’s end offered.

Is it not yielding to the passage of time, or to the passage of people through our lives?

She ran, heart pumping, legs pounding the forest floor as she threw herself forward. No telling how many were behind her, it didn’t really matter anyway. A single one of them could spear her and kill her if she let them get much closer. Trees flew by in a blur as she jumped a creek and carried on, willing her legs and aching heart to hold on just a little longer.

Is it, perhaps, being the same no matter our environment? Not allowing anything, good or bad, big or small, happy or depressing, to change the way we act or see the world.

In the far distance she could just make out a tower. Blurry stone work through the tears that stung her eyes, too little sleep and too much wind. Behind her a horn blew, closer now. She was nearly there. Movement where the door should be. If the guards came to help her, she may yet be saved.

If that is strength, then is it as desirable as the masses would make it seem? That rigidity would imply not experiencing the same joy when things are well, and not giving the same love to those who deserve it around you, as what most experience.

 Her leg jarred, foot twisted by a large stone out of place. The other shot out to save her stride, to keep her running. It was too late. She crashed to the ground, twisting to save the burden she carried. Behind her, legs pounded the earth faster.

If that is so, then perhaps strength is only seen as desirable to those who have been hurt badly and do not know to temper their reactions and feelings after it.

Screaming, men shouting, dogs snarling. Her throat ached, and unbidden tears sped down her cheeks as she struggled to stand. Her heart heart pounded her chest, trying to save itself and leave her.

But, this idea of strength may not be what the masses seek. Perhaps that strength is the ability to switch into that mode of strength previously described whenever they feel the need of it.

She found the ground and pushed herself up and began to run again. Ankle throbbing, vision nearly gone, pins in her heals and spine begging her to turn to watch those behind her.

Strength would then be adaptability. Being able to change with a changing world, and make our face and our emotions harden and soften at will.

Shouting before her now as well. She might live! Her legs stumbled again, hope letting them shout their exhaustion. Pain blossomed in her calf, in her side. Fiery roses exploding in her flesh.

Strength is more than surviving. It is surviving and then being able to truly live when certain pressures are removed again. Strength is being whole and adaptable. Not only cold and hardened, but also supple and filled joy and emotion.

She fell, her arm burning as it crashed into the cobbles again, shoulder torn as she braced to protect her bundle. She was too slow.

Strength is never one sided.

A massive hound leaped over her and braced itself. Senses overloaded with pain and shouting she forced herself to turn and sit. The hound was guarding her, a deep growl coming from it’s chest. More than a few of her perusers were falling from arrows of the keep, already bloody furs and steel plates crumpling in heaps.

The guards had come out for her. She had made it. She would live.

Inspired a hard time I was going through a while ago. I wrote the first part when I wasn't sure that things would be okay. I saw someone I cared for growing away from me and thought I would lose them. The person I wanted to be close to was with someone else, and I thought that they probably hated me anyway. I left the story with the main character just managing to push herself up again, and I couldn't write anymore. I didn't know if I would would make it, or where I would make it to, so how could I know if she would make it? Or where she'd end up?

Very recently things for me finally worked themselves out. There's still pain, and that time period doesn't feel easier to me or more clear in retrospect. No one here needs to hear my life story haha but I was finally able to bring this short thing to a conclusion, and I enjoyed the toying with the concept of strength and what it really refers to.

You can read more of my writing on my writing blog here. crystilinewords.wordpress.com/
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