The Puppet-Master

Pain. One of the easiest, yet hardest feelings to describe. The word lingers in your mouth, tickling the back of your throat as an ever-present reminder of the human experience. It is the only feeling that is scaled from one to ten, as if a number can describe the unbearable.

Pain is conniving and unforgiving. It is the puppet-master of the world, tying its strings to the unsuspecting, at its will, as they dance in agony. Pain does not discriminate, nor does it judge; pain is synonymous with living.

I used to think that pain singled me out, that the puppeteer had hand-crafted me in their vision - for when they had found comfort in my sorrow, I invited them to play. And when they loosened the strings, I would wait, in passive suspense, for pain to cradle me back in its arms as it had so many times before.

But this, I have come to learn, is not living. So when the strings started to pull tight again, and the floor began to give way, I cut them and allowed myself to fall. In my descent, I saw fear reaching out, waiting to guide me through the darkness below.