The Circle Of Hope

Think of a silent wooden stage that is shrouded in darkness but at whose centre there falls a stream of bright light forming a perfect circle.

At its centre there sits a young girl furiously stitching away, her body nimbly arched over her work.

She is engaged in her favourite hobby, embroidering her pillow-cases with yellow, green, and mauve flowers.

Every now and then, the ominous darkness threatens to come into the circle.

Her attention distracted, she now silently peers into the darkness beyond as she feels a warm melancholy deliciously overpowering her, gently sinking into her bones, and soothingly becoming one with her blood-stream.

But somehow she manages, this time at least, to overcome it and gets back to her embroidering.

She feels peaceful for an hour, and manages to get done four of her pillow-cases when the menacing darkness begins to pester her again.

Soon it comes flooding back into the light, and the titanic struggle resumes all over again.

As she goes through this routine day in, day out, she sometimes pauses in the midst of her stitching and wonders why she goes through it at all.

Why not just throw up her hands in despair and throw herself to the winds?

At such moments, however, a strange voice within her, perhaps an echo from forgotten times, begins to make itself heard in the vast caverns of her bottomless mind :

Who or What is projecting this light on me?