The story of a woman that found the voice a little girl had lost

In a world full of wonder and sparkle, on a bright, sunny day, a wonderful little girl was born. As she grew up, the little girl, was fascinated by the world around her and every little thing she saw made her want to express her joy out loud.

‘Wow! So pretty! I love this!’

‘No way! Look at that, there! So wonderful!’

The world was a constant source of wonder, and her voice kept expressing it incessantly.

At first, the little girl’s parents were delighted with how cute and smart she was. They were flattered to have such a bright bubble of joy. Soon though, the parents were overwhelmed by the never ending energy and constant chatter.

Bit by bit, they stopped listening to the little girl, at first just ignoring her thinking their own thoughts, and then telling her to be quiet as she ‘does not have anything interesting to say’ and ‘She just talks not to be quiet.’

They were not right though, the little girl really was expressing her true amazement of the world in her incessant flow of words.

As time went by, the little girl, not being listened to, being ignored and put in her place, started to speak less and less, believing what her parents kept repeating, that what she had to say did not matter, that what she saw was not important, and that there wasn’t anything surprising about the world worth mentioning.

The little girl grew up and became a woman.

A quiet woman, oblivious of the world passing her by. A well composed woman, without too much to say. A voiceless woman, who did not have anything to add or to dispute.

The little girl grew up and became a woman absent in her present, because, as she had learnt, her present did not matter.

The woman that the little girl had become, was alive without actually living, and her life was dull and dark.

The world, with its trees, its sounds, its sky and smells, was but a cardboard film set she crossed on her pointless path. The little girl was a voiceless woman now.

The woman’s voice though refused to be silenced, and, as it could no longer express delight, it started to express disgust.

When she would see an insect the woman would exclaim ‘The horror! What a horrible creature!’. When she saw litter on the street, she would say ‘The filth the world has become! People are so careless, outside and in!’

In a strange way, the woman expected the world to be ugly, as she had developed the belief that, the world was worthy of noticing only when it is ugly as its beauty is irrelevant.

The world surprises us though, even when we walk it in silence with eyes cast down.

On a fragrant autumn afternoon, while walking all straight and narrow, the solemn woman’s shoe slid on wet leaves, and in the blink of an eye she fell, feet in the air, on her back, on a large pile of wet leaves gathered by somebody next to the sidewalk.

Her perfect clothes were destroyed, chestnuts were poking at her back, and she had hurt herself pretty bad while falling.

The woman started to curse and scream, hating her fate and blaming her destiny. She felt awkward, as people were passing her by smirking, enjoying her bad luck.

She couldn’t get up though, as hard as she tried, she was stuck in the wet pile of leaves staring at the sky. She made sure her skirt covered her legs, pulled on her coat to keep her warm, and just sat there looking at the sky through falling leaves and high reaching branches.

Something happened to the woman there, something inside snapped, and the little girl she had been was freed from her self-conscious jail.

She whispered to herself:

‘It smells so beautiful! The sky is so blue! This superb day is extraordinary!’

The woman started to giggle and to play with the lovely sounding leaves.

The people passing her by had already stopped noticing her, she had become one with the leafy background.

The woman started to laugh wholeheartedly, and for the first time in a long time she felt she is actually alive.

The world is beautiful and she does not need anyone else to confirm it for her. Her opinion is enough.

The world is what you want it to be. The world is what you see in it.

In that moment, the woman saw the beauty and the ugliness. She acknowledged her loneliness, but also her wish for a different present. She saw her limitations and accepted her potential.

‘Life is no joke, but it can be really fun!’

The woman whispered to herself, enjoying the wet smell of the leaves covered by a great, incredibly blue sky.