A tale of everything that is misunderstood

It was there and yet it lay dormant, peaceful, stretching gently and carefully by the fire like a house cat. Sometimes it dreamt. It trembled. It seized. It ran away, frightened by a loud sound. By an unexpected presence. The children loved it, but sometimes threw rocks at it. The maids shooed it with broomsticks, the lonely damme saw in it it her long departed child’s eyes, the old women fed it hardened break soaked in milk,
sometimes in love,
sometimes in anger.

It could never speak. It spread the Word in awkward gesture and indecipherable sound. It performed no tricks. Sought contact awkwardly, then ran away. It lacked the dog's loyal eye and the cat's endearing gaze. It seemingly served no purpose, slept and lapped at food, produced waste, populated the empty spaces with its trivial, tender, frightful presence. And because so few could understand, they took it for something lesser. They took it for something that had nothing to say.

It was there and yet it lay misunderstood. And like all that is misunderstood, it lay unloved.

And the love was a lie.

No, not a lie. It was an metaphor. It was the brainchild of a stray verb. Of a insidious, heinous, persistant deceit of a verb. A verb that bore wounds in the shape of these very words.

And the word was a lie.

On the first morning, there came a storm. One the second morning, the storm interlaced with brief, fleeting moments of sunshine.

And on the third day, there was peace.