the little boy was tired, and lost. circles and circles, and back at the same place. his arms were breaking from the sheer weight of the things he carried, crying and screaming his muscles were for relief. it wasn't like he was 8 feet tall and could see the terrain of the land and find the path.

the guiding faries said to him, "follow your heart", like it's any advice at all.

so weeping, he sat down and took stock of the baggage. everything else he couldn't set down, because that was his crosses to bear, the mission to finish, without which his walk through the woods were for nought.

and then he felt it, the little toy boat in his pocket. the lovely wooden carved boat with its tiny sails of blue and white. he looked at it and he gingerly touched the little rigs and the sailing ropes. he would take it out every night before, and polished it, and put it on the table by his bed, so it was the last thing he saw when he slept and the first thing when he woke. he stared at it for a while or two, and carefully set it down on the rock beside his feet.

he knew it was a small weight. a small baggage to carry, but it was the only weight he could put down, because the others were more dire, more pressing.

so he hardened his heart, and as he turned away, the wind knocked the pretty little boat off its perch into the sand.

the toy he treasured, and loved to bits now lay bruised and half sunk into the sand. it's masts no longer upright, it's sails no longer clean. and it hurt his heart fiercely.

he stared and stared, but time was running out and not a luxury to have. and so he shut his eyes and turned away, the little boy walked away, refusing to turn behind to see what was left of the boat, or think about what would happen to that precious boat that was so used to its place on the mantle, now lying wrecked in the sand.

someone else would find it, he comforted himself. someone else would polish it and love it.

and as his back turns, the little boat's sails by abrasion of the sand in the wind, lay limp.

i understand why.
but i don't have to like it.